Vampira

Starred review from September 1, 2014

Pop culture critic Poole (history, Coll. of Charleston; Monsters in America) sure knows a monster when he sees one. He continues his macrocultural exegesis in this microquasibiography and cultural (especially the 1950s) explication of TV's first and most revelatory horror host. Maila Nurmi, the eponymous Vampira, was a deliciously sexy siren from the graveyard with a deathly wan pallor, 19-inch cinched waist, talons for nails, a busty chest, and an orgasmic scream to die for (really, check it out on YouTube). Her show, Dig Me, Vampira, ran for one season only, 56 episodes (none of which, sadly, exist today), on Los Angeles's KABC channel 7 in 1954. And yet, as Poole incisively explains and illustrates throughout, Vampira's social and artistic influence has been pervasive and subversive. She was going to be made a star by Howard Hawks (didn't happen), bombed around with James Dean and Elvis, toured in the 1950s with Liberace, and was in Ed Wood's 1959 masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Why we should care, and care v-e-r-y much, about this seemingly peripheral C-list celebrity is made artfully clear in Poole's excellent work. VERDICT Before there was Dr. Morgus, Svengoolie, and Elvira, there was the titular Vampira. This stone-cold winner belongs in every American studies collection.--Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
Born Maila Elizabeth Syrjniemi, model and actress Maila Nurmi is mostly known for her character Vampira, the original late-night horror movie hostess who pioneered the mix of campy sex, death, horror, and humor that presaged the style and attitude of goth and punk. Unseen outside of the Los Angeles area, her show lasted only one season in 1954, but for a time she was everywhere. Although little footage exists of The Vampira Show, her ghostly figure can still be viewed in the Ed Wood schlock sci-fi classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Nurmi had fleeting relationships with Elvis, James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Orson Welles, but details are sketchy. Because so little is known about her, Poole's treatment is more social commentary than biography, an analysis of the dark side of the vamp archetype that stood in stark contrast to the expectations of the 1950s housewife as subservient baby-making machine. Blacklisted for her outr' and daring persona, often imitated but never equaled, Nurmi sunk into poverty and obscurity while the reverberations of her creation reaped financial and cultural success. Finally, Poole lovingly gives Vampira her due.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)