The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 87

PI 1 i -I I j- "1 W. r- i "I Vampira's "commercial" boost sale of do-it-yourself home guillotine. Her favorite parlor game is Autopsy or musical electric chairs. Painting in blood, playing with her pel spider and knitting hangman's nooses are Vampira's video hobbies when not preparing broiled mobster for dinner. By Dob AVI He It She introduce her weekly program of spooky film fare with malevolently, seductive glance through veil of cobweb or cauldron smoke.

I -f- jW 4.m ON -I1 'tT jTHE AIR: Vampira's vaporous attic apartment boasts a Van Gogh original the mad painter's ear. She celebrates Important dates (like the 600th anniversary of the Black Death) with intimate "fret-togethers" featuring such amusing parlor games as musical electric chairs, smog-making and "Autopsy." On other occasions, she re-enacts classic crimes, campaigns for every Friday the 13th to be a national holiday and promotes her Yellow Cross hospital plan for would-be suicides. More glamorous than ghoulish In real life. Vampira minus makeup is a blue-eyed blonde, five feet eight inches tail, weighing 115 pounds and with a fetching 38-17-38 figure. Bora Maila Syrjanieml In Finland 32 years ago.

she took the surname of her uncle, track Immortal Paavo Nurmi. after coming to America at the age of 19. Before becoming the Graveyard Hilde-garde she worked as an artist, model and actress. Her TV career got under way after she attended a Hollywood party as a ghoul and cast a spell over ABC producer Hunt Strom berg one of the judges. Maua is married to writer Richard Relsner.

but it's been rumored that shell divorce charging mental kindness. Although she made little progress In pictures in her pre-Vampira period, she has since been offered several movie roles, among them a part in a Jean Renoir picture, which she refused "because it wasnt artistic enough." Claiming a close affinity to the Vampira character, she prefers to be seen In public only If allowed to remain aloof from others, but also only when her appearance has been well-publicised. LIKE to see people stare if they know who I am." A she explains. "But not If they don't. And I give epitaphs, not autographs." Steamed up over Vampira's success.

Strom berg undertook to duplicate It with a romantic counterpart called Voluptua. played by another former model. Gloria PalL Broadcasting from a boudoir and satirizing romance between scenes of sexy foreign films, she made male eyes bulge, but only for a few weeks. Viewers were vociferous in indicating that, while they might go for spoofing of spooky themes, they didn't like a tongue-in-cheek treatment of love. ABC announced that the Voluptua program had been cancelled because It had no commercial potential.

Gloria protested that she'd been made the target of narrow-minded preasuie groups. But Vampira's fans figured she'd merely been eliminated by black magic. Shortly after Voluptua departed, they noticed that the Lady of Horror had carved a notch In her broomstick. HOLLYWOOD. I AST Jan.

1, Pasadena's Tournament Of The Roses parade was highlighted by the appearance overhead of a black airplane with a trailing sign bearing the gruesome greeting. "Happy Ghoul Tear Vampira." The plane's lone passenger was "a gorgeously macabre miss" (to quote black-bordered publicity releases) who has since won recognition as one of Hollywood's most provocative personalities. Ttis fascinating femme fatale had previously presented Ohio State University players with football bombs for use against their Rose Bowl opponents and had also stirred up a witch's brew to put a "hex" on the University of Southern California team. Her potions paid off In the form of a cloudburst that coincided with kickoff time and U.S C. unaccustomed to a gooey gridiron, was beaten 20-7.

"Not only that." she recalls, with apparently genuine relish, "but an estimated 25.000 chest colds were contracted in Pasadena on New Year's Day!" Abstruse though her appeal may be, this video vampire has found fame and gained great popularity on a Saturday-night horror program that is the American Broadcasting Company's answer to critics who contend that nothing new has been brought to TV. Since her debut on the ABC-TV Hollywood station last year, she has drawn more fan mail end phone calls than the big network names and aroused the curiosity of thousands who've yet to see her In action. Countless comedians' Jokes about her have inspired International interest, to the point where she's been set to do a coast-to-coast show next season. She was recently nominated for a Television Academy Emmy award as "most outstanding local female TV personality." Many of Hollywood's most frightening films of yesteryear have been revived on television, but it has taken the glamor ghoul to give them a new twist. In her the film capital has found its first convincing female thrlll-and-chlll character.

Her scary fireside fare, including Castles Of Doom. White Zombie and other "classics." cant hold a candle to her own singularly sinister contributions. Surrounded by cobwebs, cauldrons, skulls and skeletons, she busies herself before and after commercial announcements playing with her pet spider, painting in blood, reading her favorite magazines and books e. House Ugly. The Rover Boys In The Morgue) or preparing broiled mobster, pheasant under ground glass and other delightfully deadly dishes.

She bathes in a tub also occupied by an octopus or an electric eeL using lye and steel wool In lieu of soap and sponge. Afterwards, to preserve her school-ghoul complexion, she applies banishing cream. WEEKEND M.giiMM VL N. It. 19S5 Minus makeup Vampira prove to be a blue-eyed -blonde Finnish girl of 32 named Maila Nurmi, niece of Paavo Nurmi, the great runner.

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