October 15, 2011: What would Halloween be without a bad “monster movie”. A movie that is so bad that it actually becomes good. And hosting the mayhem of horror (because the movie is that bad) was Elvira Mistress of the Dark.

Elvira was born around 1981 in the mind of actress Cassandra Peterson. She gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ wearing a black, gothic, “imagination enhancing” gown as host of Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation. Her wickedly vampish appearance is offset by her comical character, quirky and witty personality, and “Valley girl” like speech.

Cassandra Peterson, herself, was born September 17, 1951in Manhattan, Kansas, Her family later moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. During her teens, Peterson worked as a go-go dancer in a local gay bar. She graduated from General William J. Palmer High School in 1969. Days after graduating, she drove to Las Vegas, Nevada, where she became a showgirl at The Dunes. She had a small role as a showgirl in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, briefly dated Elvis Presley, played a topless dancer in The Working Girls (1974), and purportedly posed for the cover of Tom Waits’s 1976 album, Small Change.

In the late spring of 1981, five years after the death of Larry Vincent (who hosted as Sinister Seymour of a local Los Angeles weekend horror show called Fright Night), the show’s producers thought of bringing the show back. Peterson auditioned against 200 other horror hostess hopefuls, and won the role. Producers left it up to her to create the role’s image. She and best friend Robert Redding came up with the sexy punk/vampire. The name Elvira was chosen. With heavily applied pancake horror make-up and a towering black beehive wig Cassandra Peterson transformed into the sexy Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

The Elvira character rapidly gained notoriety with her tight-fitting, low-cut black gown and showing more cleavage than had ever appeared on Los Angeles television before. The movies featured on Elvira’s Movie Macabre were always B grade (or lower). Elvira reclined on a red Victorian couch, introducing and often interrupting the movie to comment on the actors, the script, the bad editing and what have you. She brought a satirical, sarcastic edge to her commentary without ever being crass or mean-spirited. Her campy humor, obvious sex appeal, and good-natured self-mockery endeared her to late-night movie viewers as her popularity soared. Elvira was embraced as an icon of the waning 1980s punk movement as well as the emerging Goth subculture.

The Elvira character rapidly evolved from obscure cult figure to lucrative brand-name and “Mistress of all Media”, spawning countless products throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Her popularity reached its zenith with the release of the feature film, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (co-written by Peterson) in 1988.

In September 2010 Elvira’s Movie Macabre returned to television syndication in the United States.

Brought to you by: Another break from the poetry
Sources: YouTube, Paparmans, Entertainment, modlife. com