Elvira: The Mistress of the Dark!

More than three decades ago, she put the "boob" into "boob tube" and became a phenomenon... yet she still looks as young as ever. There are very few people in this world who have attained a level of success equal to Cassandra Peterson. You may not recognize her out of costume or know her real name, but the monstrous wigs, slinky dresses and ample cleavage are instantly recognizable to anyone who hasn't spent their life living under a rock. Star of stage, screen and film, she's recorded songs with Alice Cooper and The B-52s, she dances, acts, hosts, writes... hawks beer and appears on an endless variety of merchandise. Yep, I'm talking about the one and only Elvira!

You'd never know it to see her today, but when Peterson was two years old, she latched onto a pan of boiling Easter eggs, yanked it from the stove, and suffered from 3rd degree burns over 35% of her body. Her eyelids were fused shut and she lost most of her hair. The accident was nearly fatal, and she had to undergo an excruciating series of skin grafts to cover the burns. But the most interesting aspect about the incident is that it ruined Easter for her... so it was only natural that she should take over as the reigning queen of Halloween!

At the tender age of 17, Cassandra was on vacation with her family in Las Vegas when she was scouted by a man who had a show called "Viva Les Girls." In addition to her fascination with horror movies, Peterson was obsessed with the film VIVA LAS VEGAS, and she saw this as her opportunity to play the role of Ann Margret for real. Despite protest from her family, she took the job and holds the distinction of being the youngest showgirl in Vegas history.

Soon she found herself living la vida loca, as she lost her virginity to pop singer Tom Jones, made out with Jimi Hendrix and eventually met -- and dated -- Elvis Presley. Presley encouraged her to pursue a career in music, which led her to Italy as the frontwoman in a rock band. It was there that she met director Federico Fellini and landed a small, uncredited role in his film ROMA. This was a turning point for Peterson, and she decided to set her sights on acting. There's also an unconfirmed rumor that she appeared as an extra in the 1971 James Bond film DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, dancing in a night club.

Peterson returned to the USA and, after a stint on a touring musical, she joined the improvisational group The Groundlings, where she found herself seated next to future celebrities like Edie McClurg (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), Paul 'Pee Wee Herman' Reubens and "SNL" alums Jon Lovitz, Julia Sweeney and Phil Hartman. A few minor TV roles followed, but she still found herself working as a temp secretary to have a steady income.

Then in August of 1981, she was approached by a producer to host a late night horror series. The producer had caught an improv act that she did as an slutty valley girl, and he wanted her to host as that character -- but with a more horrific look. Although she didn't expect to get the part -- and figured that if she got it, it would just be another stepping stone -- she went all out to make herself over as a vampirish vixen. Peterson's initial idea was to make her alter-ego appear ghostly, but that wasn't well received. She enlisted her dear friend, make-up artist/costume designer Robert Redding, and they created the Elvira look, complete with the "knowledge bump" hairdo that they copied from the '60s girl group The Ronettes. Peterson figured that she'd have to tone down the cleavage for network TV, but the only input that she got from the network was to, "make the slit on the leg higher." Sex sells, after all! The transformation for Cassandra to become Elvira has always taken "exactly ninety minutes."

"Movie Macabre" premiered in September of 1981 on KHJ-TV in L.A. Moments before the premiere, Cassandra still didn't have a name for the character. Everyone in the studio wrote down a name, and "Elvira" was pulled out of a hat. Cassandra didn't initially like the name, and later likened it to a country singer (The Oak Ridge Boys' song "Elvira" was a big hit at the time), but she used it anyway. The premise of "Movie Macabre" was simple. The series was a showcase for bad b-movies and the newly christened Elvira would appear sporadically throughout to give her commentary on the idiocy on screen or perform comedy sketches. Thanks to her bawdy innuendo, quick quips and low-cut dress, masses of viewers began to tune in. Much of Elvira's dialog was written by Peterson herself and her friend John Paragon, who went on to become Peterson's long time writing collaborator. Paragon frequently appeared on-screen as The Breather, a perverted, obsessed fan of Elvira's TV show who would call her from time to time. Weirdly, Paragon also wound up with a fanbase of youngsters thanks to his portrayal of the disembodied head of Jambi the Genie and voice of Pterri the Pterodactyl on "Pee Wee's Playhouse."

In May of 1982, a highly touted event on KHJ would become the first of many world record firsts for Elvira. That was the month when the station premiered the first 3-D television broadcast. Not only was the film, THE MAD MAGICIAN, broadcast in 3-D, but so was Elvira, making her the first person in America to be broadcast in 3-D. The tie-in with 7-11 stores successfully furnished millions of pairs of 3-D glasses to people in the area, the broadcast garnered stellar ratings and let to appearances on the talk show circuit for Elvira. Rhino Records also released her first Elvira single: 3D-TV/Elvira's Theme.

Later that year, "Movie Macabre" became syndicated so that viewers from coast to coast could get a load of "the gal with the enormous... ratings." This was yet another historic first. Although there had long been horror hosts in various regions on various stations, there had never been one that had gone national. This led to guest-starring roles in shows like "CHiPS," "The Fall Guy," and a variety of network and cable TV specials. When the station scoffed at the idea of giving her more money, Peterson made a wise career move: she decided to forgo the raise and instead gradually took over the rights to the character that she created. The initial idea was to sell the character to a larger company, but the failure of that scheme turned out to be blessing in disguise.

Soon after the launch of "Movie Macabre," the official Elvira Fan Club was underway. Devised as an inexpensive tool to boost Elvira's popularity, the fan club continues to this day and has lured in tens of thousands of members over the years. Membership has always consisted of a newletter, an autographed photo, a bumper sticker and other extras. From time to time, members of the fan club also win various Elvira-related prizes, such as her latest album or newest video/DVD.

Also in 1982, she was approached to perform at theme park Knott's Berry Farm during their annual Halloween festival, replacing long-time host and radio/TV personality Wolfman Jack. This would lead regular hosting gigs at the park over the next few decades.

1983 brought audio hosting duties on "Elvira's Vinyl Macabre." This full-length compilation album included such Halloween standards as "Monster Mash" and the theme for "The Munsters." Elvira recorded an intro and outro for the album, but no original songs. The album sold well and paved the way for three more compilations, which each featured songs recorded by the Mistress of the Dark. She also recorded the song "Trick or Treat," but strangely it has never been issued on an album, though it did get some airplay on the radio and a music video was featured on her show. All of the songs except "Trick or Treat" were later issued on the compilation "Elvira's Gravest Hits."

In 1984, Elvira took her act to cable. She produced and starred in a 6 hour special for MTV where she hosted music videos, as well as the George Romero classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The special got high ratings and paved the way for Elvira to make many more appearances on the network over the years.

In 1985, Elvira was tapped by I.V.E. (International Video Entertainment) to host a series of films that would be released a part of their "ThrillerVideo" series. There mostly hour-long tapes were mostly primarily consisted of episodes of the British shows "Thriller" and "Hammer House of Horror." Released in oversized (porn-like) video boxes, the ThrillerVideo series was widely released and wound up in many of the old mom and pop videostores. The production values were low, the picture quality fuzzy and the sound quality muffled, but this extra exposure at a time when there were few titles available on home video helped to secure Elvira's success. 26 titles were released, including such forgettable fare as GUARDIAN OF THE ABYSS, WITCHING TIME, THE SILENT SCREAM, THE MONSTER CLUB, CHILDREN OF THE FULL MOON, CHARLIE BOY, TURN OF THE SCREW, RUDE AWAKENING, and many, many more schlockers.

The same year, as a favor to her Groundling friends Paul and Phil, she made a cameo appearance in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" as a scary biker chick.

In 1986, Elvira got her first comic book exposure when D.C. Comics launched "Elvira's House of Mystery." Much like "Movie Macabre" itself and the classic E.C. comics ("Tales from the Crypt," etc.), the comic stories were usually unrelated to the covergirl, but she bookended them with her narration. There's no denying that Elvira's figure was made to be cartooned.

The series was only moderately successful and vanished from shelves after a scant year... though more successful incarnations of the comics would appear a few years later.

Around this same time, Peterson and then-husband Pierson founded Queen "B" Productions. The company, which was primarily handled by Pierson, mainly exists to license the name/image of Elvira onto merchandise. Over the years, the Mistress has graced a vast amount of merchandise, but it's her wardrobe that really brings in the bucks -- she has the best-selling female Halloween costume of all time.

It was in the mid-80s, when Elvira was at the peak of her popularity that the character was targeted by actress Maila Nurmi. Nurmi has also become better known as her alter-ego, Vampira. Vampira had appeared as a horror host in the 1950s, but her star faded and she is most noted today for her brief appearance in Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Nurmi caught Elvira's act and filed suit against Peterson and Pierson for stealing her character. Peterson claims to have had no exposure to Vampira prior to the lawsuit -- which is understandable, since Vampira's show was only seen in L.A. and Peterson grew up in Colorado. The suit was eventually thrown out of court, since the characters only appeared to be alike on the surface -- Vampira growled her commentary with little humor, Elvira's a comedian. Regardless, the few similarities between the characters have sparked endless debate and discussion over the years.

In 1987, Elvira was hooked as the official Halloween spokeswoman for Coors beer. Suddenly her face (and much more!) was on-screen during commercial breaks, and life-sized stand ups of her graced the isles of every supermarket in America. This annual showcase for the dark lady catapulted her into the realm of living icons and marked another historic first: she was now the first woman to be a spokesperson for beer. She signed on to their campaign for two years, then was lured away to Pepsi promotions for the two years following. In 1991, she returned to Coors promotions, but the company gradually tried to censor her image by covering her cleavage with locks from her wig, and shooting photos in awkward positions to reduce the amount of flesh seen in their ads. Eventually, M.A.D.D. denounced the beer commercials, so Coors disbanded their advertising campaign altogether (temporarily, at least), meaning that the Mistress of the dark was out of a cushy job.

However, Peterson had been big in the beer biz and didn't want to go down without a fight. In 1996, another first as she became the first celebrity with their own beer when the dark lager "Elvira's Night Brew" was released. The beer is reported to have been very good, but it wasn't widely marketed and there was an incident at The Great American Beer Festival in Denver in which Elvira wasn't allowed in because her dress was too revealing. She hawked beer and signed autographs from her limo, but alas, a year later the brew was still off the market.

In 1988, the Elvira character finally made the transition to the big screen, but that too was a difficult journey.... Right as New World Pictures was undergoing financial troubles, ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK, the film, hit the screens. Much the same case as other New World film HEATHERS, the movie played on very few screens and was a huge hit with audiences -- though it wasn't enough to save the failing studio (which also made the hit WARLOCK around the same time -- a film that sat on the shelf because of financial difficulties for three years).

Peterson and Paragon wrote parts in the film for several of their Groundling friends, but unfortunately Phil Hartman and Paul Reubens each had scheduling conflicts and were unable to appear. The role of her Uncle Vincent was written specifically for Vincent Price, whom she'd become acquainted with at horror conventions, but he declined the part because he was trying to shed his horror image at that point in his career (though William Morgan Sheppard was perfectly cast after Price turned it down). If you look close, you'll see John Paragon as the flatulent (and doomed) gas station attendant during the opening titles segment. Peterson's husband, Mark Pierson, also filmed a scene for the film, but it wound up on the cutting room floor.

The film centered on Elvira's character (obviously) and began with her hosting a familiar TV show. But when the new station owner makes a move on her, she tells him to stick it. Her timing couldn't have been better -- she discovers that her great aunt, Morgana Talbot, has passed away and left her an inheritance, so she heads out to puritanical Fallwell, Mass. to claim it, dreaming of using the cash to fund a Las Vegas act. But her inheritance consists of almost nothing, and the people of Fallwell are behind the times -- they ultimately accuse Elvira of being a witch and try to burn her at the stake.

When the film was released on video, it became a top-selling and top-rental title. The movie, which was a co-production with NBC, made its TV premiere in the spring of 1990. Although they removed her infamous tassel-twirling sequence (an impressive talent she no doubt picked up in Vegas), the film garnered the highest ratings that the network had seen in the past year. Fans couldn't get enough of it, and plans were quickly made for a sequel. But then nothing happened.. A few years later, it was announced that a sequel would finally be made, ELVIRA VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN, but the deal fell through and the rights got tied up with the studio.

Excluding theme rides, Elvira wouldn't appear on the big-screen again until 2001, when ELVIRA'S HAUNTED HILLS was released. "Everybody says they like the first movie better,":Peterson quips. The story of the making of that film are perhaps more interesting than the film itself. After a few movie deals fell through, Peterson found that nobody wanted to make another Elvira movie, so she decided to put her own nest egg on the line and make the movie herself. Now, here's the first bizarre turn in the story...

After Phil Hartman's death, his ashes were split up amongst friends. John Paragon was one of the recipients, so he put the ashes into a novelty fortune-telling magic 8-Ball. The pair kept pitching movie ideas to the Magic 8-ball, which kept shooting them down. Then Cassandra asked if they should make a spoof of the old Roger Corman/Vincent Price Edgar Allen Poe films, and the 8-Ball replied, "Definitely." Cassandra's brother-in-law is a Romanian filmmaker, and he assured her she could get more bang for her buck by really shooting the movie in Transylvania. So they did.

When meeting with directors, Elvira found Sam Irvin, who wowed her when he began to recite Vincent Price's soliloquy from "The Pit and the Pendulum." She knew she had her guy. They couldn't afford to hire a casting director and hold auditions so they decided to cast it themselves. The role of Zou-Zou, Elvira's beleagered maid, was written for Mary Jo Smith. Smith was a fellow Groundling, and Peterson had caught her act and instantly decided she's make a good foil for Elvira. Peterson was familiar with another fellow Groundling, Mary Jo Scheer from "Mad TV," and at a friend's suggestion, she wound up with a role. Scott Atkinson had auditioned for Irvin numerous times but never got the part, so he decided to give this one to him.

As for the part of Lord Vladamir Helsabus, they wanted an iconic actor in the role. Mick Jagger turned down the part. Richard Chamblerlain accepted, but then dropped out when another role came his way. They were down to the wire when Cassandra's brother-in-law suggested Richard O'Brien, writer and co-star of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." O'Brien was also a fan of the Poe films, so he instantly signed on.

In 1989, Bally released their Elvira and the Party Monsters pinball machine. Although pinball machines were already passe and being phased out by that time, it was a machine that looked really nice all lit up in an arcade, so it wound up in many.

Elvira seemed to be on top of the world, and although her original "Movie Macabre" series had since been canceled, she seemed right at home on the small-screen. In 1990, following the cancellation of her Australian series, "Thriller Theatre," she made a pilot for CBS titled simply "The Elvira Show." The series was a formulaic sitcom in which Elvira was a fortune teller who lived in Kansas with her Aunt Minerva (Katherine Helmond, Soap, Who's the Boss?) and their talking cat, Renfield. Into their lives steps neice Paige (Phoebe Augustine, Twin Peaks), and an uncover cop with plans to shut down their business. Unfortunately, CBS deemed the show too raunchy, and they passed on it. Today it looks like typically corny late '80s TV fare; clearly the problem was the abundance of boob jokes. In the late '90s, eBay was flooded was VHS screener tapes of the pilot and in recent years it's been available to watch on You Tube.

Elvira's signature scent,"Evil," was released to stores in 1990, and was the first product to boast PETA's "cruelty free" logo, signifying that it was not tested on animals. Maybe they should have tested it animals -- in regards to the scent it was reported to have been aptly named. The company that made it went bankrupt the following year, and the perfume line vanished from shelves. Bottles do show up on eBay on occasion, where they're snatched up by eager collectors who pay big bucks for the defunct line.

Whoah, what else? Hosting gigs galore! A "Movie Macabre" revival and a TV game show, 3-D rides, slot machines... this chick's done it al! Unfortunately I composed this article for another site many years ago and never got around to finishing documenting the last 20 years of her career. But the part that's finished is pretty informative, right? Well, I hope so. If not, why'd you bother to read all the way to the bottom? Oh, I get it.... You're were just looking for breasts and thighs, weren't you, you pervert? Okie-dokie then.......