#Hunt Stromberg | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

photog-crafty · 1 year

Text

If you ever heard the Liberty Bell March playing in the distance in a public session, it was probably this Future Shock Bruiser shunting across Los Santos. This was a vehicle I had passed over for quite some time until the passengers in my Scarab got fed up with being thrown out of its bed and I was pressured to try the only other Arena vehicle with four seats. To my surprise, it had just as much composure as the imitation Mercedes that it was converted from and felt like an actual limousine, instead of a limousine body grafted onto a box truck frame. It was easy to drive and easy to fly, unlike the Scarab and Imperator, and more than one of my friends mentioned that they found it genuinely relaxing to be bounced across the sky in it. Having dreamed of a job as a limousine driver, those compliments meant a great deal to me.

The radio in this Comet Safari was permanently stuck playing Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" on repeat. I love regular cars with lift kits and off-road modifications, and the Comet Safari nailed the look while also being a complete blast to drive. Getting this car fully kitted out, complete with inaccessible colored interior, made me feel like I had gone back to being a kid playing Rock 'n Roll Racing.

I don't care what anyone says. Sure, it had broken textures on the wheel arches. Sure, it had poor customization. Sure, it wasn't a proper AMG wagon. I loved the Streiter. It was a damn good car and I'm tired of pretending it wasn't. It handled well and it was impressively quick for a four-door off-road capable car. A station wagon is a station wagon, even if it's based on an obscure customized version of one, and I adored the Streiter just like any other station wagon and drove it everywhere I could regardless of the haters.

When the Gunrunning update was released, it was easy to overlook the humble Half-Track. You wouldn't think to drive this old truck over fancy materiel like the APC and Insurgent, but it was later discovered to be the ultimate counter to infantry because it had a completely bulletproof windshield. Like a bombproof Armored Kuruma, you could shoot out of it, and others couldn't shoot into it. This made it perfect for routing griefers who had dug themselves in deep and breaking their spirit. As a player who never touched hacking utilities, nothing made me smile more than being called a hacker when using a vehicle like this.

My Imani Tech vehicle of choice was the Granger 3600LX, and I owned two of them to cover both bases. This one was driven fairly often, and it was given the missile jammer as well as an OEM Sable Metallic paint job. Being more understated than the other cars with jammers made it great as a "leave me alone" vehicle. Nobody wanted to mess with this hippo.

I knew I was getting old when I started getting a hankering for a Sandking. Way back when I started playing, I had a Sandking XL that I took out now and then, but in the years that followed I learned more about trucks and came to realize that the Sandking SWB perfect for me. I didn't want fast or flashy, I just wanted a big comfy Hank Hill truck to drive around, and the SWB delivered with a soft suspension that still allowed it to go rock climbing and have fun now and then. The fact that I'm not into crew cabs and had to drive an uncomfortable Home Depot single cab also likely contributed to my acceptance of extended cab as the superior configuration. Now if only they weren't so expensive in real life.

The Stromberg was one of the few vehicles in the game that could be described as heroic. It was built for undersea travel, but saw most of its use as an Oppressor killer and even stayed relevant well after the Mk II released because brainless riders and the game's poor coding allowed the Stromberg to bypass their countermeasures. Many players switched to the Toreador for bike hunting, but I stuck with my handsome Stromberg because of its superior protection against bullets and because the passenger was magically able to phase their arm through the window to use drive-by weapons. My best friend and I had good synergy, and he was quick on the draw with the flare gun which made our Stromberg practically untouchable to Deluxos and Oppressors. More often than not, teamwork came out on top when it came to GTA PVP.

I bought this Guardian in 2015 because "haha big truck go vroom" and it was my faithful companion all the way to the very end. It's been through several paintjobs, several battles, several parties, and it's got the forced modded license plate to prove it. The Guardian was always the bringer of good times because it was a fast, capable vehicle that any number of people could stand on as it drove, well after the seats had been filled. Before things like CEO Buzzards and dedicated anti-aircraft weapons were added, we used to use them as makeshift air defense technicals by having someone stand in the back with an RPG or missile launcher. The game itself eventually gave a nod to this behavior, adding a mission in which you transported armored combat suits on the back of a flatbed truck where the strategy was to ignore the flatbed entirely and use a Guardian. The prevalence of explosives eventually pushed the Guardian out of a combat role, but it never stopped being the life of the party whenever it came out of the garage, with crewmates and randoms alike partying it up in the back. The Guardian was a vehicle I had a very special kinship with and it's one of the things I will miss the most.

As the twilight years began, this Future Shock Dominator came to represent everything I loved and stood for in GTA. On the surface, it was a benign little car, looking like a plain old S197 Mustang with AliExpress lights stuffed in the grille. But as I mastered the shunt boost, this car became a thing of beauty that could go anywhere and everywhere. It spoke to my heart, calling out the young child who grew up renting Blaster Master every weekend and making me fall in love with a jumping vehicle all over again. It had everything I wanted in a car, combining the speed and handling of a muscle with the mobility of a motorcycle and a skill ceiling that ensured there was always something new to learn, from how to rescue a trapped sale vehicle to how to drop straight down into a car meet from a thousand feet up. The funniest thing is, I absolutely hated this Dominator at first, and thought that techno-beehive on its back was the ugliest thing. But then I test drove one and discovered its incredible stability in flight, and it was like seeing the beautiful woman beneath the ugly glasses for the first time. Every time I popped that tombstone off for a drive, it was like uncorking a bottle of fine wine. I drove this car up until my very last day in Los Santos and nothing will ever replace it.

Finally, we have the three Craftybikes: past, present, and future.

The Ruffian was the first motorcycle I ever fell in love with. It was cheap, it was fast, it was good-looking, and most importantly, it was an amazing stunt bike. The Ruffian was the perfect machine to pop my stunt cherry on after migrating from GTA IV and San Andreas, as it could vault over just about anything simply by popping a wheelie into it at speed. It was on this motorcycle that I began to earn a reputation in our crew as a stunt biker, and the curious triple headlight that came with it from the factory was one of the first things to tip me off that vehicle customization in this game was not entirely as it seemed.

About a year and a half into the game's life on PC, the FCR 1000 was released to a great deal of fanfare. Many of my crewmates flocked to the FCR 1000 Custom for its old-school military style, but as I drove my unmodified one for the first time, its modest appearance and weighty handling caught my attention and never let go. In this often-overlooked bike, I found a wall-climbing animal with a tight suspension that gave it huge air from curbs and bumps, a field that the Ruffian left me longing for as I continued to hone my stunting skills. More importantly, it had only one seat, which cleanly solved the dilemma of curious people wanting to see my prowess firsthand, not knowing that having a second rider absolutely crushed a motorcycle's performance. Spending a lot of alone time with this bike was what really kicked me into high gear with GTA bikes and got me thinking about how they could be used with other creative projects.

Five years later, the Reever appeared on the scene to become the champion of all the game's motorcycles. It delivered a host of customizations, impressive stunt potential, and speed that was nearly unmatched, all in one bike. Many of its owners customized theirs to look futuristic, myself among that number with my low-gripped spare, but the circular headlight and fairing inspired me to shape my primary Reever in the image of my old FCR 1000, which had long since taken on a life of its own by that point. The Reever kept me company as we all began to go our separate ways and wind down, and it was on this bike that I rode off into the sunset, just as the Ruffian had brought me into this lawless town nine years ago.

4 notes · View notes

weirdcine · 1 year

Text

Maila 'Vampira' Nurmi: 100 anos; a sua incrível história de vida e carreira

ICONOCLASTA AMANTE, HISTÓRICA APRESENTADORA, ESTILISTA MATADORA: MAILA NURMI — DETALHES E FATOS

Há 100 anos atrás, nascia a talentosa Maila 'Vampira' Nurmi. Falarei um pouco, de forma resumida e objetiva, sua carreira dela, e contarei algumas histórias de bastidores que talvez não saibam. Maila Nurmi foi uma figura bastante subversiva e importante na cultura dos anos 1950-1960.

Repudiada e ridicularizada por alguns mais conservadores e amada por outros tantos, ela cravou sua estaca no peito aberto do cinema convencional, apelando para o grotesco, a sensualidade, e usando-se de sua imagem insolente quanto aos costumes de mulheres tradicionais de época.

Basta-se dizer isso: Ela é a nossa heroína. E vai além: qualquer um que ame não só a cultura gótica / de terror, e que pense num mundo menos desigual para as mulheres, deve algo à Nurmi.

ANOS 1922-1940 — COMEÇO DE CARREIRA:

De nome Maila Elizabeth Niemi, Maila nasceu em 1922, na Finlândia, mas foi criada na cidade de Oregon, nos Estados Unidos da América. A sua família se mudou para Ohio quando ela tinha apenas 2 anos. Ela se formou Astoria High School e posteriormente mudou-se para Los Angeles, na Califórnia, aos 18 anos, em 1940.

A mudança dela não foi por acaso - era a terra da indústria artística e cinematográfica dos EUA. Ela sonhava em ser atriz já desde jovem etinha a esperança de encontrar trabalho na grandiosa indústria de Hollywood, e ela aspirou viés de moda. A jovem Maila trabalhou como modelo para fotógrafos famosos de pin-ups e depois como estilista independente.

ANO 1953 — UMA FESTA MUDA A VIDA DE MAILA:

No primitivo ano de 1953, a ex-modelo, então com 30 anos, trabalhava como guarda-casacos, atendente e pintava gravatas numa boatezinha, ela marcou presença numa badalada festa em Hollywood com seu então marido, um pregresso ator-mirim que virou escritor e roteirista, Dean Riesner (roteirista de filmes como 'Dirty Harry - Perseguidor Implacável' e 'Perversa Paixão'- 1971).

Ela fez sua própria fantasia de vampira, inspirada em desenhos animados de um cartunista norte-americano chamado Charles Addams (da importante revista artística novaiorquina, The New Yorker) com a Mortícia Addams, e utilizou-se de alguns retalhos de tecidos e panos costurados para fazer a fantasia. Mal sabia ela: aquela festa mudaria para sempre a sua vida.

A festa, é claro, era de Dia das Bruxas, e era organizada pelo coreógrafo Lester Horton. E a fantasia dela foi tão boa que ganhou o prêmio da noite, em primeiro lugar.

Quando perguntada sobre a fantasia, ela respondeu: “...Primeiro eu fiz a fantasia. Comprei um pedaço de tecido por 3 Dólares e 67 cents, na loja The Home Silk Shop, na sessão de sobras. Eu não tinha máquina de costura, então cortei e costurei à mão e fiz eu mesma. Eu usava pó verde claro, com unhas compridas - Fiz meu peito achatado ... de modo que fiquei muito esquelética e verde pálida e lá estava eu”.

ANO 1954 — O AUGE DO 'THE VAMPIRA SHOW':

Maila deve ter causado na festa com seu perfil chamativo e um tanto quanto exótico, pois após meses, um participante daquela mesma festa ainda não conseguia tirá-la de sua cabeça. Ele era ninguém menos que Hunt Stromberg Jr., um recém-empossado diretor de produção do canal WABC-TV da grande Los Angeles. Na época (há 68 anos de hoje), os filmes exibidos na televisão eram bastante precários, sendo exibidos com pouca ou quase nenhuma frequência, era tudo muito voltado para o cinema.

Os grandes estúdios e canais não estavam muito interessados em cooperar com a telinha – e de fato, a consideravam uma ameaça mortal para o cinema – então, a maioria dos longas-metragens disponíveis eram de produções de qualidade duvidosa (Monogram Pictures , PRC), faroestes insossos e dramas meia-boca.

A ideia de Stromberg era adicionar nada menos que um apetitoso apelo sexual às exibições de filmes de terror ao seu canal em horários noturnos. Ele lembrou-se então da vampiresca Nurmi, mas não sabia sequer o nome dela ou como entrar em contato com a mesma.

Felizmente, o designer Rudi Gernreich a havia conhecido e lembrou-se de seu nome, aí Stromberg a convidou, contratando-a para criar um personagem com inspiração de uma vampira que, no entanto, não infringisse quaisquer direitos autorais ou marcas registradas existentes na data.

FOTO: REPRODUÇÃO; IMDb;

Nurmi, então,começou a trabalhar imediatamente na produção de um visual autêntico para a sua mais nova personagem - mal sabendo ela que posteriormente seria nada menos que uma persona e alter ego seu, sendo batizado por ela, simplesmente, de 'Vampira' - a primeira host (apresentadora de TV) feminina da história do gênero Terror.

Ela utilizou-se de elementos que combinavam desde a Rainha Má de 'Branca de Neve', uma senhora de histórias em quadrinho a até modelos de bondage, muitovendidos sem prescrição, na época. Para exagerar sua cintura já animosa, ela prendeu um amaciante de carne em sua barriga com um tubo interno de borracha bem amarrado. Suas medidas de cintura eram nada menos que 43 centímetros e meio.

Em 30 de junho de 1954, o 'The Vampira Show' estreou e foi um sucesso.

Nurmi logo passou a vestir-se como Vampira sempre que saía de casa. Nesta mesma época, uma forte onda de ações publicitárias então foi feita como estratégia de termômetro e divulgação dela e de seu show. Em 14 de junho de 1954, ela emplacou na famosa revista Life - ainda traremos em nosso blogue na sessão de memorabília.

Em 6 de junho de 1954, a emissora chegou a alugar um conversível preto de aparência fúnebre para promover passeios da Maila pela cidade de Los Angeles - tratava-se de um modelo Packard1932; Ela sentava-se confortavelmente na parte de tras, com seu choffer à frente, onde ela carregava sombrinha e distribuía autógrafos.

Não deu outra, ela logo se tornou uma celebridade nas boates e clubes da grande L.A - principalmente de Jazz.

Eventualmente, a personagem Vampira se tornou tão popular que o canal WABC decidiu se apropriar dela e pediu para Nurmi que a transferisse para eles. Ela não quis, e o seu show de TV foi cancelado em novembro 1954, apenas 8 meses no ar.

Quando sua série foi cancelada em 1955, Nurmi reteve os direitos do personagem e levou o programa a uma estação de televisão concorrente de Los Angeles, mas logo decidiu voltar para Nova Iorque e a Broadway.ANO 1955 — O "FÃ" ENSANDECIDO:

Em 20 de junho de 1955, Nurmi foi vítima e alvo de uma violenta tentativa de homicídio enquanto estava em sua casa. Ela atendeu a porta de seu apartamento e um homem desconhecido forçou a sua entrada e a aterrorizou por duas horas (há quem diga que foram quase 4 horas de tortura).

Ela tentou escapar, mas o homem conseguiu pegá-la e trazê-la de volta para o apartamento, onde disse que a mataria até o amanhecer. Ela acabou conseguindo fugir e chamou a polícia com a ajuda de um dono de uma lojinha nas redondezas, ela a encontrou coberta de hematomas, arranhões e vestindo apenas uma calça rasgada.

Mais tarde o bandido foi identificado: tratava-se de Ellis Barber, um doido quem segundo dizem, era conhecido na região como The Vamp (O Vamp).

Maila Nurmi decidiu então que era hora de voltar para a Califórnia.

ANO 1955 — SUPOSTO ROMANCE COM JAMES DEAN:

Quase na mesma época, Maila conheceu os famosíssimos James Dean e Elvis Presley.

James Dean ficou obcecado por ela e por toda a sua personalidade. O sentimento era mútuo. Eles tornaram-se companheiros íntimos. Segundo relatos, eles iam a cafeteria juntos, conversavam por horas a fio, por diversas vezes praticavam natação noturna juntos e compartilhavam histórias mórbidas. Nurmi era incomparável para James neste aspecto, é fato comum que o ator tinha um fascínio pela morte. Mas apesar de tudo, Maila nunca revelou nada a respeito disso, considerando-o publicamente apenas um "amigo".

O fato é: a mídia babaca - como não podia deixar de ser, associou e culpou Maila pela morte de James Dean num acidente de carro em setembro de 1955, por sua imagem gótica, como se ela fosse uma maldita - ainda abordaremos isso aqui no blogue com maiores detalhes.

ANO 1956 — SUPOSTO ROMANCE COM ELVIS:

Já sobre Elvis Presley, um pouco antes de sua explosão de fama nos anos 70, ele deu um show em Las Vegas, em maio de1956 e lá conheceu a excêntrica Maila Nurmi, aos 33 anos de idade.

Mas já falamos a respeito do encontro inusitado aqui em nosso blogue em: 'O romance oculto entre Elvis e Vampira: Teria ele um fetiche gótico?'

. Ambos foram vistos de mãos dadas em público, trocaram afagos e deram o que falar, mas apesar de tudo, Maila, segundo relatos, ainda seguia muito bem casada com o escritor Dean Riesner - certamente, só uma média.

ANOS 1959-1961 — VAMPIRA NO CINEMA, E DEPOIS:

Maila ainda fez aparições públicas e reprisou o seu papel de sucesso no filme 'Plano 9 do Espaço Sideral', um sucesso trash de 1959 - onde contracenou com Bèla Lugosi e fez uma pequena sessão de fotos com o mesmo — Maila atuou no filme com muitas ressalvas e críticas abertas e públicas, "só pelo dinheiro", mas no entanto, um fato que nem todos lembram (ou contam) é que ela relação com o diretor não era tão ruim ou impossível assim pois ela tornou a atuar para ele no interessante 'Acordei Cedo no Dia da Minha Morte' ("I Woke Up Early the Day I Died", 1998), desta vez Ed Wood como roteirista.

O personagem Vampira já havia sido transformado em folclore e já era considerado icônico na cultura e moda gótica e na 'mitologia popular' desde a época. E ela foi sumariamente copiada pela Elvira (também falaremos sobre isso no futuro).

Maila foi casada três vezes: tendo terminado seu primeiro casamento na segunda metade dos anos 1950, e iniciado seu 2º casamento em 1958 - que não durou muito, e tendo vindo a casar uma última vez no ano de 1961.

ANOS 1960-2008 — OS 30 ANOS FINAIS:

O filme citado acima, 'Acordei Cedo no Dia da Minha Morte', foi o último longa-metragem atuado por Maila. Aos 78 anos, ela desistiu de sua carreira como atriz, tendo sido creditada por 20 títulos - incluindo os shows como host. A face original de Vampira faleceu em 2008 de causas naturais, sem muito glamour ou alardes, aos 85 anos, em sua casa-garagem, em Hollywood. Ela foi enterrada no cemitério Hollywood Forever.

O certo é que hoje, após 100 ANOS de seu nascimento, Maila Nurmi agregou muito. Temos de agradecê-la por contribuir com toda a sua criatividade e por toda uma influência gerada por ela na cultura e por todo o papel corajoso que exerceu numa época de muito preconceito e conservadorismo babaca. Seu centenário não poderia passar batido.

MAILA 'VAMPIRA' NURMI *1922 +2008

FONTES DESTA PUBLICAÇÃO:

-'The Monster Show - A Cultural History of Horror' (1993);

- Biografia oficial de Maila Nurmi;

- Horror Obsessive;

TAMBÉM DESTE BLOGUE:

- Livro: Entrevista sobre "Vampira: Deusa Macabra do Terror";

- Lista: 50 fotos de Maila Nurmi, a eterna Vampira;

PUBLICADO ORIGINALMENTE EM NOSSO BLOGUE EM 12/11/2022

#Maila Nurmi #Vampira #Terror #Filmes de Terror #Horror #Cinema #Gothic #Gótica

3 notes · View notes

lakelandg · 11 months

Text

On the Trail of Florida’s Bigfoot—the Skunk Ape is it Real or Fake

Shealy poses with a cast of a Skunk Ape footprint he says he made in 1998. Photo by Joseph Stromberg The first time Dave Shealy saw a skunk ape, he says, he was ten years old. It was 1974, a few years after his father had come upon a set of footprints left by the creature—an Everglades version of Bigfoot named for its supposedly pungent odor. Dave was out deer hunting with his older brother,…

View On WordPress

0 notes

thetoxicgamer · 2 years

Text

GTA 5 Update Lets You Roleplay Die Hard, Kill the Grinch

The most recent GTA 5 update sees Rockstar's sandbox game get into a joyful but typically brutal mood, adding a new random event inspired by Die Hard and the chance to hunt down and murder the beloved Dr. Seuss character The Grinch. This is the perfect way to spend Christmas in GTA Online, and it serves as further evidence that there is still plenty to come as we wait for the release of GTA 6. As snow falls across the whole GTA 5 map, between 8am and 6am game time, if you’re waiting around within about 400 metres of the gigantic Weazel News Tower, a random event will spawn hostile NPCs on the building’s roof, in homage to the ultimate Christmas film (and yes, it is a Christmas film) Die Hard. Zoom up there in a chopper, and you might notice that one of the armed goons, sporting a sharp suit and a goatee beard, even looks like Hans Gruber, the terrorist uber baddie played so memorably by Alan Rickman. Take them all out and you’ll get a special weapon drop in the shape of the WM29 pistol, which after you’ve finished the random event, will be buyable and customizable at every Ammunition store. The name itself might also be a little reference to Die Hardflip ‘29’ around and you get 92, potentially a nod to the Beretta 92FS handgun toted by cop hero John McClane. But that’s not all. A second Christmas-themed random event is now live in GTA 5, allowing you to hunt down and kill pesky yuletide villain The Grinch – who in typical Rockstar fashion is renamed ‘The Gooch.’ At any point over the festive period, The Gooch can sneak up on you and steal a big hunk of your in-game cash. Chase them down, deal with them as you see fit, and not only will you be able to recover your lost money, but The Gooch will drop a Christmas present containing some bonus loot. Lose track of them, however, and your money is gone for good. If you want to spawn the random Gooch event (there’s a sentence) you need to be in a lobby with two players or more, and have spent around 48 minutes in the same session. The GTA Online Christmas event runs from December 22 to December 29 and also offers double money and RP for completing races, acid lab jobs from the recent Drug Wars update, and the Beast versus Slasher mode. You’ll also get a couple of little Xmas presents in the form of a reindeer hat and a free candy cane. Aw. The Ocelot Ardent, Vapid Clique, and Maxwell Vagrant are also available now at the showroom in exclusive Christmas-themed liveries, and there’s 30& off the Ocelot Stromberg. You can also hunt around the entire Los Santos area for collectible snowmen. There are 25 in total, and if you should find and destroy them all, you’ll earn the bonus snowman outfit plus $125,000 GTA dollars. Check out our full rundown of the GTA Online Drug Wars update to get the cash coming in, or maybe some other great open-world games or multiplayer games on PC. Read the full article

1 note · View note

theendofthefilm · 5 years

Photo

The Strange Woman

Edgar G. Ulmer USA, 1946

#The Strange Woman #Edgar G. Ulmer #1946 #gif #The End #United Artists #Hunt Stromberg #clouds #1940s #USA

11 notes · View notes

serafino-finasero · 7 years

Photo

Showgirl in a publicity photo for the musical film The Great Ziegfeld (USA, 1936, dir. Robert Z. Leonard) | MGM | (c) Underwood Archives/Getty Images

At the 9th Academy Awards (1937), The Great Ziegfeld was nominated for seven Oscars and won three: Best Picture (Hunt Stromberg, producer), Best Actress (Luise Rainer), Best Dance Direction (Seymour Felix, choreographer).

#The Great Ziegfeld #1936 #showgirl #musical #film #Best Picture Oscar #Best Actress Oscar #Best Dance Direction #Robert Z. Leonard #MGM #Hunt Stromberg #Luise Rainer #Seymour Felix #Academy Awards #Oscars #9th Academy Awards #February Oscar month #Hollywood

12 notes · View notes

oldshowbiz · 7 years

Photo

“There were people I knew who had to take drugs, like Hunt Stromberg … We assumed that’s why he went into the other office ... Sometimes he would excuse himself and we knew where he was going. To kick the pain, taking a shot of morphine.” - screenwriter Irving Brecher

#hunt stromberg #William A. Seiter #drugs #hollywood babylon

13 notes · View notes

the-reclusive-cinephile · 7 years

Photo

#1949 #too late for tears #film noir #movie poster #lizabeth scott #dan duryea #noirvember #killer bait #hunt stromberg

12 notes · View notes

lanaturnerhascollapsed · 7 years

Photo

Hollywood, March 1943

#barbara stanwyck #gypsy rose lee #hunt stromberg #the g string murders #lady of burlesque #magazine: hollywood #year: 1943 #decade: 1940s #type: gossip items and anecdotes #writer: erskine johnson #hw vol. 32 no. 3

12 notes · View notes

robe-and-wizard-hat · 4 years

Text

#The Vampira Show #Vampira #1955 #1950s #horror films #Hunt Stromberg Jr.#Maila Nurmi #cult classic #retro #vintage #horror #50s #horror movies #retro photo #vintage photo #horror classic #goth #gothic

36 notes · View notes

norashelley · 4 years

Photo

#paula stone #hunt stromberg jr.#Jeanette MacDonald #old hollywood #classic film #a

6 notes · View notes

vintage1981 · 2 years

Text

Little Shoppe of Horrors #38 - The Epic Untold Saga Behind Frankenstein: The True Story by Sam Irvin | Vintage1981 Rewind

Extra Special Issue Devoted to the Making of "Frankenstein: The True Story” (Universal/NBC-TV, 1973).

First published on the eve of 2018, the 45th Anniversary of the movie and the 200th Anniversary of the novel by Mary Shelley

Expanded to 120 pages!

16 pages in full color!

First-ever 3-panel triptych wraparound/foldout cover by Mark Maddox!

2-panel diptych foldout inside cover by Bruce Timm!

Inside back cover by Paul Watts!

2 full-page, full-color interior illustrations by Neil D. Vokes!

Full-color interior illustrations by Adrian Salmon!

Article headers by Denis Meikle including one full-pager in full-color!

Over 400 photographs, most never-before-published!

Featuring:

BEAUTIFUL CREATURE: The Epic Untold Saga Behind Frankenstein: The True Story - by Sam Irvin (over 50,000 words!)

Foreword by Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire)

Essay by Mark Gatiss (Sherlock)

Never-before-published essay by Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy (co-screenwriters of FTTS)

Exclusive interviews with over 20 cast and crew members, including standalone sidebar interviews with:

Leonard Whiting (Dr. Frankenstein)

Jane Seymour (Agatha / Prima)

David McCallum (Dr. Clerval)

Nicola Pagett (Elizabeth Frankenstein)

Don Bachardy (co-writer)

Ian Lewis (associate producer)

John Stoneman (first assistant director)

Plus exclusive comments from many associates of the production, including:

Sid Sheinberg (former president of Universal)

Angela Lansbury

Richard Chamberlain

Jon Voight

Geoffrey Holder

Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen in The Adventures of Superman)

Essay by Alec Smight, son of the late director Jack Smight

Essay by James Duke Mason, grandson of the late James Mason (Dr. Polidori)

Tributes to the late Michael Sarrazin (The Creature) by his brother Pierre Sarrazin and others

Essay on screenwriters Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy, by Katherine Bucknell

Essay on composer Gil Mellé, by James Anthony Phillips

Profile of producer Hunt Stromberg Jr., by Sam Irvin

Sidebars on missing scenes, missing passages from the published script, various cuts, the model kit, etc.

This issue is jam-packed with surprises beyond your wildest imagination! The staggering, never-before-reported journey to bring Frankenstein: The True Story to the screen reads like a Who’s Who, directly involving such luminaries as Marlon Brando, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Francis Ford Coppola, John Boorman, John Schlesinger, Jon Voight, Roman Polanski, Warren Beatty, Elsa Lanchester, Franco Zeffirelli, and more!

Whether you are a fan or not, the adventure behind the creation of Frankenstain: The True Story is so astounding, it is an epic unto itself. Prepare to catch your jaw before it drops to the floor.

Special promo for LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS #38 - Buy this issue and one or more of any of our previous 37 issues, and get a free copy of "Little Shoppe of Horrors #28", the in-depth coverage of Hammer Film's classic Gothic Ghost story - THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Check this website for a full list of issues and contents.

http://www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/

#Little Shoppe of Horrors #Frankenstein: The True Story #Sam Irvin #Mark Maddox #Leonard Whiting #Jane Seymour #David McCallum #Nicola Pagett #James Mason #Michael Sarrazin #Anne Rice #Mark Gatiss #The Woman in Black #Hammer Films #Universal Television #NBC #Scream Factory #Tom Baker

6 notes · View notes

timeless-hollywood-classics · 4 years

Text

Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi (December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008), known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was a Finnish-American actress and television personality who created the campy 1950s character Vampira.

The daughter of a Finnish immigrant, Nurmi was raised in Oregon and relocated to Los Angeles in 1940 with hopes of being an actress. After several minor film roles, she found success in the Vampira character, television's first horror host. Nurmi hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954–55 on KABC-TV.

After the show's cancellation, she appeared in the 1959 cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood. She is also billed as Vampira in the 1959 film The Beat Generation, where she appears out of character and instead plays a beatnik poet. Nurmi also appeared in the 1959 crime film The Big Operator. She was portrayed by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood.

Maila Nurmi was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi in 1922 to Onni Syrjäniemi, a Finnish immigrant, and Sophia Peterson, an American of Finnish descent. Her place of birth is disputed: according to biographer W. Scott Poole in Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014), Nurmi was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, during her career, Nurmi claimed to have been born in Petsamo, Finland, claiming she was the niece of Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who began setting long-distance running world records in 1921, the year before her birth. Public U.S. immigration records show her father's immigration at Ellis Island in 1910. Additionally, Dana Gould claimed in a 2014 public interview that he had seen Nurmi's birth certificate, which listed her birthplace as Gloucester, Massachusetts.

During her childhood, Nurmi relocated with her family from Massachusetts to Ashtabula, Ohio, before settling in Astoria, Oregon, a city on the Oregon Coast with a large Finnish community. Her father worked as a lecturer and editor, and her mother also worked as a part-time journalist and translator to support the family. She graduated from Astoria High School in 1940.

In 1940, Nurmi relocated to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, and later in New York City. She modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood, and Man Ray, gaining a foothold in the film industry with an uncredited role in Victor Saville's 1947 film, If Winter Comes.

She was reportedly fired in 1944 by Mae West from the cast of West's Broadway play, Catherine Was Great, because West feared she was being upstaged.

On Broadway, she gained much attention after appearing in the horror-themed midnight show Spook Scandals, in which she screamed, fainted, lay in a coffin, and seductively lurked about a mock cemetery. She also worked as a showgirl for the Earl Carroll Theatre and as a high-kicking chorus line dancer at the Florentine Gardens along with stripper Lili St. Cyr. In the 1950s, she supported herself mainly by posing for pin-up photos in men's magazines such as Famous Models, Gala and Glamorous Models. Before landing her role as 'Vampira', she was working as a hat-check girl in a cloakroom on Hollywood's Sunset Strip.

The idea for the Vampira character was born in 1953 when Nurmi attended choreographer Lester Horton's annual Bal Caribe Masquerade in a costume inspired by Morticia Addams in The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams. Her appearance with pale white skin and tight black dress caught the attention of television producer Hunt Stromberg, Jr., who wanted to hire her to host horror movies on the Los Angeles television station KABC-TV, but Stromberg had no idea how to contact her. He finally got her phone number from Rudi Gernreich, later the designer of the topless swimsuit. The name Vampira was the invention of Nurmi's husband, Dean Riesner. Nurmi's characterization was influenced by the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the evil queen from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

On April 30, 1954, KABC-TV aired a preview, Dig Me Later, Vampira, at 11:00 p.m. The Vampira Show premiered on the following night, May 1, 1954. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, moving to 11:00 p.m. on May 29. Ten months later, the series aired at 10:30 p.m., beginning March 5, 1955. Each show opened with Vampira gliding down a dark corridor flooded with dry-ice fog. At the end of her trance-like walk, the camera zoomed in on her face as she let out a piercing scream. She would then introduce (and mock) that evening's film while reclining barefoot on a skull-encrusted Victorian couch. Her horror-related comedy antics included ghoulish puns such as encouraging viewers to write for epitaphs instead of autographs and talking to her pet spider Rollo.

She also ran as a candidate for Night Mayor of Hollywood with a platform of "dead issues". In another publicity stunt, KABC had her cruise around Hollywood in the back of a chauffeur-driven 1932 Packard touring car with the top down, where she sat, as Vampira, holding a black parasol. The show was an immediate hit, and in June 1954 she appeared as Vampira in a horror-themed comedy skit on The Red Skelton Show along with Béla Lugosi, and Lon Chaney, Jr.. That same week Life magazine ran an article on her, including a photo-spread of her show-opening entrance and scream. A kinescope of her The Red Skelton Show appearance was discovered in 2014. It is available as part of the Shout Factory DVD box set Red Skelton: The Early Years.

When her KABC series was cancelled in 1955, Nurmi retained rights to the character of Vampira and took the show to a competing Los Angeles television station, KHJ-TV. Several episode scripts and a single promotional kinescope of Nurmi re-creating some of her macabre comedy segments are held by private collectors. Several clips from the rare kinescope are included in the documentaries American Scary and Vampira: The Movie. The entire KABC kinescope, plus selections of the KABC pitchman who introduced the clips, is available in the 2012 documentary Vampira and Me.

Vampira and Me also features extensive clips from two previously unknown 16mm kinescopes of Nurmi as Vampira on national TV shows, including her starring guest spot on the April 2, 1955 episode of The George Gobel Show, a top 10 hit. The Vampira and Me restoration of the Gobel kinescope was documented in a 2013 short film entitled Restoring Vampira.

Examination of Nurmi's diaries in 2014 by filmmaker and journalist R. H. Greene verify longtime rumors that in 1956 she was the model for Maleficent, the evil witch in the Disney conception of the classic fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty." The Disney archivist subsequently confirmed these findings.

In 2007, the kinescope film of Nurmi in character was restored by Rerunmedia, whose restorations include The Ed Sullivan Show and Dark Shadows. The restoration utilized the groundbreaking LiveFeed Video Imaging process developed exclusively for the restoration of kinescopes. The restoration was funded by Spectropia Wunderhaus and Coffin Case.

A reconstructed episode of The Vampira Show was released on DVD by the Vampira's Attic web site in October 2007. The release imitated a complete episode by using existing footage of the show combined with vintage commercials believed to have been directed by Ed Wood[citation needed] and the full-length 1932 feature film The Thirteenth Guest.

Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess. In 1957, Screen Gems released a syndicated package of 52 horror movies, mostly from Universal Pictures, under the program title Shock Theater. Independent stations in major cities all over the U.S. began showing these films, adding their own ghoulish host or hostess (including Vampira II and other lookalikes) to attract more viewers.

Nominated for a Los Angeles area Emmy Award as 'Most Outstanding Female Personality' in 1954, she returned to films with Too Much, Too Soon in 1958, followed by The Big Operator and The Beat Generation. Her best known film appearance was in Ed Wood's camp classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, as a Vampira-like zombie (filmed in 1956, but released in 1959). In 1960 she appeared in I Passed for White and Sex Kittens Go to College, followed by 1962's The Magic Sword. The classic clip from Plan 9 from Outer Space featuring Vampira walking out of the woods with her hands pointing straight out was used to start the original opening sequence of WPIX Channel 11 New York's Chiller Theatre in the 1960s.

By 1962, Nurmi was making a living installing linoleum flooring. "And if things are slow in linoleum, I can also do carpentry, make drapes or refinish furniture", she told the Los Angeles Times.

In the early 1960s, Nurmi opened Vampira's Attic, an antiques boutique on Melrose Avenue. She also sold handmade jewelry and clothing. She made items for several celebrities, including Grace Slick of the music group Jefferson Airplane and the Zappa family.

In 1981, Nurmi was asked by KHJ-TV to revive her Vampira character for television. She worked closely with the producers of the new show and was to get an executive producer credit, but Nurmi eventually left the project over creative differences. According to Nurmi, this was because the station cast comedic actress Cassandra Peterson in the part without consulting her. "They eventually called me in to sign a contract and she was there", Nurmi told Bizarre magazine in 2005. "They had hired her without asking me."

Nurmi worked on the project for a short time, but quit when the producers would not hire Lola Falana to play Vampira. The station sent out a casting call, and Peterson auditioned and won the role.

Unable to continue using the name Vampira, the show was abruptly renamed Elvira's Movie Macabre with Peterson playing the titular host. Nurmi soon filed a lawsuit against Peterson. The court eventually ruled in favor of Peterson, holding that "likeness means actual representation of another person's appearance, and not simply close resemblance." Peterson claimed that Elvira was nothing like Vampira aside from the basic design of the black dress and black hair. Nurmi claimed that the entire Elvira persona, which included comedic dialogue and intentionally bad graveyard puns, infringed on her creation's "distinctive dark dress, horror movie props, and...special personality." Nurmi herself claimed that Vampira's image was in part based on the Charles Addams The New Yorker cartoon character Morticia Addams, though she told Boxoffice magazine in 1994 that she had intentionally deviated from Addams' mute and flat-chested creation, making her own TV character "campier and sexier" to avoid plagiarizing Addams' idea.

In 1986, she appeared alongside Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers in Rene Daalder's punk rock musical Population: 1, which was released on DVD in October 2008. According to a Daalder interview on the 2 disc special edition of Population: 1, "There was a wild lady living out in back in a shed. Tomata befriended her and found out she had played Vampira".

In 1987, she recorded two seven-inch singles on Living Eye records with the band Satan's Cheerleaders. The singles, entitled "I Am Damned" and "Genocide Utopia," were both released on colored vinyl, the second one with a swastika on the label, and are extremely rare collector's items.

In 2001, Nurmi opened an official website and began selling autographed memorabilia and original pieces of art on eBay. Until her death, Nurmi lived in a small North Hollywood apartment.

Unlike Elvira, Nurmi authorized very few merchandising contracts for her Vampira character, though the name and likeness have been used unofficially by various companies since the 1950s. In 1994, Nurmi authorized a Vampira model kit for Artomic Creations, and a pre-painted figurine from Bowen Designs in 2001, both sculpted by Thomas Kuntz. In 2004, she authorized merchandising of the Vampira character by Coffin Case, for the limited purpose of selling skate boards and guitar cases.

In the early 1950s, Nurmi was close friends with James Dean, and they spent time together at Googie's coffee shop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She explained their friendship by saying, "We have the same neuroses."

As Hedda Hopper related in a 1962 memoir that included a chapter on Dean: "We discussed the thin-cheeked actress who calls herself Vampira on television (and cashed in, after Jimmy died, on the publicity she got from knowing him and claimed she could talk to him 'through the veil'). He said: 'I had studied The Golden Bough and the Marquis de Sade, and I was interested in finding out if this girl was obsessed by a satanic force. She knew absolutely nothing. I found her void of any true interest except her Vampira make-up. She has no absolute.'"

The 2010 public radio documentary Vampira and Me by author/director R. H. Greene took issue with Hopper's depiction of the Nurmi/Dean relationship, pointing to an extant photo of Dean and Vampira sidekick Jack Simmons in full Boris Karloff Frankenstein make-up as evidence of Nurmi and Dean's friendship. The documentary also described a production memo in the Warner Bros. archive citing a set visit from "Vampira" while Dean was making Rebel Without a Cause.

The Warner Bros memo was first mentioned in the 2006 book Live Fast, Die Young: The Making of Rebel Without a Cause by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, who were given access to the Rebel production files. An interview Frascella and Weisel conducted with actress Shelley Winters also uncovered an instance where Dean interrupted an argument with director Nicholas Ray and Winters so he could watch The Vampira Show on TV.

In Vampira and Me, Nurmi can be heard telling Greene that Dean once appeared in a live bit on The Vampira Show in which Vampira, dressed as a librarian, rapped his knuckles with a ruler because "he was a very naughty boy."

The English Punk rock band The Damned wrote a song about their relationship entitled ‘Plan 9, Channel 7’ and can be found on the 1979 album ‘Machine Gun Etiquette ‘ ( Chiswick Records )

On June 20, 1955, Nurmi was the target of an attempted murder when a man forced his way into her apartment and proceeded to terrorize her for close to four hours. Nurmi eventually escaped and managed to call the police, with assistance from a local shop owner.

She married her first husband, Dean Riesner, in 1949, a former child actor in silent films and later the screenwriter of Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, Play Misty for Me, and numerous other movies and TV episodes.

She married her second husband, younger actor John Brinkley, on March 10, 1958.

She married actor Fabrizio Mioni on June 20, 1961 in Orange County, California.

On January 10, 2008, Nurmi died of natural causes at her home in Hollywood, aged 85. She was buried in the Griffith Lawn section of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

#maila nurmi #vampira #classic stars #classic horror #classic hollywood #1950s hollywood #1950s women

38 notes · View notes