#cadaverous cutie

[bitter69uk]

“I’ve never really liked looking normal, and I’ve always liked a faintly bleached-out look, so I was really happy about the way the cameraman lit me as Morticia. The makeup was very intense. I had stickers attached to my temples; rubber bands that met behind my head and then on top of that the wig, fake nails and eyelashes and the corset – individually they add up to something monumental. It was hard to move. There were certain things one could do with one’s hands but that was about it. Fortunately, I wanted to keep Morticia very iconic and still. She’s not fractious at all. She’s very settled in her body language. I had a bonfire of the vanities at the end of the movie where I took all the fake stuff, made a pile and set it on fire.”

Get the look! In the countdown to Halloween, here’s the fabulous Anjelica Huston’s behind-the-scenes breakdown for The Guardian newspaper in 2018 of how she was transformed into Morticia for The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). The process she describes with rubber bands stretching her face taut was a commonplace old showbiz trick employed by the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Lucille Ball, Barbara Stanwyck and Eva Gabor in Green Acres. Apparently, it was painful and gave Huston headaches – but the results were worth it!

[cadaverre]

what is a cadaverre (cutie tho)

it’s a play on cadavere which is italian for corpse !!

[elycium-cosplay]

Where did you learn how to embroider? I've done a few (tiny, tiny, tiny) projects myself by hand, but I feel like I'm getting lost. How do you do bigger projects? I've been using hoops, and I can't imagine the answer is just to get more and more big hoops.

Funny story, but Mollymauk was my first real embroidery project! I just watched a few youtube tutorials and winged it from there. My current hoop is somewhere between 11-14″, so I had to re-hoop a lot to do the coat, but it worked out. And to get the patterns close to the edge, I just sewed a 3-4″ border of junk cotton along each edge of the coat that way the hoop had something to grab on to while the “edge” of the coat was in the center of the hoop for embroidery.

With bigger projects you’re just going to move your hoop around a lot, but if you’ve done small projects already then you’ve got a good starting point ^_^

[nowinsicily]

#Tragedia a #SanGiovanniLiCuti: un #cadavere è stato trovato in acqua Una giornata di relax si è trasformata in tragedia a San Giovanni Li Cuti, la spiaggetta nera che ogni giorno è presa d'assalto da centinaia di bagnanti.

[bitter69uk]

Venus in Furs: Maila Nurmi (aka horror movie hostess Vampira) photographed at the Seventh Primetime Emmy Awards on 7 March 1955 at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Los Angeles. Shame this pic isn’t in colour - as her biographer (and niece) Sandra Niemi recalls in the 2020 biography Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi, "She wore an ice-blue evening gown, her hair dyed to match, and a rented fur stole draped around her shoulders."

[bitter69uk]

"Vampira was the first exaggerated woman I ever yearned to meet. As a child, she never looked scary to me; I thought she was pretty." John Waters In Memoriam: the fabulous Finnish American actress and pin-up model Maila Nurmi (11 December 1922 – 10 January 2008) – better known as cadaverous wraith cheek-boned 1950s horror movie hostess, leading lady of Ed Wood Jr’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and pop culture sensation Vampira – died on this day. Pictured: a 1955 portrait of Nurmi sans her trademark long raven wig. Just how did she acquire this extreme coiffure that anticipates punk by a good two decades? A 1950s gossip magazine posits that Nurmi’s own hair was “singed-off” in a beauty parlour mishap. Perhaps more realistically, in her 2020 biography Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Nurmi’s niece Sandra Niemi explains that the tormented and fragile Nurmi would sometimes chop her hair off during bouts of depression. Either way, the results were fierce! As Nurmi herself put it, "Beauty can be yours even if you're bald.”  Light a black candle (or at least don a black t-shirt!) and crank up the 1981 song “Vampira” by The Misfits LOUD today in tribute!

[bitter69uk]

“The bats have left the bell tower / The victims have been bled / Red velvet lines the black box …” 

Yes! Grab the black liquid eyeliner, hair crimpers and can of AquaNet! Last Sunday afternoon we visited the Museum of Youth Culture’s exhibit commemorating The Batcave, the weekly club night at 69 Dean Street which became the epicentre of the Goth subculture between 1982 - 1985. Make no mistake: the exhibit is tiny but crammed with memorabilia and gritty portraits of the cadaverous clubbers via Mick Mercer and Derek Ridgers. Reading that The Batcave’s habitués included the likes of Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Foetus, Danielle Dax, Lydia Lunch and Nina Hagen made me yearn for a time machine. And it reminded me that I interviewed Alien Sex Fiend (one of The Batcave’s resident bands) for my university paper back in the late eighties when they performed in Ottawa, Ontario. I still have the article in my archives and should post it online. (Alien Sex Fiends’ 1986 anthem “I Walk the Line” was a staple at the weekly “alternative night” at Oliver’s pub at Carleton University!). The exhibit was meant to close 29 March but apparently it’s been extended until 4 April. And recognise this moody coffin cutie?  It’s a young pre-fame Liz Hurley (yes, THAT Liz Hurley) photographed at The Batcave by Derek Ridgers.

[bitter69uk]

An Easter surprise! I came home from the gym this morning, opened the fridge door - and was confronted by the most exquisite severed head staring back at me! Made from milk chocolate! Last year I bought the Vampira vase (from the Kreepsville website). It came in protective plastic packaging – that Pal saved and used as a mould to make this chocolate Vampira “bust”! I suspect she’s too pretty to eat!

[bitter69uk]

On this day in show business history: House of Horror premiered on 9 October 1957 on Portland, Oregon TV station KPTV. Like Vampira (Maila Nurmi) before her and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Peterson) afterwards, cadaverous cutie Tarantula Ghoul (real name: Suzanne Waldron, 1931 - 1982) provided campy comedic introductions to horror films as the macabre Morticia Addams-like hostess of the weekly TV show from 1957 to 1959. Sadly, not a single frame of footage of House of Horror survives, but backed by rock’n’roll band The Gravediggers, in 1958 Ghoul cut one immortal Halloween novelty single in her brief heyday: "Graveyard Rock" / "King Kong". Both songs are seasonal staples – crank ‘em up LOUD today!

[bitter69uk]

One of the Christmas gifts I got my boyfriend last month was this gorgeous objet d'art / kitsch artifact - the Elvira Mistress of the Dark salt and pepper shakers! Isn't she spectacular? Someone should do the equivalent salt and pepper set for Chesty Morgan!

[bitter69uk]

At last - she can be displayed! One of my boyfriend Pal’s birthday gifts last night was this exquisite Vampira vase. I bought it way back in March (from Kreepsville website) and it's been hidden away all that time.

[bitter69uk]

Don't forget - clocks go forward! It's an hour later than you think. (North Americans - this doesn't apply to you!).

[bitter69uk]

The woman behind Vampira: Maila Nurmi photographed��at the Seventh Primetime Emmy Awards on 7 March 1955 at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Los Angeles. As her biographer Sandra Niemi recalls, "She wore an ice-blue evening gown, her hair dyed to match, and a rented fur stole draped around her shoulders."  

I recently finished reading the 2020 biography Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, an account of the life and times of wraith-cheekboned atomic-era horror movie hostess, pin-up model and actress Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi, 1922 - 2008) by Sandra Niemi (Maila Nurmi’s niece-turned-biographer. Nurmi’s real name was Maila Elizabeth Niemi). It’s a gripping account of an eccentric and tenacious survivor who existed on the fringes of Hollywood for decades. As the book makes clear, Nurmi’s success as Vampira was ephemeral (The Vampira Show was only on air between 1954 -1955) and Nurmi never made a cent even at her fleeting apex. When The Vampira Show was abruptly cancelled following a dispute with the broadcasters, Nurmi’s career dramatically fizzled-out and never recovered. She also alienated many by seemingly exploiting for publicity her friendship with James Dean following his death in 1955. By the time Nurmi appeared in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space in 1959 she was widely considered washed-up and a show business pariah. What happened next? Read my thoughts!

[bitter69uk]

"Vampira was the first exaggerated woman I ever yearned to meet. As a child, she never looked scary to me; I thought she was pretty." John Waters 

“Two-inch nails / micro waist / with a pale white feline face … take off your shabby dress / come and lay beside me …” from the song “Vampira” by the Misfits, 1982 

Light a black candle! Finnish-American actress and pin-up model Maila Nurmi (11 December 1922 – 10 January 2008) – better known as wraith-like 1950s horror movie hostess, glamour ghoul, leading lady of Ed Wood Jr’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and pop culture sensation Vampira – was born on this day 98 years ago.

[bitter69uk]

Praise Satan – there’s a new biography about beloved cult icon, 1950s horror movie hostess and ultimate wraith-like cadaverous cutie, Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira)! Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira is a labour of love by Nurmi’s niece Sandra Niemi, pieced together from a memoir Nurmi was working on at the time of her death in 2008. Judging by this LA Times article, the book is genuinely revealing and fascinating (I had no idea that Nurmi gave birth to an illegitimate son by Orson Welles and put the baby up for adoption. Or that she had a long love affair with Anthony Perkins, who I always assumed was predominantly gay). I’ve already read Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014) by W Scott Poole, which I found underwhelming. Hopefully, this one will be the exhaustive biography that Nurmi merits. Glamour Ghoul apparently came out in November 2020 but didn’t seem to get any fanfare at the time. 2021 is shaping up to be an exciting year for new biographies for some of my favourite people: there are books due later this year on Nico, Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell! We’ll have to form a book club to discuss these essential literary meisterwerks!

[bitter69uk]

Pictured: cadaverous cutie Tarantula Ghoul (and her hunchbacked assistant Milton). Like Vampira before her and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark afterwards, Ghoul (real name: Suzanne Waldron, 1931 - 1982) provided campy comedic introductions to horror films as the macabre Morticia Addams-like hostess of her weekly TV show House of Horror (1957-1959) in Portland, Oregon. In fact, the glamour ghoul’s TV series premiered on this very day - 9 October - in 1957. How timely is this post? Sadly, not a single frame of footage of House of Horror survives, but backed by The Gravediggers, in 1959 Ghoul cut one immortal Halloween novelty single in her brief heyday: "Graveyard Rock" / "King Kong". Both songs are seasonal staples – crank ‘em up LOUD today!