Queen Of Horror Elvira Dispels Mystery

'Mistress Of The Dark' Encounters Elvis, Lasting Fame

On Oct. 27 and again on Halloween night, the American Movie Classics Network will air a terrifyingly amusing tribute to women monsters in film. "Bride of Monstermania" will be hosted by none other than the hauntingly delightful Elvira. Yes, we all know the vampy and campy star, but what lurks behind that teased-up black wig and those bombshell curves?

Meet the brains behind Elvira: actress Cassandra Peterson.

Elvira's Makeup
It takes Peterson an hour and a half to transform herself into that luscious lady of the dark side, Elvira, but it didn't take long for her to establish the character as the reigning queen of fright.

"It just took off," Peterson says.

It was a 1981 audition for a local Los Angeles television show that spawned the character who would make Peterson internationally famous.

"I was a struggling actress. I was in the L.A. improv group the Groundlings. I heard through a friend that they were trying to cast a horror hostess because the old horror host at KHJ in L.A. had died and they were trying to replace him," she tells me. "They had put out a casting call in the Los Angeles Times for a horror host."

Peterson's ability to ad-lib impressed the producers of the show so much that they hired her immediately, sans costume.

"Once I got this job, I looked like myself, and you had to come up with something," Peterson says. "At first I was thinking of an idea along the lines of Sharon Tate in 'Fearless Vampire Killers.' Ghostly pale, red hair."

But the producers insisted that she wear black. It was a good friend of Peterson's who eventually came up with the trademark trappings that make Elvira, um, pop.

"He came up with this idea in his head," Peterson tells me. "He said, 'You should have Ronnie Spector's hair from the Ronettes. You should have Kabuki makeup, and I'll just make you the tightest dress I can get, like a Morticia Addams-type dress.'

"And I was saying, 'Oh my God, there is no way they're going to let me wear this outfit on TV. (But) when the program manager saw it, he said, 'Can you make the slit on the leg a little higher?'"

With in a month, "Elvira's Movie Macabre" was a hit.

"It was like a month, and all of a sudden I could see it was going to take over my life," She tells me.

Viva Las Vegas
Long before Elvira was created, Peterson had a very different brush with greatness.

"I was a showgirl in Vegas and he came there in 1969," she told be about her chance meeting with the King himself, Elvis Presley.

"I met him and went to a party with him and talked to him. I actually sang on the piano with him," she recalls.

Presley also offered the teenager some career advice.

"He said, 'You should get out of here. This town is no good for you. You don't want to be a showgirl all your life,'" she says.

Presley suggested that Peterson take singing lessons.

"I went out the next day and started singing lessons. I mean the very next day," Peterson tells me.

Peterson also took Presley's other piece of advice and got out of Las Vegas. Moving to Los Angeles, Peterson began to land small roles on television.

"Yeah, I was dancing. I worked on the 'Tony Orlando & Dawn Show,' the 'Sonny & Cher Show,'" she says.

But it was her self-created role of Elvira that would eventually make her a star.

Elvira hit the mainstream in the mid-'80s, appearing on "The Tonight Show," "CHIPs," "The Richard Simmons Show," "Solid Gold," "The Fall Guy," "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" and "Bob Hope Buys NBC," and began starring in her own movies.

And while she was grateful to be working steadily, the success was bittersweet.

"For a while, I struggled with (the fame as Elvira)," she says. She thought, "Oh, my God, I'm typecast, I'll never do anything else."

"Now I'm thrilled about it. I have this one persona and then I can be completely anonymous when I want to and lead a normal life," she tells me.

Halloween, Too
You think your schedule is frightening? Try slipping into Elvira's pumps around Halloween. This star is booked tighter than Spago's on a Friday night.

"I'm Elvira all year long. I don't make as many appearances throughout other parts of the year, but I work as Elvira all year. I do a lot of merchandising and a lot of appearances," Peterson says.

"Every single year I keep thinking this is my last year of Elvira. Here it is 19 years later and it seems to be going as strong as it ever has. How many people can say that?"

Among her many gigs this season, Elvira will appear on "Hollywood Squares," host E!'s "Talk Soup," and host her show at Knott's "Scary" Farm in Southern California. She will also front the AMC documentary "Brides of Monstermania," which sounds frightfully fun.

"It's a fabulous documentary that Kevin Burns did. He did a really great job on this," Peterson says of the "Brides" program.

"It's a documentary of all the women villains in horror movies in horror movie history. It's really, really well done and interesting. Mostly they're really strong women and strong-willed. They're not the victims and wimps," she said.

Not only is Peterson running from one gig to another, she's putting the finishing touches on the script for her new movie, "Elvira's Haunted Hills," which is in pre-production.

The movie is about to start filming in Romania.

"It's a period piece set in the 19th century in Carpathia," she says. "(It's) a parody of all the old Roger Corman goth-type horror films from the '60s and '70s."

Elvira is, of course, playing Elvira.

Appearing Act
The biggest surprise for Peterson about Elvira, perhaps more than the character's ongoing popularity, is the fact that Elvira has become somewhat of a role model.

"It's hard to believe," the actress tells me. "I get so many letters or meet so many people that say I have changed their lives, I have given them hope when they're sick, I have given them an idea for their career. I'm so blown away by that.

"It sounds so bizarre, I know. For women, I truly believe the character is a role model. She's a strong woman who puts up with no crap from men. She does things her way."

Peterson has also used her fame to promote causes important to her, namely animal rights and AIDS.

"I do as much as I can," she tells me.

"My best friend, who designed my costume, passed away from AIDS, (as well as) most of my close friends. And when I say most, I am not kidding. My entire address book was just wiped out by the late '80s. People shouldn't let down their guard," Peterson says.

Clearly, Elvira is the internationally recognized Diva of the Dark. But behind the makeup is another strong woman who has achieved huge success in Hollywood.

And she's done it all on her own terms.

The Big Scoop