Cassandra Peterson | |
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 Peterson in 2011 | |
| Born | Cassandra Gay Peterson[1] (1951-09-17)September 17, 1951 (age 74)[2] Manhattan, Kansas, U.S. |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1970–present |
| Works | Full list |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Teresa Wierson (2002–present) |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | elvira |
| Signature | |
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Cassandra Gay Peterson[1] (/kəˈsɑːndrəˈpiːtɜːrsən/kuh-SAHN-druh; born September 17, 1951) is an American actress best known for her portrayal of thehorror hostess characterElvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson gained fame onLos Angeles television stationKHJ-TV in her stage persona as Elvira, hostingElvira's Movie Macabre, a weeklyB movie presentation. A member of the Los Angeles-basedimprovisational andsketch comedy troupeThe Groundlings, Peterson based her Elvira persona in part on a "Valley girl"-type character she created while a member of the troupe.
The popularity ofElvira's Movie Macabre led to the 1988 filmElvira: Mistress of the Dark, and later the 2001 filmElvira's Haunted Hills, both starring Peterson as Elvira. The television show was revived in 2010, featuring Elvira hostingpublic domain films, and airing onThis TV until 2011. Elvira returned as a horror hostess in 2014 with13 Nights of Elvira, a 13-episode series produced byHulu, and again in 2021 for a one-night four-part 40th Anniversary Special that aired onShudder.
Peterson has madecameo appearances as Elvira in a number of films and television programs, including appearing as a guest commentator duringWrestleMania 2 and as a guest judge onRuPaul's Drag Race,The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, andHalloween Wars. She also had a cameo inPee-wee's Big Adventure.
Peterson was born on September 17, 1951,[2] inManhattan, Kansas. When she was a toddler, she was scalded by boiling water, which required skin grafts to cover over 35% of her body to heal, resulting in her having to spend three months in the hospital.[3][4] Her family relocated toColorado Springs, Colorado, where her mother and aunt operated a costume shop.[5]
In a 2011 interview, Peterson stated that, as a child, she was more fascinated by horror-themed toys while other girls were occupied withBarbie dolls.[6] In elementary school, she watchedHouse on Haunted Hill, which was the firsthorror film she ever saw.[7] She trained in ballet before her breasts grew too large to do so ("Going across the floor was likeboing-boing-boing").[5] During her teens, Peterson worked as adrag queengo-go dancer in a Colorado Springsgay bar[8] and as a go-go dancer atClub A-Go-Go, a nightclub in Colorado Springs, and for soldiers atFort Carson.[9] She graduated fromPalmer High School in Colorado Springs.
She cited among her early comic influencesPhyllis Diller,Totie Fields andAnne Meara.[10]
Inspired byAnn-Margret in the filmViva Las Vegas, while on a trip toLas Vegas, Nevada, during high school, she persuaded her parents to let her see a live show where she was noticed by the production staff; despite being only 17 years old, she persuaded her parents to let her sign a contract.[11] Immediately after graduating high school, she drove back to Las Vegas, where she became ashowgirl inFrederic Apcar's pioneering "Vive Les Girls!" atThe Dunes; there, she metElvis Presley, with whom she went on a date.[12] She played a topless dancer in the filmThe Working Girls (1974).
In the early 1970s, Peterson moved toItaly and became lead singer of the Italianrock bands I Latins 80[13][dead link] and The Snails. After being introduced to film directorFederico Fellini by the producer of a documentary on Las Vegas showgirls in which she had appeared, she landed a small part in the filmRoma (1972).[14] When she returned to the United States, she worked at thePlayboy Club inMiami as a showgirl in the 1973 revueFantasies of Love au Naturel and later signed up withHugh Hefner's Playboy Modeling Agency, working as a hostess and model.[15] She also toured nightclubs and discos around the country with a musical/comedy act, Mama's Boys.[16]
In her 2021 memoirYours Cruelly, Elvira, she writes "Perhaps the biggest mistake I made in my twenties was posing nude for a husband-and-wife photography team, who bullshitted me into doing what they said was a 'test shoot' forPenthouse magazine. They guaranteed me it would never be seen anywhere publicly."[17] She adds "I never saw or heard from them again, and as far as I knew, that was the end of that... until 1981 when I became famous. Those photos, pubic hair and all, appeared in every sleazy men's magazine on the stand and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."[17] However, Peterson appeared in severaladult magazines in the 1970s, includingModern Man,Playgirl, andSwank, among others.[18][19][20][21]
In 1979, she joined the Los Angeles-basedimprovisational troupeThe Groundlings, where she created aValley girl-type character upon whom the Elvira persona is largely based.[22]
Peterson was one of two finalists for the role ofGinger Grant for the thirdGilligan's Island television movie in 1981 but was dropped before filming.[23] Shortly after that,KHJ-TV offered her thehorror host position.[24]
In 1981, six years after the death ofLarry Vincent, who starred as host Sinister Seymour of a Los Angeles weekend horror show calledFright Night, show producers began to bring the show back.[25]
The producers decided to use a hostess. They asked 1950s'horror hostessMaila Nurmi to reviveThe Vampira Show. Nurmi worked on the project for a short time, but quit when the producers would not hireLola Falana to play Vampira.[26] The station sent out acasting call, and Peterson auditioned and won the role. Producers left it up to her to create the role's image. She and her best friend, Robert Redding, came up with the sexygoth/vampire look after producers rejected her original idea to look likeSharon Tate's character inThe Fearless Vampire Killers.[27] They created the Elvira look by drawing inspiration from aKabuki makeup book and the hairstyles ofThe Ronettes.[28][29]
Shortly before the first taping, producers received acease and desist letter from Nurmi. Besides the similarities in the format and costumes, Elvira's closing line for each show, wishing her audience "Unpleasant dreams," was notably similar to Vampira's closer: "Bad dreams, darlings..." uttered as she walked off down a misty corridor. The court 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 Vampira's image was based onMorticia Addams, a character inCharles Addams's cartoons that appeared inThe New Yorker magazine.[30]
Peterson's Elvira character rapidly gained notice with her tight-fitting, low-cut, cleavage-displaying black gown. Adopting the flippant tone of aCalifornia "Valley girl", she brought a satirical, sarcastic edge to her commentary. She reveled in dropping risqué double entendres and making frequent jokes about her cleavage. In anAOL Entertainment News interview, Peterson said, "I figured out that Elvira is me when I was a teenager. She's a spastic girl. I just say what I feel and people seem to enjoy it." Her camp humor, sex appeal, and good-natured self-mockery made her popular with late-night movie viewers and her popularity soared.[31]
The Elvira character soon evolved from an obscurecult figure to a lucrative brand. She has been associated with many products through the 1980s and 1990s, includingHalloween costumes, comic books,[32][33] action figures, trading cards, pinball machines, Halloween decor, model kits, calendars, perfume and dolls. She has appeared on the cover ofFemme Fatales magazine five times.[31] In 1984, she hosted her own six-hour Halloween special onMTV, which included skits and music videos and returned to host another four-hour Halloween special in 1986.[34] That same year, she also was a guest commentator atWrestlemania 2 in the Los Angeles segments alongsideJesse Ventura andLord Alfred Hayes. Elvira's popularity reached its zenith with the release of the 1988 feature filmElvira: Mistress of the Dark, on whose script Peterson collaborated withJohn Paragon and Sam Egan.[35] From 1989 through 1991, Peterson appeared as Elvira in a series of commercials promotingWorld Championship Wrestling's annualHalloween Havocpay-per-view events.[36][37][38]
After several years of attempts to make a sequel toElvira: Mistress of the Dark, Cassandra and her manager and then-husband Mark Pierson decided to finance a second movie. In November 2000, Peterson wrote, again in collaboration with Paragon, and co-producedElvira's Haunted Hills. The film was shot inRomania for just under one million dollars. With little budget left for promotion, Cassandra and Mark screened the film atAIDS charity fund raisers acrossAmerica.[39] For many people in attendance, this was their first opportunity to see the woman behind the Elvira character. On July 5, 2002,Elvira's Haunted Hills had its official premiere inHollywood. Elvira arrived at the premiere in her Macabre Mobile. The film was later screened at the 2003Cannes Film Festival.[40]
In September 2010,Elvira's Movie Macabre returned totelevision syndication, this time with public domain films.[41] In October 2014, it was revealed that a new series of thirteen episodes had been produced,13 Nights of Elvira forHulu. The show premiered on October 19, 2014, running through to Halloween.[42]
As of September 2018, Peterson was working to develop a direct sequel to 1988'sElvira: Mistress of the Dark, as well as an animated Elvira project.[43]
In 1985, Elvira began hosting a home video series calledThrillerVideo, a division ofInternational Video Entertainment (IVE). Many of these films were hand-selected by Peterson. Choosing to stay away from the more explicitcannibal,slasher andzombie films of the time, these were generally tamer films such asThe Monster Club andDan Curtis television films, as well as many episodes of theHammer House of Horror television series. Since she had refused to hostMake Them Die Slowly,Seven Doors of Death, andBuried Alive, however, the videos were released on theThrillerVideo label without Elvira's appearance as hostess. After this, several extended episodes[44] of the British namesake seriesThriller (i.e.,The Devil's Web,A Killer in Every Corner,Murder Motel) were also released without an appearance by Elvira; in some, such asBuried Alive, the cast replaced her.
The success of theThriller Video series led to a second video set,Elvira's Midnight Madness, released throughRhino Home Video. In 2004 a DVD horror-film collection calledElvira's Box of Horrors was released, marking Elvira's return to horror-movie hostessing after a ten-year absence.
In 1993, she filmed a pilot forCBS calledThe Elvira Show. An expansion of the 1988 film with a sitcom setting, the premise had Elvira and her family moving into a new neighborhood with her older aunt and dealing with nosy neighbors and uptight conservatives who all want them to move out. It also starredKatherine Helmond,Phoebe Augustine,Cristine Rose,Ted Henning,Lynne Marie Stewart,Claudette Wells,John Paragon, Laurie Faso, andBasil Hoffman. It was not picked up by a TV network.[45][46]
In an interview with Josh Korngut onDread Central'sDevelopment Hell podcast, Peterson revealed cancelled plans for an Elvira "buddy comedy" where the Mistress of the Dark took a road-trip to hell. She also detailed plans for anEdward Scissorhands–inspired animated feature film revealing Elvira's origins with the holiday of Halloween.[47]
Peterson has also portrayed non-Elvira roles in many other films, most notablyPee-wee's Big Adventure in 1985 alongside friend and fellowGroundlingPaul Reubens, who starred as hisPee-wee Herman character;Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, released in 1987, which starredRichard Chamberlain andSharon Stone; and 2010'sAll About Evil, as a mother named Linda Thompson who says not to go to the old theater to watch scary movies. Peterson also appeared inRob Zombie'sThe Munsters movie in 2022.[48][49]
In the 1970s, Peterson had a liaison withJon Voight as well as withRobert De Niro during the filming ofThe Godfather Part II.[50] Peterson married musician Mark Pierson in 1981, and he soon became her personal manager. They had one daughter. They divorced in 2003.[51]
Peterson revealed in 2008 that she had lost her virginity to singerTom Jones, calling the experience "painful and horrible".[52]
Peterson released her memoir,Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, on September 21, 2021. She revealed in the book that she has been in a relationship with a woman, Teresa "T" Wierson, since 2002. They began their romantic relationship following Peterson's separation from her husband.[53] In the book, she also accused basketball playerWilt Chamberlain of raping her during a party at hisBel Air mansion in the 1970s.[54][55][56]
Peterson was avegetarian for many years; as of 2021, she continues to maintain a "mostly vegetarian" diet[57] consisting mostly of organic food.[58] She maintains a "toned...down" regimen of yoga, pilates and physical activity for self-care, and reduced her previous heavy drinking to a more moderate level.[58][5] In 2025, Peterson protested against the role of Elon Musk in the Trump Administration by having the words "Elon Sux" added to the side of her Tesla. After circulating a video of herself driving it around Portland she posed in front of it with a chainsaw and donated the vehicle toNational Public Radio as a fundraiser.[59]
Peterson indicated she had stopped portraying Elvira in character by 2025, stating that she could no longer wear the outfit convincingly at her age: "people really don't want to see Elvira be 90 years old."[58][5] She has continued to manage, franchise and merchandise the Elvira brand, under the premise that Elvira had become a mythical character that transcended Peterson and could now be adapted to media without her physically present; she compared Elvira's presence on Halloween to be akin toSanta Claus onChristmas.[58]
Peterson recorded several songs and skits for her Elvira Halloween albums in the 1980s and 1990s:
She also performed on a track called "Zombie Killer" for the bandLeslie and the LY's, released in February 2008. The music video for the track features Leslie and the LY's performing to a sold-out audience ofzombies in a fictional venue called "Elvira Stadium". A 7" single was released. In 2018, she collaborated with singerKim Petras on the title track of Petras' EPTurn Off the Light, Vol. 1 and subsequent mixtapeTurn Off the Light.
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