WEBVTT - Vampira 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:06.840 Ephemeral is a production of iHeart three D audio for 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.440 full exposure. Listen with that phones. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.800 It's that magical time of year, full of monsters, ghouls, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.520 and all manner of horror movies. In the nineteen fifties, 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.240 a new idea in horror hit the airwaves, repurposing vintage 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.920 scary films for a TV audience. The host of this 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.559 endeavor was also something the public had never seen before, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:40.760 iconic for her piercing screams, morbid humor, and suggestive costume. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.159 Her name was Myla Nermi, better known by the character 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.519 she created, Vampira, not to be confused with Elvira, but 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.080 more on that later. Today, producer Trevor Young takes us 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.440 through the haunting life and legacy of one of horror's 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.360 most influential character, Vampire. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.320 What I need is a vampire of cocktails to settle 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:11.480 my nose. It'll not only settle them, it will petrifize 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:21.640 a vampire cockpail. You like it, it hates you. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.760 She was sexy, but she was untouchable. She had a 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.559 sense of humor, a bizarre sense of humor. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.520 I've had several letters asking whether olives or carries should 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.880 be used in making my cocktail. Well, actually neither is necessary, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.240 since they'd only disintegrate upon being put into the cocktail. However, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:45.000 if you want to use some gun, if you can 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.880 drop in an eyeball once you happen to have an 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:50.320 extra one around the house. 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.480 This was the nineteen fifties, this was during the Eisenhower administration, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.880 and no one had ever seen a person like my 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.640 And she was on television and here she was talking 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.160 about how sad it was that her sister had died 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.080 and they had to bury her alive, and that she 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.760 had Yellow Cross insurance that you could buy because if 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:21.320 you were an unsuccessful suicide, you would have insurance to 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.040 try again. My name is Sandra Niemi, and I am 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.760 the author of the book Glamour Ghoul, which is a 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:36.679 biography of my aunt Mila Normie aka Vampire. 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.320 Sandra. So she never really knew her aunt Mala all 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.720 that well, but knew about her from TV. Decades later, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.919 in the nineteen eighties, Sandra decided to track her aunt 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.840 Mila down, who by this point was in her mid 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:51.800 to late sixties. 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.480 I was always obsessed with her, and I think that 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.760 was because I was an only child and I always 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.800 wanted a family, a bigger family. And I had this 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:10.440 aunt Mila in Hollywood that I knew was beautiful and 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.200 I thought as a child, kind of a celebrity. And 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.160 I enlisted the help of the Red Cross to try 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.040 to find Myla, and they couldn't find her. Well. At 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.680 that time, she was going by an alias, and that 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.200 alias was Helen Heaven, so that's why they couldn't find 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.000 Mila nor Me. I remained obsessed. I have to know her. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.640 I wanted to talk to her. And then one day 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.320 a state would have it. I got a Star magazine 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.120 and there was Mila nor Me suing Alvirah for ten 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:48.400 million dollars, and I went, she's a live. Mila's alive. 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:54.080 And I immediately sat down and wrote a letter to 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.320 her attorneys who were mentioned in this article, and I said, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.160 please for this letter, and they did, and Mila responded 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:09.240 right away, and we had a long letter writing campaign, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.280 and it wasn't that long before I said, you know, 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.200 I'm going to come to Los Angeles and off my 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:20.160 daughter and I went to Hollywood to see Mila. I 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.719 spent a week with Mila. I got to know her. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:30.120 We continued writing and then at Christmas time of ninety two, 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.080 she quit writing, and that hurt my feelings. I thought 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.000 I had her her feelings or she was mad at 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.799 me for whatever reason. I didn't know. And I even 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.680 called the police to get a welfare check because I 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:50.159 thought maybe she died, but they said no, she's fine, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.680 and so I just left her alone. Then I found 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.440 out in the newspaper that she died in two thousand 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.680 and eight. January tenth went to Los Angeles and got 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.280 granted to go into her apartment and started picking up 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:08.960 all of her writings. 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.880 Inside Myla's apartment, Sandra found an astoundingly detailed record of 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:15.719 her aunt's life. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:23.560 It was full of papers and magazines and folders, and 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.440 I thought, oh, well, this is how I can know 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.960 who she really was. This is exciting to me. And 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.039 I had a friend with me helping me, and I 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:39.200 told her anything that you find with Mila's handwriting, keep 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.040 it well, put it in plastic bags and pictures and 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.880 you know, photos and things like that. When we came 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.960 out of there, I had three black garbage bags full 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:55.960 of writing, and sometimes there was a cohesiveness to it. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.680 There were pages and pages and pages on notebook paper 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.160 that she had written on both sides, and sometimes it 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.120 was just a little note, like a scrap of paper, 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:13.320 or written in the margin of a calendar. I found 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.040 a half page glued to the back of a picture 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.320 that was hanging on the wall. I found wadded up 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:26.640 pieces of notebook paper in pockets of old clothes, and 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.719 I just gathered everything up. I also found a real 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.480 Turreal tape, and when we played it, she had recorded 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:42.120 it in nineteen sixty six. But anyway, I have two diaries, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.240 a nineteen forty forty one forty two diary and a 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.520 nineteen fifty six diary. And boy, am I glad I 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.359 got the nineteen fifty six diary because that was a 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.479 very busy year for Vampire. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.960 And since then Sandra has spent years sifting through that ephemera, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:08.440 dedicating herself to chronicling the story of Myela Nurmi aka Vampire. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.920 She was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then her father 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:17.440 got a job in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, so they moved there. 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:22.680 And in nineteen twenty six, her father, who was an 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:27.320 editor of a Finnish newspaper in America, there was a 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.880 civil war going in Finland and he wanted to be 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.320 right there to see what was going on so he 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.400 could report it. And he decided to take his wife's 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:43.119 inheritance and go to Finland for maybe a year, he said, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.560 And he left his wife and his two small children, 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.840 and he came back a year later, and my grandmother 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:56.560 had completely changed. She was no longer this submissive housewife. 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:02.120 She was defiant, and she had learned to alcohol. Then 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.040 the family moved to Ashbuela, Ohio, and they were there 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:10.240 for maybe ten years. Mila had friends, and then in 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:15.240 the winter of nineteen thirty four he was sent to Duluth, 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:17.880 and it was in the heart of the depression, and 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.400 they almost starved to death when they lost his job. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.000 He was only doing a few hours on the radio 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.880 a week, and it wasn't enough to sustain them. They 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.959 didn't even have electricity, They had very little food. Finally, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.560 an angel came through and said they wanted him back 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:43.880 in Ashabula, So back they went and thrived. Mila accompanied 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.400 her father on lecture tours. He was much in demand, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.320 he said himself. He was the man of ten thousand speeches, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.440 and he lectured against the evils of alcohol, of course, 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:03.120 and he lectured for a president. He was paid to 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:07.720 stump for Herbert Hoover, and later on he became a 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:13.120 huge ponent of FDR. But Mala went with him and 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.280 sometimes she spoke too, but she listened to all of 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:22.920 his sermonizing. She knew his fire and brimstone approach. Mala 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.319 told her father that she wanted to be an artist, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:32.640 and my grandfather thought artists meant someone who painted or 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.640 drew pictures. He didn't know the meaning of what she meant. 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.680 She wanted to be an artiste, you know, to be 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.959 free and to be friends with people like her and 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:48.320 nothing to do with domesticity at all, no way. She 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.120 wanted freedom to express herself, to be created. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.760 Eventually, the family settled in a story at Oregon, but 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.240 apparently Mala quickly got bored and yearned for a more 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.080 exciting life. 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.560 She was going to go to New York, and the 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:09.199 parents put the kibosh on that and only agreed to 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.439 allow her to go to Los Angeles, where her mother's 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:17.000 brother and wife lived. And that's how she got to Hollywood, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.720 and that's where Mila started looking for work, first as 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:27.160 a radio moonologist. She was interested, very very much interested 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.600 in being the first female or some wells because she 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.360 was enamor with Orson when she heard him speak on 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:35.920 the radio. 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:37.240 Strange. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.640 It now seems to sit in my peaceful study, Princeton 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:42.199 writing down. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.480 This last chapter of the record. Begun at a deserted 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:45.959 farm and. 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.480 Grover's new Strange to watch children playing in the streets. 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.640 The sound of his voice and the words that he chose, 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.800 and he was her God. That was who she wanted 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.240 to be. But she didn't have much luck getting a 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:02.760 job in that area. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:03.640 You know. 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.119 She tried a few things. She worked in a department 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.360 store and was a model perhaps and print ads because 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:12.760 she had this beautiful face. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.240 It was also around this time that Mala started developing 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.400 her unique fashion sense, and it was largely inspired by 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:22.520 a certain Disney movie. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:24.400 This is no Alder. 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:34.640 It's a magic wishing apple, wishing apple, one Mike and 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.480 all your dreams come true. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:43.080 Real, yeah, girl. She went to see snow White and 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.560 she was watching it and there was snow White and 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.400 coming and happy and this good little girl and washing 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.680 the dishes of the dwarfs and doing their laundry and 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.800 singing while doing it, and oh my god, Mila was 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.040 sickened by that. But then when the Evil Queen came 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:08.560 on the stage, all powerful and sexy and beautiful and 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:14.280 demanding and in control. That's when Mila's brain exploded, and 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.720 that's when she said, that's who I want to be. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.840 I don't want to be evil, but I want to 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:26.080 be everything. She is the evil Queen, and she never 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:30.080 forgot that. She adapted part of the evil Queen persona 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:31.120 into vampire. 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.720 Like many people starting off in Hollywood, Mila had a 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.679 number of tough breaks and terrible experiences. Early on. 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.040 She went to I can't remember the person's name, but 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:48.920 they were advertising for a radio monologist, exactly what Mila did, 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.679 and so she applied. Now, mind you, she's only nineteen 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.160 years old from Astoria, Ore again and goes into this 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.920 shabby little studio type thing and the guy is there 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.679 by himself, and he tricks her into signing a piece 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.480 of paper and he takes her in the bag to 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.880 take her picture, and then he asked her to become 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.560 nude from the waist up, and all she had to 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:15.760 cover herself was some see through scarves. And Mila was horrified. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.440 She knew she was locked in and to that office, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.880 to that back part of that office, she couldn't escape, 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.679 and it was upstairs. No one would hear her scream, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:32.640 so she complied, and he took pictures of her with 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:37.960 these scarves. She couldn't wait to get dressed, and as 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.079 she flew out of the office after he unlocked it, 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.000 he said, the proofs will be ready on Wednesday or whatever, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:49.440 and she just stormed out, running away from the man. 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.760 And of course it was just a sham because the 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.200 proofs never showed up, and even when she went back 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.640 to the office, the guy was gone and locked up. 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:04.280 He was charlatan. And then she tried to I can't 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.640 remember who mister Clark, I think his name was. She 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.600 went to interview for a job there, and he made 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.440 a pass at her. He started moving his hands up 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:20.000 her skirt and she wrestled him and ended up breaking 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.080 his glasses and ran out of his office. And then 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.960 she said to herself, Hollywood is just filthy. Those were 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.000 her words that she wrote. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.360 But one day she met someone who had changed her 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:34.040 life forever. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.680 She went with a friend of hers because it was 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.560 the friend's birthday, ended up at Musso and Franks. They 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:47.200 had grabbed a serviceman outside to be their escort into 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.680 the bar because Mila wasn't twenty one yet. But they 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.240 went in with the soldier and they sat down. Of course, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.040 they got served, and then Mala heard this voice in 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.640 the back of her and she couldn't believe her ears 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:07.080 was Orson Wells in person, her God, and she couldn't 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.480 help herself, and she ran over to his table and 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.600 started babbling whatever it is that she did. Then realized 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.840 that she had interrupted him in his dinner companions and 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.720 apologized and went back to her table, which was now gone. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:29.280 Her friend and the soldier boy had decided to googigan out, 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.320 so now she was alone. So she just sat there 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.720 wondering what to do. And here comes Orson Wells over 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.680 to her cable by himself and invites her over to 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.280 his table. So she goes over there and it's time 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:49.040 to go, and he calls the cab and gives her 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.040 a kiss. She lived in a hotel then, I think 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.840 the Commodore hotel. He got out of the cab and 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.320 he said, I want to see where you live, and 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.040 he walked her to the door. He didn't kiss her again. 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.120 He left shortly thereafter. A bouquet of flowers arrived at 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:10.200 the desk they began a romance. At the time, it 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:15.560 was during the war, and Orson was always into magic, 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.480 and he was putting up a type of carnival off 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.520 LaBrea in Los Angeles, where there were all kinds of 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.760 tints and games, and he had his celebrity friends come 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.160 and do tricks like sawing a woman in half and 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.760 eating snakes and all of this sort of carnival kind 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:42.760 of stuff. Well, Orson had quit sending flowers or coming 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.760 after Mila and had been quite a while, and Mila 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.400 was getting a little alarmed. What has happened? Has he 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.680 ditched me? Is he not interested in me anymore? What's 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.880 going on? She went to the little house on Hacienda 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.360 that she had been seeing Orson at, and a man 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.480 showed up in a bath robe and it wasn't Orson, 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.760 and he said he didn't know him, mister Wells, And 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.280 so Mila left. She thought, well, maybe he's moved. I 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.000 don't know that man. Then she went to the carnival 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.120 to look for Orson. There were pictures of all these 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.440 celebrities that were going to be appearing, and she looked 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.440 up one of these pictures and it was the man 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:27.000 in the bath robe and his name was Joseph Cotton. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.760 He was a famous actor in those days and also 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.960 a very close friend of Orson else. So then Mylea 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:41.600 put tuned two together. H these two men have rented 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:47.680 this house to entertain their girlfriends, whoever they may be, 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.240 and so I'm just one of his girlfriends. God only 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:58.280 knows how many more girlfriends he's gone. Then, while Myla 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:04.080 was stewing in her apartment and not working, she realized 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.480 that she was pregnant and it was Orson Wells's child. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.000 And very shortly, like the same day or the next day, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.080 she was listening to the radio and they announced that 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:22.320 Arson Wells had married Rita Haywarth that morning at city Hall. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:28.760 So Mala's world was plunged into complete blackness, if you 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.480 can imagine. 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.840 The sun was put up for adoption, and up until 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.720 only very recently, no one knew who the secret child was. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.840 But after she gave birth, Mala decided to shake off 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.200 her grief and focus on her career, and that's when 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:57.000 she got her first big break. After an initial string 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.080 of disasters in Los Angeles, Mala moved to New York 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.359 City and there she nailed a role in a stage 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.440 play called Catherine was great with May West. 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:13.200 She got a part as a handmaiden, and Catherine was great, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:19.400 but she irritated May West because she overacted, and May said, 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.119 as an asside to the director, doesn't have to be 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:28.560 so big, because Mala was supposed to scream and fall 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.359 to the floor and faint as she was informed her 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:35.800 husband died and Mala went overboard, and May didn't like it. 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:40.240 She didn't want to be upstaged, and eventually May fired 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.840 Mila after several months on Broadway. 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.480 While she was in New York, Mila made another celebrity friend, 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:48.920 Marlon Brando. 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.960 And yet before this evening is over your mind and 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:58.399 give me the brush, you might forget your manners. You 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:04.840 might refuse to stay. He was in his first Broadway 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.080 plate and it was called I Remember Mama. So they 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.640 were both on Broadway at the same time. And one 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.920 of the other handmaidens that was in Catherine was Great 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.440 was dating Marlon Brando, and she was bitching and complaining 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.920 about what a cad he was. He was there one 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.320 time for her and then he was missing, and she 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.920 just couldn't take it anymore. So Mila listened and listened, thought, 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.800 you know, give me this guy's address. I'm going to 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.600 go over here and take care of him. He's just 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:36.880 not going to treat you like that. So she did. 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.320 She went over there about two thirty three o'clock one morning, 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.600 knocked on the door, and this guy answered, and it 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.399 was Marlon, and she started reading him the Riot Act 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.160 and he invited her into his apartment, and she didn't 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.880 leave until noon the next day. And her friend from 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.480 the play never spoke to her again, because obviously Myla 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:03.840 enjoyed herself with Marlon Brando. They started well. She never 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.080 came right out and said it was a romance, but 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.199 I'm pretty sure it was because she said I have 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:14.359 to keep my female side under control, because obviously she 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.719 found him very attractive. And they dated. I have a 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.520 photo as an eight by ten and Marlon is in 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.760 costume for a movie. It looks like a revolutionary four 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.280 type uniform and Mala's dressed at the nines like she's 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.679 going out for dinner. I have it and it's very 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:34.760 very important to me. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.800 Then Mala got cast in a horror slash burlesque Broadway 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.200 show called Spook Scandals. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.400 And it only played for one night, but that one 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.680 night turned out to be pretty great for my love, 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:56.360 because she was inundated with offers from Hollywood by famous 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:01.359 directors and producers, and she had her pick of who 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.879 to choose to go to Hollywood and be interviewed by, 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:09.040 and she chose Howard Hawks. He was the man who 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:15.720 discovered Lauren Bacall, and he was very, very famous. Everybody 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.560 knew Howard Haws. He was a big deal. And she 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.200 went home. She had a contract with Howard Hawks, and 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.679 she waited for I don't know how long, maybe it 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.600 was a couple of days, and the phone never rang. Well. 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.840 Mila was incensed, and she went back to Howard Cox 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.440 and sat in his office and took out the contract 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.800 from her purse and ripped it up into pieces and 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:44.919 threw it on his desk and said to him, and 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.840 she wrote this down, please kindly dispose the piece in 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.560 your nearest wastebasket. And out the door she went, thus 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:58.720 killing any opportunities she would ever have to be an actress. 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:04.439 Since she was blacklisted from traditional acting roles, Mila decided 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.320 she would work on doing her own thing, something entirely 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:11.159 unique and fringe from Hollywood, and in October of nineteen 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.600 fifty three, she unveiled a new persona at the bow 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:17.560 Karribe Masquerade Ball. 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:22.119 Apparently this val Cared was an annual event right before Halloween. 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.119 It was a costume ball and it was held at 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:28.560 the Moulin Rouge. So he told Mila about it, and 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.159 he said, you have to come and just put on 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.000 a costume. Income it's so much fun and they'll be prizes. 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.440 And Mila thought, wow, maybe I should do that because 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.879 I'm wanting to get discovered. I want to be on television. 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.560 Because she knew the door to movies was shut, so 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:52.600 she decided to go as Charles Adams unnamed character at 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:56.480 the time from his cartoon strip The Adams Family. 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:00.200 So I went there and I practiced my mctory Marian 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:04.720 Kourtchy because I expected to win. But I had lavender makeup, 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.119 you know, partty with a little lavender looking as I 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:09.199 had risen from the grave turned a little blue, you know. 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.200 Therefooted like that. The lady was flat chested. 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:16.960 She bought some rayon from a fabric store, and she 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:21.840 rented a wig from Max Factor and Indian Wig, so 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:25.240 it was a long black wig, and then she applied 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.720 her own makeup. She went barefoot and The dress was 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.200 low in the back, eye in the front. She did 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:34.919 not sins her waist, She just wore it. The dress 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:39.919 loose and raggedy. The sleeves were tattered and the hamline 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:44.000 was tattered. And she put on tomb like makeup. She said, 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:47.720 very very white, with a little bit of purple lavender. 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:53.680 They went to the ball and Mila won the costume prize, 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:57.680 which was a transistor radio. But she had caught the 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:03.679 eye of Hunt Stromberg program manag ABC Channel two, Los Angeles, 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:08.320 and he looked for her for five months, from October 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:12.920 to March. He finally talked to this guy, the one 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:15.520 who had encouraged her the beginning to go to the 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.399 Bowl thrib and he says, oh, she's easy to find. 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.000 So they found me and they told me to come in, 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.560 and I came in. He said, come in costume. And 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.760 I came in during the Eyes of March wearing a 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:31.280 great Valenciaga cape coat and the winds winds of the 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:34.000 Eyes of March were flapping it and people were coming 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:38.120 out of a little bummelow saying, oh, there's Hunts vampire there. 0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:40.639 I had no hair. You just didn't see ladies with 0:25:40.680 --> 0:25:42.920 crew cuts in those days. But I had all sorts 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:45.000 of things women didn't see in those days, you know. 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:48.679 And Mila was interviewed by hunt Stromberg. He told her 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:51.199 what he wanted. He wanted her to be the horror host. 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:55.120 And she said, well, who else are you going to have? 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:58.440 From Adam's family. It was a cartoon that was published 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:01.479 in the New Yorker in those days. And he said, oh, well, 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:04.120 you know, we can't afford anybody else. We just want you. 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:06.880 And Mala said, well, I can't possibly do it then, 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:11.240 because you would be ripping off Charles Adams. This particular 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:15.800 character is his character. And he says, well, then I 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:17.840 don't know what we're going to do. And she says, well, 0:26:17.920 --> 0:26:20.640 can I come up with something a little different? And 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:24.120 he says, I'll give you four days. So Mila went 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:29.399 home and she took her costume from October and turned 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:30.720 it backwards. 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:35.280 So then I saw a book by John Willie Bondage 0:26:35.320 --> 0:26:38.800 and Discipline. I said, ah, that's it. I had been 0:26:38.840 --> 0:26:41.359 a pinup model. I've been doing cheesecake right at that time. 0:26:41.640 --> 0:26:44.200