Cassandra Peterson - Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark

Magic is believing in yourself; if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Begin at the beginning, the King said, very gravely, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

Lewis Carroll

I nearly died when I was a baby. According to a palm reader I met when I was seventeen, I did. The lifeline on my right hand is severed by a short, deep crease that cuts across it at an angle, just after it begins. Then the line starts up again, ending in a star on each palm.

The fortune-teller held my right hand, bringing my palm closer to his face in the dim light. Silence. He lifted my left hand, which was resting on the table, to within inches of his eyes and squinted. You, my dear, he murmured in a deep, almost hypnotic voice, are destined for stardom.

If only hed foreseen what a long, strange trip it would be.

It was the summer of 1981. A B-list movie actor had just become the new president of the United States; Raiders of the Lost Ark debuted in theaters across the country; and my favorite record, John Lennon and Yoko Onos Double Fantasy, won the Grammy for album of the year.

I lay in bed on the 5th of July, gazing out the window at the piercing, azure-blue Aspen sky, when an even more piercing sound jolted me from my reverie: the shrill ringing of the phone on my bedside table. Mark, my husband of just twenty-four hours, managed to pry himself off me just long enough for me to answer it.

Mrs. Pierson? the hotel receptionist asked. For a split second I thought she was looking for my new mother-in-law, then I realized she meant me. Youve just received a call from a Dawna Kaufmann asking you to call her back right away. She said its urgent. With great fear and trepidation, not because I was afraid of what my friend Dawna had to say, but because I worried we couldnt afford the long distance call, I had the front desk transfer me to Dawnas apartment in Los Angeles.

This better be good, Dawna-ski. I sighed.

Cassandra-ski, youve got to get back to LA right now! she babbled into the phone. A friend of mine is holding auditions for a TV horror host and youd be perfect for it! Im not sure why we referred to each other with our version of Russian names, but wed done it ever since our days working together as assistants on the 70s musical variety TV show Don Kirshners Rock Concert. I imagine the names had something to do with the term brewskis.

Theres an old unspoken showbiz superstition that whenever you leave LA, youre sure to get the call for that audition of a lifetime. Id dragged my sorry ass back to Los Angeles one too many times, cutting short a multitude of pleasure trips, and had I ever aced the part? What do you think? If I had, Mark and I would be honeymooning at the Four Seasons in Bali instead of near my hometown in the Colorado Rockies.

Are you out of your mind? I sputtered into the receiver. My husband rolled off me, groaning like Frankensteins monster.

First of all, whats a horror host? I asked. You know damn well I just got married yesterday. Theres no way Im coming home for another stupid audition that I wont

Listen! Just listen a minute, Dawna interrupted.

I sighed and leaned back in bed, prepared for a huge long-distance bill.

This guy I know, Larry Thomas, is a director at a local TV station in LA and hes reviving their late-night horror movie show, she rambled. Theyve got tons of scary films they want to air but need someone to host them. The last guy they had was Sinister Seymour, but he died. Larry really likes the idea of replacing him with a sexy Morticia Addams type.

KHJ Channel 9 had a long-standing tradition of showing late-night horror movies book-ended by a ghoulishly gruesome horror host. It began in the local Los Angeles market in 1954 with The Vampira Show, the very first horror host on TV. Her show lasted only a few months on KABC in LA but was later picked up by Channel 9. Again, it was short-lived, but marked the beginning of the horror-movie host, a tradition that would endure for decades. Vampira was followed in 1972 by Fright Night, hosted by Moona Lisa in her tight, black catsuit. The most recent KHJ horror host had been Sinister Seymour, played by Larry Vincent, who entertained the LA market until his demise in 1974. Since then, KHJ had remained horror hostless.

Now they were looking to fill two hours of late-night programming by bringing back their library of B-movie horror films.

Dawna-ski, I really cant, I protested.

Dawna ignored me and barreled ahead. I told him all about you and it turns out hes seen you perform at the Groundlings. Small world, huh? He loved that valley-girl thing you do! Dawna paused to catch her breath. Anyway, he really wants an actress who can play both sexy and funny and he hasnt been able to find one. Youd be perfect!

Dawna was right about one thing: finding a woman who was both sexy and funny was a tall order in those days. Women were allowed to be sexy or funny, but not both. If you were the least bit attractive it was impossible to have a sense of humor. If you were funny, you needed to look like Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, or Joan Rivers (with their original faces). I loved old horror movies and Id been working in LAs top comedy improvisational group, the Groundlings, for a little more than four years, so had the timing been better, horror host actually seemed like a bill I could have filled. Damn.