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Maila Nurmi is a Actor Finlandaise born on 11 december 1922 at Pechenga (urban-type settlement), Murmansk Oblast (Russie)

Maila Nurmi

Maila Nurmi
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Birth name Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi
Nationality Finlande
Birth 11 december 1922 at Pechenga (urban-type settlement), Murmansk Oblast (Russie)
Death 10 january 2008 (at 85 years) at Los Angeles (USA)

Maila Nurmi (December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008) was a Finnish-American actress born in Petsamo, Finland, who created the campy 1950s character
Vampira. She portrayed Vampira as TV's first horror host and in the Ed Wood cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space. She is also billed as Vampira in the 1959 movie The Beat Generation where she plays a beatnik poet.

Biography

In the early 1950s, Nurmi was close friends with James Dean, and they spent time together at Googie's coffee shop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She explained their friendship by saying, "We have the same neuroses." Dean allegedly repudiated their friendship toward the end of his brief life. As Hedda Hopper related in a 1962 memoir that included a chapter on Dean: "We discussed the thin-cheeked actress who calls herself Vampira on television (and cashed in, after Jimmy died, on the publicity she got from knowing him and claimed she could talk to him 'through the veil'). He said: 'I had studied The Golden Bough and the Marquis de Sade, and I was interested in finding out if this girl was obsessed by a satanic force. She knew absolutely nothing. I found her void of any true interest except her Vampira make-up. She has no absolute.'"

The 2010 public radio documentary Vampira and Me by author/director R. H. Greene took issue with Hopper's depiction of the Nurmi/Dean relationship, pointing to an extant photo of Dean and Vampira sidekick Jack Simmons in full Boris Karloff Frankenstein make-up as evidence of Nurmi and Dean's friendship. The documentary also described a production memo in the Warner Bros. archive citing a set visit from "Vampira" while Dean was making Rebel Without a Cause. The Warner Bros. memo was first mentioned in the 2006 book Live Fast, Die Young: The Making of Rebel Without a Cause by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, who were given access to the Rebel production files. An interview Frascella and Weisel conducted with actress Shelley Winters also uncovered an instance where Dean interrupted an argument with director Nicholas Ray and Winters so he could watch The Vampira Show on TV.

In Vampira and Me, Nurmi can be heard telling Greene that Dean once appeared in a live bit on The Vampira Show in which Vampira, dressed as a librarian, rapped his knuckles with a ruler because "he was a very naughty boy."

On June 20, 1955, Nurmi was the target of an attempted murder when a man forced his way into her apartment and proceeded to terrorize her for close to four hours. Nurmi eventually escaped and managed to call the police, with assistance from a local shop owner.

Usually with

Ed Wood
Ed Wood
(3 films)
Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan
(3 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Maila Nurmi (11 films)

Display filmography as list

Actress

I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, 1h30
Directed by Aris Iliopulos
Origin USA
Genres Comedy
Actors Billy Zane, Ron Perlman, Sandra Bernhard, Tippi Hedren, Bud Cort, Andrew McCarthy
Roles Woman in Hotel Lobby
Rating54% 2.706512.706512.706512.706512.70651
Overcoming a nurse, and dressing in her clothes, a madman escapes from the Casa de la Loco Sanitarium. The Thief (Billy Zane) then goes on a crime spree that nets him a gun, a car, a fortune in stolen cash, and one dead loan office manager. As he escapes the murder scene, he comes upon a forbidden cemetery as a burial, replete with bagpipe music and a bizarre ceremony employing tuning forks and strange icons, is taking place. As the undertaker, the caretaker, and an odd assortment of mourners leave the service, The Thief peers into the coffin, thinking it is a good place to hide his briefcase of ill-gotten gains. As he strikes the tuning fork that is buried with the robe-draped skeleton, bagpipe music fills the air and throws him into convulsions. The coffin lid slams shut, locking his money inside, and The Thief is thrown into an open grave, knocking himself unconscious. When he awakens, he sets off to track down everyone present at the funeral in an attempt to find his cash, killing anyone who gets in his way.
Population: 1
Genres Fantasy, Musical
Themes Musical films
Actors Beck, Maila Nurmi
Roles Mother (uncredited)
Rating70% 3.5121453.5121453.5121453.5121453.512145
The Magic Sword, 1h20
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Science fiction, Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes Films about magic and magicians, Films about music and musicians, Films about religion, Musical films
Actors Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, Anne Helm, Gary Lockwood, Liam Sullivan, Danielle De Metz
Roles The Hag / Sorceress
Rating48% 2.400592.400592.400592.400592.40059
George (Gary Lockwood) is the foster son of Sybil (Estelle Winwood), an elderly sorceress. She brought him up after his "royal parents died of the plague" in his infancy. He has fallen in love at first sight with Princess Helene (Anne Helm).
I Passed for White, 1h33
Directed by Fred M. Wilcox
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Romance
Actors James Franciscus, Edgar Ray Kellogg, Jimmy Lydon, Maila Nurmi
Roles Girl Poet (uncredited)
Rating61% 3.0971753.0971753.0971753.0971753.097175
Bernice Lee (Sonya Wilde) is a young woman of mixed African and European ancestry, living in Chicago with her family, who is mistaken for a purely white woman by a white man, who tries to hit on her repeatedly. Her brother, more obviously of mixed heritage, fights off the man. Bernice's grandmother consoles her when she confides her troubles.
Sex Kittens Go to College, 1h34
Directed by Albert Zugsmith
Origin USA
Genres Comedy
Actors Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld, Mickey Shaughnessy, Mijanou Bardot, John Carradine, Louis Nye
Roles Etta Toodie
Rating38% 1.924861.924861.924861.924861.92486
Collins College's administrators are expecting new professor Dr. Mathilda West, who holds 13 degrees and speaks 18 languages. What they aren't expecting is the buxom blonde beauty who gets off the train.
Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1h19
Directed by Ed Wood
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Fantastic, Horror
Themes Medical-themed films, Films set in the future, Films about extraterrestrial life, Zombie films, Films about viral outbreaks, Films about extraterrestrial life, Alien invasions in films, Disaster films
Actors Gregory Walcott, Tom Keene, Tor Johnson, Duke Moore, Dudley Manlove, Bunny Breckinridge
Roles Vampire Girl
Rating39% 1.952271.952271.952271.952271.95227
At the funeral of an Old Man's wife, mourners are gathered by an open grave, among them her husband (Bela Lugosi). Overhead, an airliner is heading towards Burbank, California. The pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his co-pilot Danny (David De Mering) are blinded by a bright light and loud sound. They look outside and see a flying saucer. The pilots follow the saucer's flight until it lands at the graveyard, where the funeral's gravediggers are killed by a female zombie (Maila Nurmi).
The Beat Generation, 1h33
Directed by Charles F. Haas
Origin USA
Genres Thriller, Noir, Crime
Actors Steve Cochran, Mamie Van Doren, Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Margaret Hayes, Jackie Coogan
Roles Poetess
Rating55% 2.757692.757692.757692.757692.75769
In the opening scene, a "beatnik" named Stan Hess (Ray Danton) sits at a table in a coffee house with a woman who begs him for his affection. He scorns her, then encounters his father at another table, who announces his engagement to a younger woman who had also pursued Stan. He insults his stepmother-to-be and departs. Hess is established as a woman-hating habitué of a stereotyped and sensationalized beatnik scene.
The Big Operator, 1h31
Directed by Charles F. Haas
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Crime
Actors Mickey Rooney, Steve Cochran, Mamie Van Doren, Ray Danton, Mel Tormé, Ray Anthony
Roles Gina
Rating63% 3.188113.188113.188113.188113.18811
Ruthless labor official "Little Joe" Braun is about to face questioning from a Senate committee. The night before, he sends a hit man, Oscar "The Executioner" Wetzel, to kill a witness named Tragg and steal incriminating documents in Tragg's possession at a factory.
Romance on the High Seas, 1h39
Directed by Michael Curtiz, Busby Berkeley
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical theatre, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Don DeFore, Doris Day, Oscar Levant, S.Z. Sakall
Roles Ship Passenger (uncredited)
Rating69% 3.4962353.4962353.4962353.4962353.496235
Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) and her husband Michael (Don DeFore) suspect each other of cheating. For their wedding anniversary, Elvira books an ocean cruise to Rio de Janeiro but her husband claims that unexpected business will prevent him from going. Seeing an opportunity, Elvira pretends to take the trip alone, but in fact sends singer Georgia Garrett (Doris Day), a woman she'd met at the travel agency, in her place and under her name. By secretly staying behind, Elvira hopes to find out if Michael is indeed sneaking around behind her back. Michael, however, is suspicious over Elvira's supposed willingness to go on the trip alone, and so hires private detective Peter Virgil (Jack Carson) to see if she is sneaking around behind his back.