{"id":500360,"date":"2026-10-18T19:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500360\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T19:02:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:02:31","slug":"dana-gould-celebrates-vampira-l-a-s-original-horror-host","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500360\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana Gould Celebrates Vampira, L.A.\u2019s Original Horror Host"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comedian Dana Gould presents a live show about his friend Maila Nurmi who played the 1950s TV horror host Vampira<\/p>\n

For more than 90 years, the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz has been home to all manner of esoteric exploration. Their enormous research library was started by founder Manly P. Hall and is still available to researchers. Their calendar is filled with an outrageous variety of classes, lectures, performances and on Saturday night they are presenting An Evening Celebrating Vampira with comedian Dana Gould.<\/p>\n

\"\"Maila Nurmi as Vampira in 1954Credit: Los Angeles Herald Examiner\/Los Angeles Public Library<\/p>\n

The evening includes rare videos of Maila Nurmi, who created the horror host character in the 1950s, a display of props and artifacts, a lookalike contest and memories from Gould, a friend four decades her junior. \u201cIt\u2019s an hour of funny weird stories about a strange friendship,\u201d Gould tells Los Angeles, \u201cShe was very much a beatnik. No makeup, capri pants, ballet shoes without socks, hanging out at Googies with James Dean and Jack Simmons. She was in the movie The Beat Generation. That was Maila in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emmy Award-winning writer, producer and actor (The Simpsons, Stan Against Evil) is not only an expert in all things comedy, but a lifelong fan of horror, sci-fi and monster movies. Back in the 1990s, he was shopping at Hollywood Book and Poster when he mentioned a TV project he was working on to the clerk. He was a big fan of Ed Wood\u2019s 1959 classic Plan 9 From Outer Space<\/a> and wanted to contact Nurmi, who created the character Vampira and had a part in the film.<\/p>\n

\"\"Maila Nurmi as Vampira in Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)Credit: Public domain\/wikipedia<\/p>\n

\u201cCarol Hernandez, whose husband Gilbert writes (comic) Love and Rockets, worked at the store and told her I was doing a special for the Sci-Fi Channel called The Big Scary Movie Show about horror movies and hosts,\u201d Gould says. \u201cIt was my attempt to become a horror movie host, which I\u2019m still trying to make happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould wanted to include Vampira, L.A.\u2019s first monster movie host, who created The Vampira Show<\/a> for KABC in 1954. \u201cShe was the first person I wanted to interview,\u201d Gould says.\u00a0\u201cThis was before cell phones, and she did not have a landline. We were pen pals for 4 or 5 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Have questions? Get answers.<\/p>\n

Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

\"\"Maila Nurmi soon after arriving in Hollywood in the 1940sCredit: Photo courtesy Dana Gould<\/p>\n

Gradually, after exchanging letters through the shop, Nurmi and Gould became cross-generational friends sharing a love for the quirkier corners of the culture. \u201cI just tend to like things that have a little bit of dust on them. I would much rather watch Robot Monster<\/a> than Avengers: Endgame, or something with no scratches or imperfections or humanity.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Gould bought Nurmi a phone, helped with groceries and set her up in a new apartment when she lost hers. He eventually procured a final resting place for her at Hollywood Forever Cemetery when she died at age 85 in 2008. \u201cShe did not think she was ever going to die so she never had any plans in place,\u201d Gould says. \u201cWhen I went looking for her plot, I found one near Darren McGavin who played Kolchak: The Night Stalker<\/a>.<\/a> I thought wouldn\u2019t it be funny if he was chasing a vampire through eternity. I placed Maila right next to him just for giggles. The funeral story occupies a lot of the show, and you have to see it but it involves me giving the Church of Satan a stern talking to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Dana Gould and Maila Nurmi in the 1990sCredit: Photo courtesy Dana Gould<\/p>\n

An Evening Celebrating Vampira with comedian Dana Gould
Sat, Oct 17\u00a0\u2022\u00a07:30 PM
Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Feliz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comedian Dana Gould presents a live show about his friend Maila Nurmi who played the 1950s TV horror…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[193956,130658,48,52,51,47,50,49,5260,193957,193958,193959,193960],"class_list":["post-500360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-dana-gould","tag-hollywood-forever-cemetary","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-feliz","tag-maila-nurmi","tag-manly-p-hall","tag-plan-9-from-outer-space","tag-vampira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}