The Finland-born, Oregon-bred actress Maila Nurmi's resume reads like the stuff of Hollywood legend. A New York showgirl, she was "discovered" in a Mae West revue and put under contract by Howard Hawks, not long after the director turned a fitting model named Betty Perske into Lauren Bacall. (Nurmi destroyed that contract, after arriving in Hollywood and declaring Hawks to be "stupid.") She dallied, professionally and/or personally, with the likes of Man Ray, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando and Liberace. She starred in her own TV show, featuring a character she created — Vampira — thereby inventing the concept of the late-night horror hostess, later manifested by Cassandra Peterson's Elvira (whom Nurmi unsuccessfully sued for intellectual-property infringement). And yet, when she died in 2008 in poverty and obscurity, Nurmi probably was best known for the role credited to her alter... More >>>