Vampira (Maila Nurmi) - Framed Picture - 12" x 16"

Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi (AKA, Maila Nurmi), was a Finnish-American actress and television personality who created the campy 1950s character Vampira.

After several minor film roles, she found success in the Vampira character, television's first horror host. Nurmi hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954-55 on KABC-TV.

After the show's cancellation, she appeared 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, as well as in the crime film The Big Operator (1959).