Cassandra Peterson

Cassandra Peterson
Cassandra Petersonis an American actress best known for her portrayal of the horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ wearing a black, gothic, revealing, cleavage-enhancing gown as host of Elvira's Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation. Her wickedly vampish appearance is offset by her comical character, quirky and quick-witted personality, and Valley girl-type speech...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth17 September 1949
CountryUnited States of America
I love, love, love music - have since I was a kid, and I'm still really into music - and I became a singer because I was too stupid to learn how to play an instrument, I guess.
When I was Elvira, it was probably the phase of my hair getting too high. I thought that if really high hair was good, then really higher hair was even better. So I just started having my hair get higher and higher. In some of the pictures, we had to cut off the picture because it was like Marge Simpson. So that was embarrassing. The wig phase.
I would love to do something like 'Tosh.0,' where I host Internet clips. I did host 'Talk Soup,' which is similar. I love doing that, making fun of video clips on the Internet.
It is so hard nowadays to find a movie that I like. I don't mind blood and gore. But I mind when its a slasher film, and its some guy looking for women. I am opposed to that kind of thing. Blood and gore? I love that kind of thing.
Women like to be scared, but they don't like the blood and the gore, and especially movies that have violence and torture involving women. Women don't want to see that, I can tell you for damn sure right now.
When I was a kid... I don't know which was more embarrassing, when I was really into The Beatles or when I was a hippie.
People think being Elvira is a lot of fun - and it is - but I was doing a lot more bizarre stuff before then, just being a dancer and a showgirl and traveling around Italy in a band and working for Playboy Club, and later being a model and meeting a million and one people and being kind of a groupie... It's all been really interesting.
To me, the scariest movie ever made to this day is 'The Exorcist.' It still scares the living hell out of me, and it's because of the fantasy element. It's the exorcism. It's the Devil. It's not a guy breaking into your house trying to torture you or cut your whatever off. Those kinds of movies don't do it for me, and I don't call them horror.
People come up to me at conventions and say, 'I was such an outcast, I felt like such a geek, and when I saw you, you made me feel like such a normal person.' It's my favorite thing to hear, because that's how I felt when I was a kid. If Goth would've been around, I would've definitely been Goth. But there wasn't such a thing, so I was just weird.
It's weird. I guess I got so used to [g-strings] when I was really young that I just couldn't stand it anymore.
I had this grand idea that Elvira's kind of the Santa Claus of Halloween - at the malls, you'd have an Elvira there. Girls would dress as Elvira just like guys dress as Santa Claus, and it's not the real thing, but they'll pose for pictures, sign autographs. Of course, I couldn't go around to every mall, so we'd have to get more Elviras.
Every year, I have to spend another hour working out. Pretty soon I'll be spending eight hours working out just to fit in the costume. I have the feeling that the minute I stop doing the character, boom, Roseanne Barr.
If I retire doing the character, I don't think the character has to retire. There will still be caricatures of Elvira. You know, Dracula still works, and he's dead.
There's 20 really cutting-edge, cool artists on there, so I was so thrilled to be a part of it, ... And it's a really fun song.