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Males embrace her as a sex symbol, comic book readers view her as a cartoon character, and horror movie junkies and Halloween party-goers appreciate her links to the dark side. "And it's funny," says Peterson, "young women, little girls and old grannies" are also fans . "It's weird what shows up when I do an appearance." Pierson explains that Elvira has been able to appeal to such a broad group because she represents something different for everyone. "For children she's sort of slapstick and goofy. She makes faces and just is kind of a wacky kind of character," he says. "Adults appreciate the double entendres which the children don't get. It just goes over their heads." Oddly enough to some, a large part of Elvira's following is female. When Elvira was doing original programming in Los Angeles from 1981 to 1986, the largest demographic group watching was women aged 17 to 35. "Women love my character," says Peterson. "I am selling sex on the one hand -- sort of, you know, low cleavage and a sexy image. But on the other hand, I think of Elvira very much as a feminist. And I've made a big point of when Elvira get herself into
messes -- like in my films or TV shows -- she's the one who is responsible for getting herself out. No man comes along and saves her in the nick of time. She doesn't go off and marry some guy who pays the bills or anything like that. And she does treat men a little bit like a lot of men treat women -- she kind of uses them." She also attracts a large international following, which Pierson and Peterson have taken pains to cultivate. They've done a Halloween Elvira promotion at Japanese them~ parks and a television series and some merchandising in Australia. Their pinball machine sells well in Germany, France and Japan. And two films, "Superstition" and "Thrill Ride," are to be released around the world this summer. They're also hoping that Halloween grows in popularity in other parts of the world so that "Elvira will come into Japan or Europe on the coattails of Halloween," says Pierson. Or, she'll "help lead Halloween into these countries. " Peterson's following is so diverse that Playboy asked her to be a centerfold (she declined because she feared Elvira would lose her mystique), and Circus of the Stars asked for her to appear at its
Elvira, The Wicked Wordsmith "Writing a book is a lot of work!," exclaims Pet~rson. "By the time you amortize the amount of hours you Camp Vamp, Transylvania 90210 put in, I think you must get about and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. $1.15 per hour! "To give you an example: my partShe's also written a feature film, a pilot ner and I wrote and wrote and wrote. for CBS, hundreds We were both going, 'Oh my God, I of television shows never wrote this many words in my and a sequel to whole life ! This is never-ending.' "Finally, we finished the book, we Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, which , sent it in, and the publishing compahowever, didn't get ny, Putnam, called us and said, 'Well the good news is, we really love it. made. While she has But the bad news is it's not thick been very success- enough to put a spine on. It's hardly ful in publishing, big enough for a pamphlet!' Oh, great the most difficult [we were thinking], the Elvira pamaspect for her is phlet. So we had to triple the word the sheer vol- . amount. And that was great after you ume of words that must already had¡it done! " Currently, Peterson (as herself) is be written. [See article on page 46 for more information on getting pub- writing a book with Paragon that is a parody of a children's book. lished] .
C
assandra Peterson loves writing. Why, with her writing partnerin-crime John Paragon, she's penned
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Opportunity August 1997
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