Elvira's Night Moves

The walks in beauty like the night, this sexy but strangely wholesome ghoul next door. For 20 years Cassandra Peterson has portrayed Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, queen of all Halloween media, who, like the undead and Dick Clark, spookily never seems to age. Now she's been captured in all her towering-haired, voluptuous, campy-vampy style by renowned pin-up artist Olivia de Berardinis. Peterson says she has always been a fan of pin-up art, such as the classic Vargas works. "I think Olivia is (concluded on page 174) Envira (continued from page 132) the female Vargas. I love her artwork. She combines the sensual with the coquettish. I always dreamed of having one of those drawings of myself, and finally it's happening."

Although the former Las Vegas showgirl says she loves to show off her body, Peterson has resisted offers to do nude photos. "It's certainly not because I'm shy," she explains. "I'm proud of my body, and I work out to keep it looking good." But she worries about her image because she has so many children as fans, and she markets her costumes and wigs to them. "I didn't want to do the Pee-wee Herman thing." She's thrilled with her portrayal in the portrait. "It's sexual, but it's subtle and classy and still leaves a little mystery."

Elvira was a pioneer for all the strong female role models to come, from Pamela Anderson to Lara Croft. Hers is the best-selling female Halloween costume of all time. In 1982 she was the first person to be broadcast in three dimensions in America (on KHJ's Movie Macabre), and she was the first female to do a beer ad campaign (in 1986). The computer system for the F-117 stealth bomber is named Elvira, after her. When the Interngate story broke in Time, the story began, "When Monica Lewinsky worked in the White House, she had nicknames. One was Elvira, after TV's vampy Mistress of the Dark--a snickering reference to Lewinsky's long and big black hair, her fondness for tight, chest-hugging outfits and her coquettish demeanor." Around this same time, says Peterson's manager, Mark Pierson, Elvira "was riding on the float for the U.S. Postal Service in the Rose Parade, which is as American as you can be. You really know you're a cult figure in America when you're famous from the Post Office to the Pentagon to the White House."

Peterson made her first Elvira movie, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, in 1988, in which she famously twirled tassels (a talent she learned at 14). This fall she has a new film called Elvira's Haunted Hills, a gothic comedy "much in the vein of the Rocky Horror Picture Show," she says.

"We shot it in Romania last November and December. It parodies the Vincent Price movies of the Fifties and Sixties." Halloween was always Peterson's favorite holiday: "My mother and aunt had a costume shop, and Halloween was big not only for business, but also for me, because every year they would make me the most fabulous costume. I'd go to as many parties as I could and people would say, 'Wow, look at her costume!' That must have been in my mind when I became Elvira."

Elvira keeps going strong. "She's still fitting into the same dress size," says Pierson. "Her figure hasn't changed in 20 years. I think she looks better than ever." "I do work out a lot," says Peterson. "That's the secret of my career. The other secret is heavy makeup. When you pile that much on, three inches deep, you can cover anything. I just spackle it into my wrinkles and there I am!"

How much longer can she keep it up? "It depends on how everything holds up--literally and figuratively," she says, laughing. "I've been thinking about this being my last year because it's my 20th anniversary, but then I think, I don't know if I'm ready to hang up the wig yet." Her millions of fans would rather hear her say boo than bye.