Celebrate Vampira, L.A.’s Original Glamour Ghoul

For more than 90 years, the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz has been home to all manner of esoteric exploration. Their enormous research library was started by founder Manly P. Hall and is still available to researchers. Their calendar is filled with an outrageous variety of classes, lectures, performances and on Saturday night they are presenting An Evening Celebrating Vampira with comedian Dana Gould. Maila Nurmi as Vampira in 1954Credit: Los Angeles Herald Examiner/Los Angeles Public Library The evening includes rare videos of Maila Nurmi, who created the horror host character in the 1950s, a display of props and artifacts, a lookalike contest and memories from Gould, a friend four decades her junior. “It s an hour of funny weird stories about a strange friendship,” Gould tells Los Angeles, “She was very much a beatnik. No makeup, capri pants, ballet shoes without socks, hanging out at Googies with James Dean and Jack Simmons. She was in the movie The Beat Generati