January 2008: Maila Nurmi dies alone and penniless in her Hollywood apartment, three decades after creating Vampira, the original gothic horror hostess. Meanwhile, Cassandra Peterson lives in luxury built on Elvira, the character Nurmi swore was stolen from her. From the 1954 birth of sexy horror hosting to the brutal 1991 lawsuit that bankrupted the originator while enriching the imitator, Marcus Reid uncovers television's darkest plagiarism battle. Featuring Nurmi's groundbreaking fusion of sex and death that shocked 1950s America, Peterson's convenient claims of ignorance, and the three-year legal war over who owns an archetype.

Through court documents and bitter interviews, we explore how the pioneer of horror hosting spent her last years homeless while her "carbon copy" made millions. The real horror isn't what's on screen—it's what happens when inspiration becomes exploitation. Some creators change culture. Others profit from it. And sometimes the original mistress of the dark dies forgotten while the copy lives forever.

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