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Cassandra Peterson has entertained Halloween lovers as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark for over four decades.
After giving up her career as a showgirl, Peterson developed the character in the 1980s – a decision she gives at least some credit for. Elvis PresleyWhich she says essentially saved her life.
“She absolutely changed my life, 100%. I was a showgirl vegasI was 17, and they said, ‘This is no place for a 17-year-old girl.’ You need to get out of here,’” recalls Peterson, now 74. Presley told her that she had a good voice and that she could become a singer.
“And I was like, seriously? Really? But when Elvis tells you something, you think, maybe I can do it,” says Peterson, who actually worked as a singer.
After Peterson turned to comedy, a local television station began los angeles Taking a risk, he was hired as a horror host. His instructions? “Put together what you want and just do it,” he recalled in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
And thus Elvira was born, with her distinctive voluminous black hair and ample cleavage – a look she was personally comfortable with, but at the time, it was considered particularly risqué.
“I mean, everybody now, every time you turn on the Grammys or Tony Or whatever, everyone has that neckline. But then it was like, ‘What?'” says Peterson.
After successful performances on television, Elvira hit the big screen with a series of feature films and guest roles. His cult following grew and more television and books followed. But there was one thing on Peterson’s wish list that she couldn’t get the green light for yet: a cookbook.
“I decided I’d bemartha stewart “And I said to people, ‘It would be so fun to make an entertainment book just for my crowd, for my fans, for the goth crowd,'” Peterson explains. “And no publisher agreed with it. … They said it was a Halloween book and there were already a million Halloween-type cookbooks out there.”
Decades later, “Elvira’s Cookbook from Hell” is here, featuring spooky recipes for dinners, desserts, cocktails and appetizers. Peterson has also filled the pages with creepy craft ideas, handwritten notes, and photos of herself dressed as Elvira.
Peterson was involved in the book from beginning to end.
“It was really hard, but I had an amazing team that helped me,” she says. “We cooked all the recipes. Some didn’t make the cut. Some weren’t Halloween-y enough. Some weren’t goth enough. Some didn’t taste that good. And I really wanted everything here to taste good. I didn’t want you to waste time making it and then say, ‘Ugh. It looks scary, but it tastes terrible.'”
However, this is not Peterson’s first book. That was “Yours Cruelly, Elvira,” a 2021 memoir that she says was in some ways easier to write, even if it blurred the separation between the flaming-haired Peterson and the funereally campy Elvira — something she calls “the cost of suddenly being yourself.”
“Well, I completely lost my anonymity. And it was a wonderful thing for all those years, you know?” Peterson says. “I can go out, I can take my kid to school, I can go shopping, I can do all this without anyone looking at me, and now that I’ve put my autobiography and my children’s book and this book out there, I’m being recognized all the time.”
Nowadays, Peterson does not often wear Elvira – one of her regrets is that she did not recreate her initial costume, “Mumuu with Flip-Flops”.
“Because that’s why I quit playing my character. I’m not kidding. It’s not about, ‘Can I get in?’ It’s just like, ‘Girl, I don’t want to get into this,'” she says. “It’s uncomfortable and tight. I mean, ask any drag queen. I guarantee when they’re 74 they don’t want to do anything like that.”