- [on Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)] At the time I thought it was horrible. I knew immediately I'd be committing professional suicide, but I thought, "What choice do I have?". Somehow, I seemed to be dead already.
- [on Edward D. Wood Jr.] I just thought he was a low-born idiot. With no talent at all. Just a brazen, foolish idiot... You know, I thought he was just a goon. Ah, I wasn't looking squarely; I just cast a glance, and just dismissed him with a thought. Kind of snobbish and foolish of me. But then over the years as I've mellowed and grown a little more sensible, and I began to look at this man after, after the fact. And I thought, "Incredible what he managed to achieve!". Without any help! And the obstacles that he managed to overcome! Somehow, it's miraculous. It's more than just persistence. Yes, he had a lot of persistence - that's for sure. But he also had a gilded karma that this was all intended to be.
- Angelina Jolie would be a good Vampira.
- [on Cassandra Peterson, aka "Elvira", who she claimed stole her "Vampira" character] I'm just waiting for her plastic surgery to backfire - for her bosoms to poison her.
- [on how Vampira Returns (1956) came about] I decided I wanted to become an evangelist and had to sponsor myself. How could I do it? Well, television was just warping people's minds - and they paid big. I thought I'd satirize soap operas, take improbable people and make them do all these bourgeois things. Since Charles Addams had already done it in comic form, I wanted it to bring it to television.
- I love glamour and physical beauty. I've always been fascinated by beautiful men on the screen: Tyrone Power, Robert Walker, with soft-focus filters and velvet voices. That's what [Edward D. Wood Jr.] was like. Beautiful dreamy eyes and long, sweeping lashes, just beautiful. He didn't make a very pretty lady [in Glen or Glenda (1953)], but he made an awfully pretty man.
- [on Howard Hawks, who discovered her] I thought he was stupid, so I tore up my contract. I told him to kindly find a place for it in one of his numerous waste baskets.
- [on Elvis Presley] I had never seen someone boldly standing on a stage - supposedly a heterosexual male - wearing turquoise eye shadow and grinding his hips like that.
- [on Edward D. Wood Jr.'s dialogue] I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but my God, I could not say those words. I wish I had them today because I threw them away. Do you know what jewels those lines must have been? I tried to say them, but I curdled my own blood. They were awful!
- [on Edward D. Wood Jr.] I always pity people who aren't very bright.
- [on Cassandra Peterson, aka "Elvira"] Boy, has the Devil got that bitch - it's the Devil in her blood. Initially, they wanted me. I wouldn't do it [the 1981 revival of her "Vampira" character] because I didn't want Vampira to be anything but perfect. I certainly didn't want her to be portrayed as a slut.
- [on James Dean's debated sexuality] Jimmy was primarily heterosexual but he used men sexually to get ahead, and if he saw someone he liked, he liked them. More often it was women, but maybe that was because he had never got the really pretty girls before. He had always got the ugly leftovers that nobody else wanted.
- I don't have any babies or any social history that's remarkable, so I'm leaving something behind, you know, when the time comes to say goodbye, I'm leaving something.
- Vampira Returns (1956) wasn't really acting. It was television, just a lot of hogwash.
- [Baton Rouge State Times Advocate, January 31, 1957, p. 10] I have a cat named Ratface. I call him that because he looks like a rat.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content