I’m sat in Pioneer Chicken, a fast-food joint off Sunset Boulevard, deep in discussion with Vampira, the world’s first TV horror host. Maila Nurmi, the Finnish-born performer beneath the famous black wig and nails was a phenomenon in the 1950s.

Her iconic gothic style, sardonic wit and eye-popping hourglass-figure made her the ghoulish fantasy of guys and ghouls across the globe, despite appearing on a show that was only broadcast to the Los Angeles area.

Every week the voluptuous vamp would emerge from dry-ice studio fog to the sound of creepy organ music. She would unleash a blood-curdling scream and utter puns in an exotic, sexual, Marlene Dietrich-like drawl - “I am…Vampira.