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The morning of the first day Martine and I arrived at the hotel, which was out by LAX, and started setting up our booth which was stationed across from the HUSTLER concession. A few tables down sat our Ms. Nurmi with all her offbeat jewelry and, more importantly, dozens of fantastic stills of her alter ego, Vampira.

Martine had stepped out for a well-deserved smoke, leaving me to guard the goods until she returned. As I sat there I noticed Malia had left her table and was walking over to our booth. I really don’t know if she remembered me or not, but she had a definite purpose in coming over. Malia asked where the beautiful girl was and I explained she had gone for a smoke. ‘Oh, I wish we could get her to quit such a nasty habit.” At that point Martine returned and Malia explained why she just HAD to come over to see her. It seems that Malia had seen one of Martine’s Hammer films, the rather psychedelic retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde known as DR.JECKYLL AND SISTER HYDE. In this film the good doctor turns into a woman and not just any woman mind you but a carbon copy of Jack the Ripper, or perhaps it should have been Jill the Ripper. In any case when Malia was working with Channel Seven in Los Angeles regarding the recreation of her most famous persona, she told us that she pleaded with the producers to find out where this fabulous actress was living and offer her the role of the new Vampira. Malia had made her choice and it was Martine, and now the two ladies were face to face for the first time, and wouldn’t you know it was all too late to make history as Malia was right on the money with her choice. Martine would have made an inspired Vampira.

The irony of this situation was two-fold: first, poor Malia wound up in years of bitter legal litigation with Channel Seven over the casting of Elvira and what she considered the theft of her character and scripts regarding the whole program, eventually losing her case not to mention all the money it cost to take her case to court. Martine on the other hand had spent years in Hollywood, having left England, to find less than stellar roles working in episodic television or the odd film role, never achieving her true destiny which, in my humble opinion, would have been to star in her own Television show or at least be cast in larger roles in films.

I sat between these two formidable dark divas radiating cosmic energy from outside the known boundaries of sex and death, both great beauties in their day, finally meeting at a convention celebrating glamour and sex appeal. At least Martine was now aware, for the first time, what her films meant to a colleague, and Malia was able to finally meet the woman who was her first and only choice to bring her character back from the dead.

At the end of the last day Malia gave Martine one all important tip about signing autographs for the fan. The ultimate Vampira looked over at the ultimate Bond Girl and suggested “You tell those fans you don’t give autographs you give…EPITAPHS.”

HOME ON THE STRANGE: The saga of “Kelton the Cop

The recent passing of Malia Nurmi has once again brought attention to the films of Ed Wood and that eccentric band of players who populated his films from the mid to late fifties. Truth be told, the only reason we even remember his films at all is because three have the legendary Bela Lugosi in them and they would be the iconic actor’s last hurrah. Malia appeared in just one Ed Wood, film but if she had to choose, then PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE would be the one to place one’s persona in view. However there was one other person besides Lugosi to be in a so-called trilogy of Ed Wood oddball masterpieces, and that was a character simply known as KELTON THE COP.

On May 14 of 2006 another of Ed Wood’s stock company passed away in Hollywood at the ripe old age of 80. His name was Paul Marco, and if that name does not sound familiar, not to worry, it shouldn’t, since nobody outside of diehard fans of PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE or Ed Wood filmbuffs would recognize the name either.

Paul Marco is a classic textbook example of the impressionable young man who spends his youth at the movies dreaming of the day that it would be his turn to be up on that silver sheet acting out all his fantasies, for the world to finally acknowledge “I am a STAR.” And when you think about it, why not? Paul was brought up practically under the Hollywood sign. He attended Hollywood High, worked as a child actor, and then graduated to bit parts, until that fateful day when his “agent” Marge Usher brought him to the attention of Ed Wood.

Since we are not talking John Ford here, I will not “print the legend” but tell you the facts as I came to understand them in the ten years I would observe this man in a number of odd situations that would tax the patience of anyone unfamiliar with “the twilight people” of Ed Wood’s Hollywood.

Ed Wood hired Paul Marco mainly because Paul had some money saved up and chose to “invest” in Wood’s latest film, then known as BRIDE OF THE ATOM, starring the greatest of all film Dracula’s Bela Lugosi. The making of this highly enjoyable turkey was documented beautifully, I thought, in Tim Burton’s charming film about the hot house director and his zany crew of misfits.

In real life Paul Marco simply blossomed in the presence of Ed Wood the low budget movie maestro , and in no time at all became his one man band for whatever the task at hand might be; the goal was always to make Ed’s films happen. Paul would appear in the aforementioned three films as well as help with the casting, moving props, and perhaps the greatest moment of all, Paul Marco became Lugosi’s best man at Bela’s wedding to the fifth and final Mrs. Bela Lugosi, Hope Lininger, on August 25th, 1955. If nothing else ever happened to Paul Marco in his lifelong quest for fame in Hollywood, his friendships with Ed Wood, and then Lugosi, would shine enough of a spot light onto his own questionable resume to keep Paul in after-glow right up to the day of his death, where he was hours away from being filmed yet again as what else, “Kelton the Cop,” for a direct- to-video project.

I would first come to know Paul “Kelton” Marco when, on one sunny afternoon in Silver Lake, I would wander into an old high school friend’s apartment during a read-through of a script my friend had written based on PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, only this one was “Plan 13.” He had apparently run into Marco at one of the memorabilia shops that used to populate Hollywood Blvd in the 80’s. I seem to remember wondering why an “old timer” like Paul Marco would bother to come to something amateur like this, as nothing would ever really come of it. My friend, who shall be nameless, never really ever got any of his projects off the ground, a sadly more-than-common fate in Hollywood.

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