In real life, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Eleganza’s and every heterosexual American boy’s favorite television personality, is actually Cassandra Peterson, who’s hip, vivacious, and friendly, disdains heavy metal, and has avidly supported handgun control since John Lennon’s murder, when “I just flipped completely out.” She contributes time and money to organizations dedicated to the welfare of abused children, abused women, and animals, and says, “I like to help underdog kinds of people.”

Robert Redding designed her wig, makeup, and dress not to evoke a vampire, it turns out, but the Ronettes, which, as Peterson laughingly notes, “is the next best thing.”

She wears two wigs at a time, one for height and one for length, and gets them at the same Hollywood Blvd. shop where Lobsterhead Kenhart and Donna Quixote buy their false eyelashes, the infamous Shakey Imports. “I get the same wig every time,” she reveals, a little disconsolately, “but every time it costs more. I say, ‘But I bought this same wig last time for $50.’

‘No,’ they say, ‘not the same wig.’

‘Look,’ I say, ‘I’ve bought 27 of them— I’m Elvira.’

They say, ‘Elvira Who? We never heard of no Elvira.’