BEFORE THEY WERE SCREAM QUEENS

Monsterologists better know Maila Nurmi as Vampira, TV's first horror host. But, before she primmed and donned her Morticia Addams outfit she was just another struggling girl in Hollywood trying to make a buck.

Like so many others who came to Tinseltown with good intentions and a body to boot, Nurmi spent some time as a dancer, and both an artist's and photographer's model. In the mid-1950's she posed for numerous photo spreads in the burgeoniong men's mag business.

In this particular example, we find her along with a few other women in a photo feature called Take It Easy, from the men's pinup digest, GALA (Vol. 4 No. 6, March 1954). The caption reads that she is the cousin of the famous Finnish runner -- he is actually her uncle. And so far as her measurements go -- it's been reported in one extreme that her 38-17-36 houglass figure was indeed that. A more reasonable -- and I'm sure more accurate at least at the time this shot was taken -- 34-23-33 1/2 is recorded here.

The contents page shows the issue's line up. Articles were all short on text and full of women posing provocatively in swim suits or other sexy outfits. In these early days, modesty prevailed and, in pinup 'zines like these, nary a nipple could be seen.

Another example of the type of photos that were shown in these types of publications is this attractive model posing as a "Moon Girl", translated from English into man-talk as "Out of This World".

Readers looking for a little spicier fare could always send away for something in the advertising section. In many cases the descriptions promised  a little more than what the magazine was offering in the way of "exposure".