I'm driving down the freeway the other day, on my way to Knott's Scary Farm probably, and I hear this report on NPR that the whole lemmings thing was faked in the 1950s. They were shooting a wildlife documentary in the '50s, they found a group of lemmings, and the crew chased them all off a cliff. No lemming has ever jumped off a cliff, purposefully, ever. Isn't that unbelievable?

Cassandra Peterson

Categorized in : Scary Lemmings Npr

If I retire doing the character, I don't think the character has to retire. There will still be caricatures of Elvira. You know, Dracula still works, and he's dead.

Cassandra Peterson

retiring character thinking

I've probably said a million times in my life something about, "All those people are just lemmings. They'd follow each other off a cliff." Well, no such thing.

Cassandra Peterson

lemmings cliffs people

Horror, for me, has to involve some sort of fantasy. Horror is something that is in your dreams or your nightmares.

Cassandra Peterson

nightmare fantasy dream

I just chased bands all over the country. The biggest one I saw was Jimi Hendrix.

Cassandra Peterson

saws band country

People come up to me at conventions and say, 'I was such an outcast, I felt like such a geek, and when I saw you, you made me feel like such a normal person.' It's my favorite thing to hear, because that's how I felt when I was a kid. If Goth would've been around, I would've definitely been Goth. But there wasn't such a thing, so I was just weird.

Cassandra Peterson

saws kids people

Every year, I have to spend another hour working out. Pretty soon I'll be spending eight hours working out just to fit in the costume. I have the feeling that the minute I stop doing the character, boom, Roseanne Barr.

Cassandra Peterson

eight character years

How would Elvira run the state of California? Well, there isn't much I could do that is worse than what Arnold Schwarzenegger has done. Running it into the damn ground. If I was running the whole nation? I would have free Netflix movies for everyone.

Cassandra Peterson

netflix california running

I had a dream about riding a black cat, and then the next day I was at this antique mart, and I found this little devil riding a black cat - an Austrian bronze, tiny little thing. It was super tiny. And it was kind of like, "Oh my God, my dream came true." Except it was a devil, of course. Not me.

Cassandra Peterson

next-day cat dream

When Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark came out, I got to go to Japan and Australia and France, Italy, Germany, everywhere with the movie. That was great, because I love traveling.

Cassandra Peterson

japan australia dark

[Vincent Price] had a fish recipe where he wrapped [the fish] in aluminum foil and put in these herbs. And then you put it in the dishwasher and then you wash your dishes, and when you're done, your fish is steamed and it's perfect. But he was very sophisticated as far as art and food and all of that went.

Cassandra Peterson

done perfect art

I believed that lemmings really jump off of cliffs.

Cassandra Peterson

lemmings cliffs

I can't tell you how exciting it was, because Vincent Price had made a huge impression on me when I was a little kid. I just loved him in films. And so meeting him and becoming friends with him was a big deal for me.

Cassandra Peterson

becoming littles kids

The biggest surprise was a picture my mom sent me, just about the time that we were about to wrap up the book, of me as a 5-year-old dressed in my first Halloween costume that she made for me. I said, "What's this? I never saw this photo." And she said, "We made you this black-and-orange Halloween costume out of crepe paper" - we were too poor to have fabric back then - "and you wanted to go as the Queen Of Halloween." And I was like, "What?" And she said, "Yeah, the Princess Of Halloween, the Queen Of Halloween, something like that.

Cassandra Peterson

halloween queens mom

I had this grand idea that Elvira's kind of the Santa Claus of Halloween - at the malls, you'd have an Elvira there. Girls would dress as Elvira just like guys dress as Santa Claus, and it's not the real thing, but they'll pose for pictures, sign autographs. Of course, I couldn't go around to every mall, so we'd have to get more Elviras.

Cassandra Peterson

halloween girl real

I chased every band around the world. Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, you name it. I could just go on and on. It was my hobby, my pastime, and my obsession for several years.

Cassandra Peterson

mother names years

I am very, very anti-slasher.

Cassandra Peterson

Women like to be scared, but they don't like the blood and the gore, and especially movies that have violence and torture involving women. Women don't want to see that, I can tell you for damn sure right now.

Cassandra Peterson

violence want blood

It is so hard nowadays to find a movie that I like. I don't mind blood and gore. But I mind when its a slasher film, and its some guy looking for women. I am opposed to that kind of thing. Blood and gore? I love that kind of thing.

Cassandra Peterson

guy mind blood

I ended up spending some time with Jimi Hendrix and hanging out with him, and that was beyond awesome.

Cassandra Peterson

hanging-out hendrix spending

To me, the scariest movie ever made to this day is The Exorcist. It still scares the living hell out of me, and it’s because of the fantasy element. It’s the exorcism. It’s the Devil. It’s not a guy breaking into your house trying to torture you or cut your whatever off. Those kinds of movies don’t do it for me, and I don’t call them horror.

Cassandra Peterson

cutting guy house