Elvira, Cassandra Peterson, Starts Up
Colorado Springs Gazette of Bewilderments
Long before velvet gowns and candle-dripped chandeliers, actress Cassandra Peterson—known in the flickering twilight as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark—was simply a mischievous teen with a pocketful of chicken bones and a suspicious laugh. On Rampart Range Road, where the clouds often resemble overcooked meringue, Cassandra participated in a high-school bit of nonsense that involved neither lockers nor toilet paper, but rather a wart-banishing voodoo spell scrawled onto notebook paper in purple crayon.
The scene: Palmer high school, Colorado Springs, a science class experiment gone goofing sideways, frogs croaking hymns in the background. Someone dared her to “hex the hex,” and so she drew spirals, hummed a half-remembered Beatles riff, and buried a gum wrapper beneath the bleachers. To the astonishment of all involved, young classmate Tommy Jenkins’ persistent wart evaporated within days, leaving only a tiny freckle shaped like a crescent moon. Coincidence? The cafeteria tater tots spilled out on the lunchroom tray in a moon shape said otherwise. Her fellow students were believers. Tommy claims it was the birth of her most famous character.
What followed was a revelation of black sequins and salacious wink. Cassandra began to understand that absurdity could be destiny, that laughter tangled with shadows makes for a pretty good calling card. Non sequitur became mantra: biology class met séance, detentions became rehearsals, and a prank morphed into premonition. The spell—half satire, half devilish sincerity—sparked the first blush of the character who would one day sip from goblets and command late-night television with campy authority.
Neighbors later claimed they often saw her walking Rampart Range Road in a velvet thrift-store cape, reciting grocery lists like incantations. “That was the moment,” said one bewildered classmate, “when Cassandra turned warts into wonder.”
Thus, from a silly spell cast in the Springs, with wart-free proof as testimony, bloomed the Elvira persona: equal parts midnight snack, equal parts comic punch line. And isn’t it marvelous when a prank becomes a prophecy?