I’m going to take the opportunity, since this is Cassandra Peterson’s birthday, to answer a question that has come my way thousands of time: have you ever actually met any of the Sirens that you talk about on your website?

To meet as many Sirens as possible is still a work in progress, but I admit that the chance to actually chat with one in person came my way in 2005, at the Toronto FanExpo. On the guest list was Cassandra Peterson and I couldn’t miss that chance. Some months before, I think I’ve failed to convince the person representing Tanya Roberts for her convention appearances to make his client a guest at the con, so I was consoled by standing in front of the Mistress of the Dark, au naturel without the Elvira costume.

The following photograph is immortal proof that I met Cassandra in person (what, don’t you recognize me on the left, in full convention battle gear?). Actually, I have no clue as to who took that picture, as I found it by pure chance on one of the Rue Morgue forums dedicated to that particular event (Rue Morgue being one of the main organizers):

Right then, I was probably telling some lame joke that was hitting the mark. When I admitted coming from Montreal, Cassandra fondly recalled her visit to my hometown on the Just For Laughs Festival in 2001, for the promotion of her movie Elvira’s Haunted Hills. She was charming, beautiful and full of wit. A memorable encounter.

So let’s celebrate Elvira’s 58th birthday (!!!) while keeping in my mind that her favorite holiday (Halloween) is on its way…

You think I won’t talk about wrestling from time to time, don’t you? Well guess again, as tonight we can order WWE Unforgiven. And why should we? To see the Women’s Championship on the line, what else, really?

With the WWE Diva Search 2007 going on (sadly more a priority in the devious mind of Mr. Vincent Kennedy McMahon than establishing a serious female roster), to which degree this match would have serious repercussions? For a former model, Candice Michelle has made some great effort to be a credible wrestler, but I doubt that she’ll become the next Trish Stratus. As for Beth, she’s being pushed as an unstoppable monster in a mostly credible way. Yes, I admit to enjoy the eye candy as any other, but I know that these gals work real hard to being where they are.

So from time to time, I’ll profile a wrestling diva worth our attention.

At least, let’s admit that it was close. Born on September 15, 1907, Fay Wray passed away in 2004, as there were still rumors of a cameo appearance in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Ms. Wray’s fragile beauty and grace will probably be talked about for another 100 years and rightfully so. Her role as Ann Darrow is of course immortal and will be part of movie lore for eternity.

For decades, male horror film stars have been much admired and revered. Cults around Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are still going on strong. Since one of the main purposes of Cult Sirens is to share the accomplishments of overlooked actresses in sometimes ignored films, let’s make available this first list of excellence. Since I have a tendency to prefer more eccentric cinema offerings, I now propose my 13 Favorite All-Time Female Performances in Horror Films. I’ll post a couple of entries a week on this subject to stretch the suspense to its unbearable limit. Will this become ultimate proof that female roles in Horror are not always decorative? You be the judge.

Much consideration was given into this, and I’ve decided to mix regular roles that contained a normal amount of speaking lines with a couple of effective mute ones, resulting in an appealing match of seasoned performers with young unexperienced players. So, let’s start in chronological order, keeping in mind that the silent era is not included:

1932 – Kathleen Burke – Island of Lost Souls

This was Kathleen Burke’s first role, as she had won a nation-wide contest to find the perfect Panther-Woman for this screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’s 1896 classic novel. Surrounded by ugly animal-men on Doctor Moreau’s island, she can stir up trouble by her mere innocent presence. Innocence is the key word here, as Ms. Burke’s lack of acting skills is her greatest advantage playing somebody who’s completely clueless as how to behave around people in her limited vicinity. Contrary to her male counterparts, she displays perfect human physical attributes (i.e. no apparent fangs, body hair, etc.), but watch out for those claws! Moreau (probably in constant semi-erection mode) enjoys bossing her around, displaying her like some mere living trophy. So, we have a complete newcomer giving an absolutely erotic performance (for its time), without being aware of it! Pure movie magic.

Barely 20 years old at the time of shooting, Kathleen Burke is astonishingly beautiful as Lota, with crazy eye makeup and clinging jungle girl costumes. The actress would be a player in about twenty movies soon after and ended her career in 1938.

Along with Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi and the entire cast, Kathleen Burke’s haunting presence is a key point of one of the greatest horror films of all time, not having lost its power to shock. A motion picture which is, for unknown reasons, still not available on domestic DVD.

Dig that gorgeous Spanish language poster, with Kathleen billed simply as “La mujer pantera”:

Next time: our second lucky actress had the title role in the best horror film ever! No joke!

I’ve always found strange that Jane Wyman was often billed in later years as “Miss Jane Wyman” (!?!?!). This venerable actress passed away on September 10 and I was surprised to find out that I had only seen four of her movies. Of these, I remember her memorable performance in The Lost Weekend, a film that gave me nightmares (yes, the scene when Ray Milland sees the bats coming out of the wall…).

I also moderately enjoyed Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, that I saw as a teen, but frankly being more intrigued in Marlene Dietrich’s presence than any one else’s. There’s also Pollyanna, which made my sisters weep and myself bored to tears. Finally on my short list stands Bad Men of Missouri, of which I remember exactly nothing. So my interest to the world of Miss Jane Wyman remains minimal. But her own contribution should be saluted by movie fans.

Here’s the sexiest photo I came across of her, which I think must have been taken early in her career:

She hasn’t done any motion pictures yet, but geez she sure is photogenic! There’s sometimes a feel of an Edwige-Fenech-ish quality about that Lucy… so here’s some choice galleries just for you:

• Desktop Celebrita
• Hicelebs
• Firecow
• and of course the official site

Well, that Janine is really inspiring me these days, doesn’t she ? Following yesterday’s post, here’s a video containing scenes from Succubus and it can be considered a nice visual introduction to this fine lady. There’s no real nudity; for that, you’ll just have to rent the movie! Music by Killer Barbys (a band that took its name from the title of a Jess Franco movie, BTW).

Today, I’m going to talk about someone I met around 1974 or so, on a summer day in the country, shortly after I celebrated my tenth birthday. Yes, it was on that kind of holiday that I first discovered who Janine Reynaud was… and now, 33 years later, I still don’t know much about the lady. But met her I did and she has never really left my mind.

Putting things into perspective: since I was (and still is) a rabid comic books fan, I had just borrowed one of my older cousin’s Vampirella French magazine. Yes, at that time there was a translation published of the Warren classic book heroine’s adventures, in the same B&W format. Of course, both the English and French formats were available in Quebec in many convenience stores. But being a magazine from France, that version had a major difference: it didn’t shy away to include some nudity, mainly stills from current horror films.

The issue that I was going through had some reviews of recent Jess Franco films (back in the day when Jess was cranking about 10 of them each year), mainly La comtesse aux seins nus (better known in the U.S. as Erotic Kill, among many other alternate titles). Yes, there were a couple of images of La comtesse herself, all bare-breasted and on the hunt. Remember, I was 10 years old and finding all this very exciting and dangerous. Dangerous because I didn’t want to be seen with this material and also because I knew that at my age, this was not proper litterature, as I was feeling this on a very personal level. Unknown territory, here I am!

Also included in the mag was a small dossier about Janine Reynaud, of which I didn’t know nothing about, obviously. I was still years away for finding a passion for strange movies, let alone Euro-cult favorites. But even then, I was not insensible to the charms of Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch and some others, so Janine became all right with me on the spot. I was decades away to actually see one of her films!

Needless to say, I never got my hands on the magazine again after precious minutes of browsing through it and still deplore the fact that I’ve forgotten vital info about this fascinating actress. Searching the web is still no help, oddly enough, as info is still scarce about this cult personality.

It is speculated that she was born between 1940-45, but I remember reading (in the Vampi article?) that she was already into her late thirties when she got underground fan adoration (meaning what? 1968? 1973?). Her career seemed to have started around 1965, as she got to play in some European spy adventures à la Bond. But the big break came in 1968, as Janine’s fiery red hair got to be displayed in a most alluring and erotic manner in Jess Franco’s classic Succubus (or Necronomicon; the thing with Franco’s films is that they have many diverse titles, depending on the market where they were released).

Then came, still under Franco’s direction, a duo of sexy spy thrillers with fantastic overtones, Two Undercover Angels and Kiss Me Monster. This trio of films is mainly responsible for Janine’s cult status, but then came a couple of giallo projects, like Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, a Western co-starring Ringo Starr, Blindman, and of course the purely erotic phase.

This latter period includes films like The Chambermaid’s Secret, Libido, The Felines, etc. Eventually, many of these titles will be revisited in depth for the purposes of this site. Her last movie work remains the 1978 entry Tire pas sur mon collant.

There was something mysterious about Janine, with her sometimes alluring androgynous looks, amazing pile of hair and lesbo-chic allure. Even playing in what the majority of film fans would term dubious projects, she WAS a great actress, projecting tragedy, threat or predatory qualities in equal good measures.

I’ve been trying for years to include Janine on the main Cult Sirens site, but lack of personal info as kept me of doing so (as it is for many more actresses, to my eternal chagrin). There’s a vague rumor that she eventually married an American millionaire and retired to Texas. We also know that her former husband was actor Michel Lemoine, another fan favorite, whom which she co-starred and was even directed by a couple of times. Jeez, a whole blog should be dedicated to her! I will try my best in the future to pay the most worthy tribute.

The first ever female Asian performer to be nominated for an Academy Award… actually won it! It was in 1958 that Miyoshi Ukemi won as Best Supporting Actress for the movie Sayonara, starring Marlon Brando. It was announced recently that Ms. Umeki passed away on August 28 at the age of 78 from cancer complications.

She was born in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan, on May 8, 1929, and was raised in the United States. She became popular at first as a singer, for some time known as Nancy Umeki, releasing material in Japan and the U.S. Her first movie appearance was in the Japanese musical Youthful Jazz Daughter in 1953. Soon after, Miyoshi made her television debut in North America, appearing as a regular guest on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends.

In 1957, Sayonara came to the big screen, telling tales of U.S. officers in Korea getting romantically involved with Japanese women. Miyoshi played the role of Katsumi, a character starting a tragic affair with an American serviceman. Despite winning an Oscar, she never got to participate in many movies, as she can be seen only in Cry for Happy and Flower Drum Song (both 1961), The Horizontal Lieutenant and A Girl Named Tamiko (both 1962), and… that’s it.

Still, she was a regular in the TV series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father from 1969 to 1972, and could also be seen on Broadway, as she won in 1959 a Tony Award for the stage production of Flower Drum Song.

With her first husband (television director Wynn Opie), Miyoshi had adopted a son. She remarried with another director (Randall Hood) in 1968 and became a widow in 1976. At that point, she had already retired, living in Hawaii for some time. Just before her death, she had been living near her son in Missouri.

Amazing smile, amazing cheekbones, amazing talent.

Don’t know if this movie will enjoy a long run at the box-office, but we should note the presence of two exquisite actresses, namely Maggie Q and Aisha Tyler.

Firstly, Margaret Denise Quigley was born on May 22, 1979, and is of Vietnamese and Irish-American descent. In fact, her dad had met her mom during the Vietnam War. She was born in Hawaii, but eventually began a modeling career that took her to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Maggie began her movie career in 2000 in the latter country with a couple of projects, one ironically titled Model from Hell. She could be glimpsed the next year in Rush Hour 2. Naked Weapon can be considered a breakthrough part in 2003, that movie being a sort of remake of the legendary cult thriller Naked Killer, starring Chingmy Yau. For North American audiences, Miss Q was mainly noticed in Mission Impossible III and Live Free or Die Hard. So now fans around the world can have the pleasure of watching Maggie paddle-wielding her way in this ping-pong comedy. So watch out for this actress with these unique facial features, a perfect blend of East and West.

Last but not least is Aisha Tyler, born on September 18, 1970, in San Francisco. Maybe the tallest female stand-up comic of all time (she stands 6 ft tall, not counting the heels), she used to skip school to attend improv classes. After touring and enjoying a comedy career, she made her debut on television by guest-starring in various series, like Nash Bridges. The spotlight was on her in 2001 when she hosted the satiric TV show Talk Soup and began popping on various televised projects. Her movie career has been a bit more discreet and we hope that bigger things will come her way in many higher-profile projects, as that unique mix of beauty and humor is not to be wasted another second. Still, she wrote, directed and starred in her own short film, The Whipper. As this is written, two movies having Aisha in their respective casts are in theaters, Balls of Fury and Death Sentence. For many years, there was this rumor that Halle Berry would star in a remake/homage of a blaxploitation picture of the seventies. May I suggest now Ms. Tyler, who would be perfect as the new Cleopatra Jones?