The Business of Being Elvira

As the reigning Queen of Halloween for four decades and counting, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, is justly celebrated for her goth-tastic fashion sense, quick wit, and enormous … ratings. But her alter ego, Cassandra Peterson, wants to be remembered by two simple words: great businesswoman. “A lot of my fans don’t realize that I run a company,” Peterson tells ADWEEK with a grin. “That’s my 24/7 job—being Elvira makes up just a tiny part of it.” While Elvira would surely object to being described as “tiny,” she’s not the one in charge of Queen “B” Productions, the full-service operation Peterson oversees from her home in Portland, Ore. As the boss, the 73-year-old actress gets the final say on the character's comings and goings. Whether the Mistress of the Dark is adorning a new piece of merchandise, striking a fresh brand partnership, taking part in a convention or live event, or opening her vintage vault of Z-grade horror movies for an interested streamer, you can be sure that it’s been vetted and approved by the person who knows her best. And Peterson has had plenty of time to get acquainted with Elvira. After all, they’ve been in each other’s lives since 1981, when she first donned the character’s signature cleavage-baring black dress—a look she created with her friend and collaborator, Robert Redding—and invited viewers to enter Elvira’s Movie Macabre during the late-night hours on Los Angeles’ local KHJ-TV station. An immediate hometown hit, Elvira quickly entered the national pop-culture zeitgeist and remains an immediately recognizable figure to this day. It’s the story of how smart brand management can transform a seemingly flash-in-the-pan character into an enduring (and endearing) icon for multiple generations. It’s also the story of a pioneering female entrepreneur controlling the rights to her own intellectual property in a male-dominated space like the fandom industrial complex. But perhaps most important, it’s a story of liberation. For decades, Peterson had to be Elvira in order to manage her—cloaking her own identity to ensure that the character stayed front and center. A few years ago, though, she made the risky decision to essentially retire the role, only appearing in public as Cassandra, not Elvira. Today, creator and creation exist independently of each other—and business has never been bigger. “That was my goal for a long time,” Peterson says happily. “I wore that drag for 46 years. At a certain point, it wasn’t going to be pretty!” Here are some of Peterson's self-learned tips for how to turn a fan-favorite character into an immortal fandom brand: Peterson as Elvira attending a 1991 convention in Las Vegas. Own who you are Back in 1981, Peterson said she viewed getting into the Elvira drag as a job, not a career. “I mean, I was a struggling actress!” she exclaims, thinking back on her early months lounging on the Mistress of the Dark’s red velvet couch. “I felt lucky to have a gig, and I always knew it could get canceled tomorrow.” The first hint that she had stumbled onto something more than a $350-per-week acting gig came when she made her first in-character appearance at a podunk L.A. fan convention. Despite suffering from a bad case of the flu, she spent hours shaking hands and signing autographs for dozens of gawking admirers and walked away with $100—enough for Peterson and her then-husband and manager, Mark Pierson, to cover their monthly rent. That was her lightbulb moment or, to put it in geekspeak, her George Lucas moment. Prior to the release of the original Star Wars in 1977, the filmmaker made a big bet that owning the film’s licensing and merchandise rights would be more valuable than simply accepting a director’s fee. That decision wound up being the Kyber crystal that powered Lucas’ resulting creative empire. Returning home from that first convention appearance, Peterson felt a similar disturbance in the Force. “I said to [Mark]: ‘Wait a minute—we could actually make some money with this thing,’” she remembers. With the help of talent manager Eric Gardner and lawyer Vance Van Petten, Peterson and Pierson set about acquiring Elvira away from KHJ, one piece at a time. “We would say, ‘Hey, can we make an Elvira T-shirt and sell it?’” Peterson explains. “They’d say, ‘No problem,’ and gave us the merchandising rights. Then we’d say, ‘What about a fan club?’ and the answer was, ‘Yeah, sure.’ We kept that up until we had all the rights.” Peterson took ownership of Elvira just in time, too. By the end of the 1980s, KHJ had gone out of business, and her ambitions for the Mistress of the Dark would have disappeared in a puff of smoke. “I don’t feel guilty about it,” Peterson says matter-of-factly about how she and her team acquired the character from under the station’s nose. “I lived so much of my life not knowing where my next paycheck would come from, so for this job to come along where we could see the potential of making money—and having fun—was mind-blowing.” (Peterson and Pierson divorced in 2003; as part of their settlement, Peterson retains full ownership of Elvira and pays her ex-husband a portion of her earnings.) Peterson at the 2018 edition of RuPaul's DragCon. To thine own brand, be true Once Peterson owned Elvira outright, she put her creation to work. Using shock jock Howard Stern as a guide, the actress set out to be the self-described Queen of all Media in the 1980s and 1990s, saying yes to appearances in television, films, comic books, video games, albums, and pinball cabinets. Naturally, Elvira’s power grew stronger whenever the calendar flipped to October. As Halloween approached, Peterson would step up her number of live appearances, including an annual song-and-dance show at Knott’s Scary Farm—the spooky version of storied California theme park Knott’s Berry Farm. Elvira merch reliably flew off shelves around Oct. 31, as well. “There were very few things we turned down,” Peterson says, laughing. “I do remember that a big company wanted to do a high-end Elvira perfume sold exclusively at Neiman Marcus, and I turned them down! I said, ‘That’s not who Elvira is. She’s a beer-drinking girl, not a champagne-swilling lady.'” (Peterson did eventually green-light a lower-end perfume that retailed at drugstores.) Speaking of beer, one of Peterson’s most successful—if ultimately cursed—business deals was a famous mid-‘80s Coors campaign that plastered images of Elvira on billboards and supermarket standees across America. Even though the Mistress of the Dark’s seal of approval provided an ample boost in sales, the conservative executives in charge of the company were never comfortable with her sex appeal. Coors dropped the Elvira campaign in 1988, eventually bringing her back in 1991, only to drop her again in 1995. While Peterson says getting dumped by Coors not just once, but twice, was “devastating” in the moment, her roller-coaster experience with the company did provide a crash course in brand marketing—and helped her solidify exactly what she wanted Elvira’s brand to be when other eager partners came calling. “We always say that Elvira has three things: the humor, the spookiness, and the sexy part,” Peterson explains. “That formula told us who Elvira was and what she could sell or not sell. I don’t think there’s another character out there who combines those three elements. Freddy Krueger has the scary part, but he’s not so sexy!” Peterson as Elvira in a 2017 show at Knott's Scary Farm. You might be down, but you’re never out The on-again, off-again relationship with Coors wasn’t Peterson’s only professional wipeout at the height of Elvira’s initial wave of fame. There was also the network TV pilot that CBS canceled before it aired and the feature film she hoped would launch a franchise, only to see it crater at the box office after the distributor, New World Pictures, went bankrupt before opening day. While the movie has since become a Halloween favorite—in fact, it screened at the Academy Museum this summer with its star in the house—it remains the one item in Elvira’s closet that Peterson doesn’t own outright, and not for lack of effort. “I do own the merchandising rights to the film,” she says. “The movie itself keeps getting transferred from this company to that company. But we keep trying.” “Keep trying” is Peterson’s general approach to the ups and downs of brand management. But there was one point in the early 2000s when the Elvira brand was well and truly down—think nearly six feet under. Following her split with Pierson, Peterson found herself without a manager, an agent, or any other infrastructure to help her manage the few opportunities that were still trickling in. “I was struggling,” she admits, candidly. “I really thought it was the end of the character.” Enter Scott D. Marcus, Peterson’s current manager and owner of DevlinAgency, who previously oversaw The Simpsons' licensing program in Europe and Asia for 20th Century Fox. “Cassandra only had one licensing deal when I met her,” Marcus says of the state of the brand when he came on board. The good news was that the Mistress of the Dark still had minions—lots and lots of minions. Engaging with those devoted fans directly at conventions and on social media became the cornerstone for how Marcus and Peterson rebuilt the Elvira brand for a new era. And in this new era, Elvira is a "Queen for All Seasons," not just the spooky one. “We turned her into a lifestyle brand,” Marcus says, pointing to the extensive amount of Elvira-themed Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Pride Month, and summertime merch available on Elvira.com, retail outlets, and fan gatherings like the Yours Cruelly, Elvira XXperience—a 20th-anniversary event celebrating the character’s two decades of Knott's Scary Farm shows. Even as Marcus has helped expand the audience for Elvira, Peterson is careful to keep them both honest about who the character is—and isn’t. “If Scott brings me something that I think is a ridiculous idea, he’s very amenable to being talked out of it,” she says, chuckling. “We’re like a nice Italian couple. We can yell—but that just means we love each other.” Peterson partnered with Julien's Auctions for a 2021 auction of Elvira memorabilia. Know when to let go Because of that mutual affection, Marcus knew better than to argue when Peterson said she was hanging up the black dress for live appearances. Still, he admits to having doubts that bookings would be as plentiful for Cassandra as they were for Elvira. “People were turning us down,” he recalls. But Peterson didn’t backtrack on the decision and instead re-established herself as the main character in her life story by literally writing her life story. Her bestselling autobiography, Yours Cruelly, Elvira, hit shelves in 2021 and compiled some oft-told stories (like the night she spent with Elvis Presley) with many never-before-heard revelations—like her longtime relationship with her partner, Teresa “T” Wierson. Speaking about her choice to come out in the pages of her book, Peterson says she was “very worried” about the impact it could have on the Elvira brand. “A lot of my fans are guys who like Elvira because she’s sexy,” she admits. And Marcus recalls that the official Elvira Instagram account lost 11,000 followers after the news broke—only to gain 60,000 new followers over the next week. Not for nothing, but many of those newcomers were born after the first episode of Movie Macabre aired. “Our primary fan base is between 15 and 34 years old, and it's 55% women,” Marcus says, adding that they've heard many of those female fans profess admiration for Peterson’s personal journey. “Cassandra just resonates with people.” Sharing so much of herself with her fans—old and new—has allowed Peterson to let Elvira fly free. The version of the character she played lives on in the thousands of photos and hundreds of vintage episodes of her multiple TV shows, some of which can be found streaming on Tubi and Peacock. In fact, Marcus teases that they’ve had discussions about launching an Elvira FAST channel, although Peterson cautions that they’re limited to releasing episodes where the films that the character mocks are already in the public domain, or the rights are otherwise obtainable. “It’s such a shame,” she says. “I’ve got so much content, but it’s tied to movies where we can’t always get the rights.” Elvira’s future appearances, meanwhile, will be immortalized in cartoons, comics, skateboard art, Funko collectibles, and other illustrated and artist-generated mediums. “I see her as a superhero, like Superman or Wonder Woman; you don’t have to have a real person behind her,” Peterson says. “I hope Elvira is always around in stores, books, and games—with or without me."

Branding

The Business of Being Elvira

Cassandra Peterson reveals how she manages the Queen of Halloween

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