Cassandra Peterson aka Elvira

What's that at the bed. It's spookyoky, I'm pretty sure it's dead, it's coming.

It's way Wait a minute, I'm ghosted.

By Ras Dress.

Hey boo, welcome to ghosting.

Buy me ros Dress Flees.

Gos.

You guys, you.

Don't even understand what a huge day this is for me. Today I was joined by I'm not even canna eat my number one idol, number one idol in the world, Cassandra Peterson, also known as Elvirah, Mistress of the Dark. I've told I've met her a number of times. Is this does? This is definitely the most I've ever spoken with her, and it was just such a delight. You'll see what I'm talking about. She's just the best in

Now.

I really like sharing that one because from last two week's episode when we had the fabulous rain Phoenix on, she talked about a cat, And if you did not hear that one, go listen back to it because it's one of the creepiest, spookiest, but really cool stories I've ever heard. Okay, this next one comes to us from daf Nadil. This is also on Apple podcast Hi Roz. Okay. She says that a number of weird encounters with ghosts or supernatural energies, but this story is one where I

Okay.

At least those were the two things that everyone told me about when I got there. I was in town for an artist writer's residency. Each resident had a small studio apartment within the fenced in grounds of the residency's location. On one side of the building there was an empty, grassy plot of land. One night, it was probably around three am, I woke up with a start. I was asleep lying on my back when my eyes snapped open,

I love your t shirt.

Oh my God. Thanks. I'm wearing an Alvira T shirt right now and I'm in full drag, which people often comment that they can't tell that I'm in drag, but you can confirm I'm in drag.

Right, You're in drag.

Guess I put in the effort today.

We did, and you have like kind of an Elvira hairdy going on. This is sideways, this.

Is my I hope you think I'm ripping you off, and I think it's.

Ship lawyers, lawyer the hairdoo.

I mean inspired by ol Vira. I hope it's not ripping off.

No, of course not.

That's awesome. I I've met you before and it's always times. Yeah, I've met you a couple of times and I'm always starstruck. But it's okay. I mean, you're so you're such an important figure to me and to the drag community, and thank you. As a I'll be a self appointed representative of the drag community. Thank you for your support I mean from but I mean people know that you've been on Rupaul' drag race as a judge multiple times and

I have been to. We dragged queen stuff since so far before you were born is scary.

What was your first experience with a drag queen.

My first experience with the drag queen is I got a job right outside of Fort Carson, the Army base in Colorado Springs. It was a go go girl chock. It started out as a go go girl job and there there were three guys there who it was the first time I see men dressed as women. I was like, what what's going on? This is so interesting? And so I was fourteen years old. I'm go go dancing there.

Fourteen.

Yeah, I was go go dancing from the time I was fourteen. So I don't know why they hired me for this club, but I guess they went to lure in straits as well as gays. I don't know why, but so they put up fourteen year old than that. So there was two drag queens there, Tawny tan and who was kind of reminiscent of Rue Paul a little a very very tall, good looking black man that was Tawny Tan, and then another one called mister Bobby. He played a kind of the straight gay guy part. I

And so I worked there play a few months, like you were a drag queen.

Yes, yes, I was trying to fool people and they were going, oh my god, you look so much like a woman. It's crazy girl.

Yeah, like I'm a thirty eight year old man under here.

No, that's really what I did. But the important thing and the good thing about doing that was meeting mister Bobby, who did my hair, but also Tawny Tan, who from then on he kind of took me under his wing and got my go go dancing costumes together for me, helped me with makeup, help me with my hair, was teaching me different ways to walk and things to do, and oh my god, he made me this leopard gown that was like a leopard stripper's gown or something that

Across from the Abbey, Yeah, I don't know what.

It was, Studio one back.

And then yeah, a million years old famous disco.

Yes, we played there for a couple months. We played the Village Gate which is in New York City, which is now gone, but we played Atlanta and Washington, DC. Everything so me and these seven guys, and they were very often a drag and I was a girl. I was mama. But we did singing, dancing and comedy together in the gay disco era.

You have literally lived nine lives. I mean you're not down.

I hope not nine. I hope at least just eight.

Yeah. Yeah, no, Well, I think that Alvira is bigger than ever I mean in my lifetime at least, Like I feel like you're huge on social media. The merchandise, like the there's so much clothes and pins and shoes and everything Elvira now, and it's it's incredible.

Thank you. I know, my licensing has been going nuts. Yeah, I've got the clothing line, the jewelry line, my slot machines, pinball machines, and I feel like.

I have half of all of it. Well, another place, another place I met you was at your book launch party, which was That was an iconic night for me because I went with our mutual friend Jackie Beats. Yeah, who was DJing.

That was a great party, wasn't it. It was so fun, My god, on the rooftop of the Roosevelt Hotel, which is haunted famously. Yeah, I know all these. I know a bunch of different stories about it. Yeah, like down the basement of cold Spot or a mirror that you can see.

That Marilyn Monroe.

Yeah yeah, and oh my gosh, yeah, a bunch of stores. I have my the opening of Mistress of the Dark at the Roosevelt as well the opening night party for the movie. Yeah.

Wow, I didn't know.

So anyway, good to go to haunt in places, right.

Yeah, I guess we should get to that topic.

I guess you can't shut me up once I start talking.

Girl.

You know, it's my dream come true to hear this. Pas. I should probably also mention listen, I'm not a creepy stalker fan or anything like that, but I do have a tattoo you. I have a tattoo on my arm of your dagger or inspired by. So this is a very big moment for me, and that's why I'm so appreciated, Like, I so appreciate you taking this time.

Thank you. And you know I saw you on the show just recently with with my very one of my very good good friend's, Peaches Christ.

She was just here. Peaches was doing this show as well. She was recently on. Yeah, she talked about woman that she would see as a child spooking.

Well, Peaches is not all.

That explains a lot.

Yeah, that explained I'm kidding. I love pizzas so much, me too. And you were fabulous in the show. Oh my god, I'm blanking on the title? Was it me? Ye? Mean gay? Mean girls? Yeah? Mean gay's but you were absolutely great. I'm not kidding. I'm not just blowing smoke up.

But stop that.

I'm not kidding.

Okay, let's talk about girls, not me. Okay, So I did see you on Celebrity Ghost Stories, which is my favorite TV show of all time. It's it's a great story. So let's start from the beginning.

Okay. My real story will probably slightly differ from that story.

And listen, I've had another one other person on here, Marilyn Rice cub who was on that show, and she was like a few things that were a little different.

You're a little shocked when it actually comes out and you go, oh my god. I didn't say, well, you know, they they want, don't you build it up and sensationalize it? Sure? I mean I thought my story was spooky enough already, but it was a good story, and they had little things here and there.

Wait, what is it like to see someone reenact you?

Oh my god, that was so weird. That was so bizarre. And my husband and my house that looked so pitiful compared to my real house that looked pretty awesome. But yeah, that whole thing, I thought they actually got someone, I mean, resembled me, right, sort of, yeah, sort of a young.

I've seen every episode of that show, and I've seen some wiggotry that the wigs did not match the real person, and it's I mean, they got you good.

Yeah, so they actually didn't make me look like a nightmare, you know. But anyway, Yeah, it was a little push to the limits.

But okay, so what's the real story. Let's set the record story.

The real story is not that different, but it was insanely creepy. I bought this house. It was an old nineteen oh one craftsman house up in the Hollywood Hills. It was called Briar Cliff Manor and it was really weird too. How I bought it was, I want to say, I followed a chicken and I found the house.

For what is that you're walking around the neighborhood.

I was walking around the neighborhood, and I have my two rottwellers with me, and they saw a chicken and they started chasing the chicken. And you know, you don't see chickens every day unless you live in like West Virginia or something not Hollywood Hills. So we started chasing the chicken and it ran through some brambles like Sleeping Beauty's castle. I swear to God, and I crawled on my hands. My dogs were in there, and I'm like

But did the chicken disappear?

Once?

A chicken disappeared when it went into the house, and the ghost it was only a ghost, a chicken ghost, and no, the chicken went it. And anyway, ended up buying the house. Long, long story, okay, And then I ended up selling it to Brad Pitt, who I told these stories to, and he loved these stories. He couldn't wait. Oh, so I don't know if he had any ghost stories after that.

We gotta get to that. Well, okay, we'll get to that later.

Okay, So we'll get to that later. Okay.

So wait, you get on the land and you're like, what is this? And then you somehow looked into it and you bought because I also want to know details about buying like a out.

Okay, well, so I looked into it. It turned out the woman, this Indonesian family family were trying to sell it and uh, no agent or anything, just they were trying to sell it, and we said we would like to buy it. So it took forever because these people were freaking crazy and I'm not kidding. After we bought

Were they doing that through that house? Do you think?

I think so? Because the house inside was trashed to pieces and there were huge parrots, giant like tons of these parrots, which they were probably bringing parrots over and selling them as slaves. I don't know, but there were there were all these parts, and the parents had dropped all their not only their pooh, but also the food and seeds. So the house was just overrun with rats and mice. It was insane.

But they're trying to sell it.

Well. I think just the fact we came along and knocked on the door, they kind of said, you want to buy it? I think they were trying to get out of there. Yeah, long story. We ended up buying it and completely renovating it. Took years and years to renovate. It was such a wreck. But the house had sixty four chickens, ten ducks, two turkeys, two horses, which they took the horses. They left the chickens and ducks and

Was it kind of a creaky house? As like, yeah, it was.

It's all made out of wood as a craftsman, you know, so you could really hear every kind of you know, when you're walking, creaking and all that. But this was more than creaking.

This was like.

Boom boom, boom boom across the ceiling. I mean, that was positive someone.

Was up there.

Anyway, it turns out they weren't. So that was the very first little, uh, you know, sign that something strained was going on in the house. Now, that was the day we were moving in.

Are you the kind of person that at this point in your life that goes there might be a ghost here or were you like, like, what do you did you say when that was weird? Whatever?

I had never had a ghost experience in my life ever, and I had never said, oh I lost my keys, it must have been a ghost, you know at my house. Never, Yeah, you have to blame somebody, right, yeah, I know. I had never had a ghost experience like that, and this was the first time. So no immediate reaction was not there's a ghost, but somebody was up here. Where did they go? Did they jump out of one of the windows? I don't know. It was really bizarre. I mean I

Okay, I don't remember this from the celebrity ghost story.

Yeah, they didn't get into this. This was just one of the stories. Before that I had seen. I had quit swimming in the pool. It was a pool built in nineteen twenty four. I believe it was the biggest pool ever built in Hollywood. It was Olympic size shape like a heart.

But like Jane Mansfields they have a yeah pool. This was a huge, huge, old pit. This was way before that, I mean in the twenties. We found an article later about the opening night of the pool where all these celebrities from Hollywood came and the Zigfield Folly girls, Oh my god, I think it was Zigfield Folly, whoever was some chorus line of girls came and the pool was covered with flowers and we found out and we have

It's not me and you could tell it was not. Yes, you, I.

Quit going into the I'd only go into the pool in like the little part that was the jacuzzie part that we had added. But I quit going in there for a long time because I just like, I don't like whatever this dark thing is floating around at the bottom and there's it was not an object. It was just a dark spot in the water.

But then you had the incident in the pool. Is that later?

Yeah?

Then later, so this nurse comes says, says she's going to take my husband away, and I managed to say where, and she said into the pool. No, yes, So then I was.

Like, well, I finally, you know, that's what I would have said.

Bye bye. Oh gosh, I wish you should have would have I'm all divorce later so it would have been so much simpler and cheaper. But anyway, she went away. I didn't. I didn't wake my husband up. And the next day he said, oh, I'm going to take a swim, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't go into polder. And then I kind of told him what had happened. He at that point started thinking that was crazy, But then things happened. Then one night we

Now he was not a puff of smoked.

Human, solid person. A man sitting there with a mustache and kind of a like burgundy colored jacket. All he looked pretty odd, but I was used to really odd people, so I didn't think that much. About it, but he just sat there and he just kept looking at me. It was in the dark that our living room was still dark. He was sitting The fireplace was going so I could just see him in the glow of the fireplace, and he didn't speak back to me. I kept saying,

I can only imagine, especially like if you never had those kind of experiences.

Yeah, and then a few months later we had Mark Hamill came over. You know. He was a friend of my husband's from high school. Yeah, they'd both gone to samo Hi and I grown up in Malibu together, so they knew each other from then. And he came over and when he got through, he went, oh my god, I cannot believe this is your house. Why he just was standing there looking around, going this this is my dorm. When I went to I think he went to USC, some college or whatever. I think, I believe it's USC.

This is so. Did you ever watch American Horror Story the first season?

I did not, and that can't believe that.

It's called Murder House the season and it's about this house, the fictionalized of all these horrible things over decades that happened in this house. House just like my house. It sounds like it. So many things, different generations.

And after that I went over to our neighbors. We had these two neighbors that lived in the ballroom of the house. There was a tunnel from the house underneath to this ballroom and these people there were ninety nine and one hundred and two and they had just gotten married. We went to their wedding, Yes, and I now, And we went over there and asked them about and they said, well, we didn't really want to tell you, but that's never

Knows how many chickens. Yeah, okay, so what let's let's figure out what you found out about what the house was. So okay, so you find out what was this house originally? Like, I mean, obviously many different things, but.

Well it originally it was just a home, a private home built by this guy that was called the Borax King. I can't I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he was called he was you know, a million years ago there was a twenty mule team Borax train that went across from a Borax mine and took Borax out of mountains in California. And this guy was a guy that ran that mine. And so he built this huge house based on like the Gamble House

He was probably really good at doing that finger thing.

You know, he really was good perfect he had perfected that. Yeah. So I don't know, just just a house full of it. There were just deaths and deaths and weird stories about it, and one thing after another kept happening there. I finally brought in not only a priest who did the holy water all over the house, but I brought in a a healer person who saged it. Sage the whole house and after you know, because I was ready to leave the place. I couldn't deal with all the stuff that kept happening.

It was like a daily almost daily.

No, yeah, I became like really frightened to stay there. I mean my dogs, Oh my god, As I mentioned, I had two brought whelers and it was so weird. In the middle of the night, you would hear them barking and growling. I'd run downstairs and they would just be standing in the middle. I get chills just now, standing in the middle of the room, just like, you know, at something that wasn't there. Oh my god. They did

Because that's the thing that it's like a safety issue with stuff like that. If you hear something somebody in your house, you you don't know if it's a real.

Exactly, so you go check it out. Right. My husband or I would get up and we would sneak downstairs and the dog would just be standing in some part of the room and just growling into the air. And I mean my dogs didn't do that, you know, they had when they barked. They were guard trained, and when they barked or growled at something, it was something you had to worry about. So it was, yeah, it just

And leave living there though.

That's what he said, And he said that's the dream I had. He goes, You've got to get out of there, you have to leave, you have to move out. I was like, oh Lord, God, already I had all this wuff. No, I just ended up getting this priest, this healer person. Everything in staging and doing all that did it help. It completely stopped everything, no way, Swear to God, nothing ever happened there again. And I became so safe feeling

Wow.

I had my two rough wheelers. I felt pretty good about them, but I just quit locking the doors or quit even shutting them at night because I was so felt, so incredibly safe in that house.

Wow. But there was that story about you in a pool getting attacked in the.

Yes, that really happened here, and that was the pool where the shadow was lurking around at the bottom. But my niece had come out from Florida to stay with me, and she was seven years old then and she later became my daughter. I adopted her later. But she came out at that time and she could swim, thank God, because I couldn't. But we were playing around on air mattresses and I was in the pool on an air mattress when they said it was a strange dog from nowhere.

I really was.

If I found a dog what.

There?

It went anyway. So I'd find them, i'd bring them home. I'd try to find their owners first, you know, and then I would start looking for some way for a family to take them. So this was a temporary dog that I had at my house, a big German Shepherd, young German Shepherd but full grown. And I was on the mattress and the dog just took a flying, freaking leap from the side of the pool, landed on top of me, knocked me off the mattress and knocked me

Kids.

Thank god she had an air mattress. I would have grabbed a hold of my knees and pulled her down. You know, I was trying to grab anything I could. Yeah, that was really gnarly. But so I almost did croak in the pool. And you know it wasn't directly the shadow that grabbed me. But that's pretty odd, right, come on, Yeah, laying on a pool and the dog comes sly one hundred pound dog and lands on top of you.

Oh.

I kind of believe. I mean, I believe in a lot of crazy things, but I kind of believe that a place can have a bad energy or omen, you know, could I mean, clearly it attracts death. I mean, how a lot of houses don't have multiple deaths?

No, I know, not most of them.

Ye.

Yeah, I'm living in one now that actuid actually does, which said, but a lot of them. You know, a lot of houses have deaths because the people are old and they die there, they passed away. That, yeah, but not violent desks. Yeah. There was also another instance of one of the people that were in the days when

You got real lucky, I mean, but.

The house was good, ended up being very good energy for me. And then yeah, and then Brad pitt Waltz is in the door one day, literally, I know, and then he buys the house from us, which kind of got us out of a financial situation we'd gotten ourselves into by buying a house. So we just way in over our heads.

It was a huge house.

It was more money than we realized, you know, we had to put into it, and we're really really in over our heads. So he kind of came like out of the woodwork, like a guardian angel and took it off our hands. You know. Wasn't like I made out

It was like that's the major old, beautiful history.

So so so he actually came along, like you know, like our savior and wanted to buy it.

And he didn't have any problems.

I have never you know, I've run into him many times because I moved next door after that. Oh really yeah, it was really crazy, but I've never he never told me that he had any issues. But he completely renovated it and with all the money and the care and the design elements that it should have had, you know, I mean, huh, he had like the deep enough pockets that really that's the kind of person that should have been taking care of that house, you know, that's the

Having for a reason, you guys were meant to be in there to clean it up. In that way, I think.

So we later found out that there was another guy who was going to knock the house down just bulldoze at The Indonesian people had been talking to this Asian builder who wanted to clear it out and build condos there. So I'm so thankful that we actually were able to save it.

Yeah.

Good.

They knocked down too much old stuff around.

Here, Yeah, especially this, I mean two acres in the Hollywood Hills with this giant house on it. When do you find that? Yeah, I mean when do you find that?

Yeah?

I had a pond, a pool, waterfall, which apparently Jimmy Hendrix if it's a cave, there's a cave underneath the waterfall, and Jimmy Hendrix's manager lived there, and we heard that Jimmy Hendrix wrote the song waterfall, Yes, because there's a waterfall going over the cave and had a little window that you could look at the waterfall through when you were in the cave. Oh my god, I have pictures.

Of all this.

People have to see this totally. But yeah, I mean, it just it just non stop. Those were the big spooky things that happened. All the others were like, you know that I placed this here. I know it was here. It's not here. I I you know, windows slams really hard when there's no wind, A door creaks open during the night, it just endless. Light goes on in the hallway. You know, you're sitting in your bedroom like anybody else, Ever.

See a ghost like a physical apparition?

Nope?

Just me.

Now does that mean I'm insane or super sensitive? I don't know.

Maybe you're sensitive. Maybe maybe they were fans, Maybe they wanted.

To know me. Maybe they were they were they knew I was open to the idea.

Yeah, yeah, Okay, we're gonna play a little game if if we can real quick.

It's called ev.

Or ev plice. Okay, okay, So ev P is when people record ghosts and then you know, they often use their opinions or their expertise and tell you what they believe the ghost said.

Okay, so well I'm an expert on this obviously, So.

So let's uh, let's hear this person. This one was posted on YouTube by huffed Normal, who's like a superstar in this EVP world. And this was taken at Sidona Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sidonia, Arizona. Okay, this one sounds like a human talking, but they swear that it's not.

It's a sound exactly like.

Perfect.

Hmm, okay, was it a now I will be perfect? B I'm not into persons. Maybe they were like they thought it was like a dating thing and they're like, I'm only undergoes. Uh c grab a tool and start banging or d I haven't had any complaints yet.

I think. Okay, I have my own opinion. Do I have to take ABC? What do you think it was? Well, it was definitely a woman, and I think she said now I'm almost perfect perfect. Yeah.

Well they think it's now I will be perfect?

Well it could we will be. Let me hear it one more time. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, okay, so I go with a right. Yeah, although I like, why don't she haven't had any complaints yet?

What is she referring to? That's literally me every time I like I leave the drive through. No, it will be.

That's what I said when I was putting on my makeup this morning.

Okay, here's one more from the same location. Okay, then now this one's a deeper.

Yeah, definitely a man. Le' me hear.

It's a real spooky one. It was okay, is it a fur and denim? Maybe they're just like, you know, yeah, talking about kind of clothes they like, Uh, be you're in trouble, see the devil or d blah blah.

I'll go No, I thought you said symptoms, symptoms. See he's a doctor.

I see symptoms. I'm going to tell you what, but there are symptoms.

See doesn't sound like symptoms.

They said that this person that this goes said the devil and I can hear it. Listen, Oh me hear.

No he said symptoms.

He did.

I'm sorry.

Okay, well listen, I guess that's it.

Oh. Those were so fun. I wish I could do a million of them. Those are awesome.

Yeah. Well, uh you know, what do you what do you got going on that you want to tell the people about? I mean, your social media is iconic.

Thank you? Yeah, well, thank you. It's uh An and Christian Greenia, who is my official Vira drag queen runs my social media and does a fantastic job. But just if you want to go on any Instagram or anythink it's all at the real Elvira, because there are a lot of fakes out there.

You're the real one.

Yeah, at the real Elvira and or even go to elvira dot com to check out what I'm doing. I've got a bunch of conventions coming up. I'm currently working on trying to get a new movie project off the ground. Who knows when that will happen, but I'm working on it and my autobiography, which is much closer to being done now than I have an agent that here's the you can tell the way I talk and I never

Yeah, make it, yeah, make it a trilogy.

Three episodes, and then you're ages for one to nine. I'm done to nineteen, okay.

Yeah. Your coffee table book as well, is something that I hope that people if they haven't already checked out, because it's my favorite thing in.

My Yeah, thank you. I'm really glad that book got got put together by tweeterhead.

Chat.

You met Chad, right, Chad Colbank. He produced my book for me. How whatever you say, you put it together and that was like something I'd want to do forever, But that took forever to get the pictures and put all that together, you know. Yeah, So yeah, I'm really proud of it and it makes a wonderful gift for your but midst.

Us Seriously, whenever whatever, Halloween, for days, Christmas, I could go on all day.

There she was Cassandra Peterson. That is such a terrifying story that house. I can't even believe it. House had so much history after all those years, terrible things happening one after the next. It's really kind of like something that should be a movie. But I'd be very interesting to know if Brad Pitt has had any stories. So, Brad Pitt, if you're listening, slide into my dms and among other things, let me know if you've had any ghost experiences in that house. You guys, this is just uh,

Heay. Bye. Stars a podcast network