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| Ed Wood gave us two sides of actress Jean Stevens. |
In his magnum opus Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), writer-director-producer Edward D. Wood, Jr. summoned an iconic femme fatale – TV horror hostess Vampira as the striking Vampire Girl – to haunt men for decades to come. Plan 9’s cult status and the fervor directed toward Vampira have caused Ed’s other femme fatales to be largely overlooked.
Two of his lesser-regarded films – Final Curtain (1957) and Night of the Ghouls (1959) – feature a [White] Vampire and a Black Ghost, respectively. Each role was played by the same little-known actress who managed to exude a mysterious, foreboding air of eroticism not unlike that of Vampira herself. A large measure of credit must be given to the cinematographer, William C. Thompson, whose knack for capturing feminine beauty in crisp, moody black-and-white mirrored the timeless Universal horror classics of the 1930s and 1940s. The young actress in question, Jean Stevens, was no newcomer as far as Ed was concerned. He had known her since his earliest days in Hollywood.
