L.A. Weekly has an indepth profile of Elvira, aka Cassandra Peterson, with candid commentary about her rise from the youngest showgirl on the Las Vegas strip to the horror icon of today.

For 21 years, she performed a live revue every October at Knott’s Scary Farm, for what she calls “an enormous amount of money — and I have to say, I deserved it because I worked three or four shows a night for practically 30 days in a row.”

CreepyLA has a particular fondness for the Mistress of the Dark, as she agreed to be one of our first interviewees; read it here.