Cassandra Peterson

Cassandra Peterson is an American actress known the world over as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark — the campy, wisecracking horror hostess she introduced on Elvira's Movie Macabre (1981) and carried into films including Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) and Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001), building one of Hollywood's most beloved and enduring camp personas. Elvira's outsize sexuality, gleeful transgression, and embrace of outsiders made her a gay icon decades before Peterson spoke publicly about her own life. In her 2021 memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira, she revealed that she had been in a loving relationship with Teresa "T" Wierson for 19 years, begun after the end of Peterson's 25-year marriage and kept private out of fear that coming out would cost her the career she had built; she wrote that Wierson makes her feel "safe, blessed, and truly loved." Peterson has said she resists labels for her sexuality, and her disclosure deepened an already profound bond with LGBTQ+ fans who had long recognized Elvira as a queer icon — a testament to the courage it takes to claim a queer identity publicly after a lifetime in the spotlight.