Vampiricus was an experience that occured near the docks in Long Beach, California. It was produced by Blade Rhino.
George Metivier was a photographer who spent quite a few evenings at Vampiricus capturing the happenings and, on occasion, some of the attendants became his models.
George has since passed away. There was not one obituary in the Long Beach Press Telegram. The only notice was this mention in the Panama Canal Society newsletter:
George Metivier of Long Beach, Calif., recently passed away. He graduated from BHS in 1951. He owned his own photography business which allowed him to use his art training. He authored several books and exhibited his works widely. He was a member of the Panama Canal Society.
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This slideshow is a direct scan from Eternal Vampircus, the scrapbook George kept from that era of the late 90s.
The music is from Babylonian Tiles.
Outside of hereticsofhollywood.com, none of the links in this slideshow are currently on-line.
This movie was made in 2007. It was inspired by numerous cases across the United States and abroad concerning the clergy abuse of children.
This video’s first public screening was at a public awareness meeting at Fuel’s Coffeehouse in Jacksonville, Florida, on February 9, 2008. That event became the lead story on WTLV-12 the following night. You can see an internet banner of DON’T GO IN THE CHURCH! on this WTLV-12 news report:
Don’t Go In The Church was inspired by Don’t, the short from the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie GRINDHOUSE. The presentation in Jacksonville was a ‘double feature’ of both Don’t Go In The Church and Bible Madness. This double feature is now available on Amazon Video on Demand.
It’s not everyday a person gets an email from ‘Queen Kong’. I instantly remembered ‘Deathstalker 2’ and perhaps an episode of ‘Married With Children’. Since I did not follow wrestling, I wouldn’t have known her from GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, so it says something about her range that she has an identity beyond the cult 80’s television sitcom.
A visit to her webpage queenkong.com confirmed this was indeed the cult movie actress. Deanna Booher was working on her autobiography. I drove to her home and enjoyed listening to stories about her days in wrestling and entertainment. She had noticed the webpage for my documentary ‘Wrestling Then and Now’. My p.o. box address was in the same building as her p.o. box.
She worked with a number of editors but was itching to finish her book. Not only was I local, I welcomed the opportunity to read the rough draft of what has become; GLAMAZON QUEEN KONG: MY LIFE OF GLITTER, GUTS, AND GLORY!
Deanna grew up in the mountains near Lake Arrowhead, CA. Taller than most, she felt awkward because of her physical appearance. Like Sissy Hankshaw, the heroine who is sensitive about her big thumb in Tom Robbin’s ‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues’, she hits the road and meets some rough characters. She gets pregnant and nearly has her baby taken away, but she asserts her rights and gets him back.
Ken Booher
Deanna marries Ken Booher, a man who is opposed to monogamy. It is the mid-sixties. Free love would eventually morph into swinging. Ken and Deanna were there as both participants and journalists. While some people might be put off by Ken’s view of monogamy, I should point out an incident in the book that caused me to raise an eyebrow.
Ken had an opportunity to work in a school for boys, but refused to inflict the types of punishment his supervisors wanted him to impose. He quit. Since I was working with a non profit group that called for greater transparency in boarding schools and group homes, Ken received brownie points from me for not playing along with the abusive system.
The first phone sex business in the USA shut down by the FBI!
Deanna and Ken opened the first telephone sex business in the country! The FBI took an interest in their work and promptly closed them down. Not long after, 800 numbers began cropping up in sex magazines.
She dominated men as ‘Queen Adrena’. This became her first wrestling name. Women in wrestling were on the outside looking in, so Queen Adrena’s first professional match was not with a man. It was a bear! Yes, regulations and scarcity of men kept this Glamazonian from wrestling men at the Olympic Auditorium. Since professional wrestling didn’t pay the bills, she became ‘Queen Kong’ and pioneered session wrestling (in which men paid for the opportunity to wrestle with this amazon).
Deanna and Ken eventually met Matt Cimber, the producer of Butterfly, Tangerine Dream, Fake Out, and The Witch Who Came From The Sea. They discussed the possibility of a wrestling television show that featured women. This became GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling which began taping in Las Vegas.
The women were divided into good girl/bad girl camps. Deanna was now ‘Matilda the Hun’, a Teutonic Queen and true bad girl. The women were expected, in true kayfabe tradition, to keep their personas in public. This did not warm them to the heart of professional wrestling who, in the ultimate spirit of hypocrisy, wouldn’t accept GLOW as ‘real’. Not even Vince McMahon could keep GLOW from becoming a cult phenomena (even though he’s rumored to have threatened to pull his programing from any TV affiliate that showed GLOW).
One thing no one expected was for GLOW to become popular with children. Children flooded the auditorium at the Riviera Casino. Vegas was changing its image to become a more family friendly place. This brought the very real fear that someone could discover Matilda’s past as a dominatrix and get her pulled from the show. It nearly happened before when Deanna appeared on Hardcastle and McCormick with Brian Keith.
Matilda the Hun left after the second season of GLOW. She returned to her previous alter ego ‘Queen Kong’ and made a name for herself during the golden age of mud wrestling which reached its pinnacle at the Hollywood Tropicana. It came to a spectacular halt when Queen and Ken produced a one of a kind mud/oil/cream wrestling extravaganza called ‘The Female Combat Circus’. An unforgettable evening marred only by getting ripped off by the casino owners.
Her acting career took off and she was practically on every sitcom that required the services of a woman wrestler: Night Court, Hart to Hart, Mama’s Family, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Married with Children, not to mention numerous b-movie drive in classics like Deathstalker 2, Space Balls, How I Got Into College, Lust for Freedom and Dirty Laundry.
‘Married with Children’ Matilda the Hun and Ed O’neill
The demands made on her, combined with her wrestling injuries, took their toll. A particularly disturbing episode on Patrick Duffy’s show, Step By Step, made her realize it was time to bring down the physicality a notch. She began offering ‘Slam-a-Grams’ and it became a news sensation along with her song ‘Raw Meat’ which, although originating on GLOW, began playing at the beginning of Fred Roggin’s sports updates.
A car accident brought activity to a standstill. Ken, who starts out the book as the dominant breadwinner, ends up sick and dependent on Deanna. Ken died and Deanna eventually moved to a retirement community in Seal Beach. She began working on her memoir and hiring editors. That was when she sent the email to me.
Did someone say Roller Derby? ‘The Rolling Mountain’ of the Hollywood Hawks.
Our work began with digitizing slides and videos. Hundreds of hours and images from her days in sex journalism, wrestling, GLOW, Hollywood, and roller derby. Oh! Did I just now mention roller derby? That’s what it was like working with Queen during the past year. We would dig up a photo that triggered a memory and, sometimes, a new chapter! This book is jam packed with stories and experiences regarding wrestling, entertainment, the sexual revolution, and the slam bam punches that life can pull!
GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling began shooting a few years before Deanna contacted me. As the movie became more of a reality, she wondered how her fans would react to the portion of her book dealing with her days as a dominatrix. The GLOW screenings proved her fans were more accepting than previous generations.
Matilda the Hun surrounded by fans at screening of GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling
GLAMAZON QUEEN KONG should be required reading for womens studies classes across the nation. It’s a first person account of a woman asserting herself in male dominated industries, and possibly through her influence, helping to mold change.
GLAMAZON QUEEN KONG is ultimately a story of a woman coming to terms with her past in order to pass on a legacy to future generations.
GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling will have its national television debut on March 19, 2013 on the LOGO Channel. It chronicles the rise and influence of the women’s wrestling phenomena. It should not be missed.
GLOW came into the world as a syndicated 80s sitcom. It was filled with offensive and politically incorrect humor. It characters included terrorists, angry housewives, farmer’s daughters, an evangelist, a Samoan priestess and a Nordic warrior called ‘Matilda the Hun’. All doing battle at the Rivera Hotel in Las Vegas.
GLOW became a phenomena that, while largely panned in the world of professional wrestling, created its own following without any help from Vince McMahon. Offended viewers wrote angry letters to local television affiliates.
Matt Cimber, producer/director of the television series, reveals the most popular audience for GLOW was young girls. Sally Jesse Raphael does not appear to buy this, but the documentary gives Cimber and all the women of GLOW the last laugh. Young women, from the worlds of roller derby, wrestling and fetish entertainment flock around Matilda the Hun at every screening of GLOW that I have attended. They either want autographs, pictures, or a chance to say thanks for providing another view of non submissive womanhood.
Matilda the Hun meets fans at GLOW screening
Women have not had an easy time in the world of wrestling. Deanna Booher, aka Matilda the Hun, mentions that reason she wrestled a bear in the Olympic auditorium is because women were not allowed to wrestle men. Now that wrestling is no longer recognized as a legitimate olympic sport, what is a male wrestler to do? Brush up on your microphone work and maybe you can valet one of these wrestling divas!
Yes, folk! Even in the 21st Century, there are wrestling magazines and sites that refuse to grant credibility to the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Why? Contrived plots? Not enough wrestlers taking their lumps? Or, maybe ‘it’s not real’? The hypocrisy of the male wrestling establishment is not the focus of this movie, but it’s pretty obvious.
Is a revival of GLOW in the works? An effort certainly seems to be made. Last year, a GLOW inspired match took place in Las Vegas while wrestling’s exclusive Cauliflower Alley Club assembled at the Gold Coast. David McLane, a former producer of GLOW, is promoting Women of Wrestling.
‘Spirit of Woman’
If anybody could truly be channelling the ‘spirit’ of GLOW, it would be Matt Cimber who adopted ‘the spirit of woman’ as the flagship image for his new show, Femme D’Action. It features GLOW stalwarts; Matilda the Hun, Little Egypt, Roxy, Godiva, Hollywood and a new generation ready to take on the world. It promises to bring back political incorrectness into its characters and scenarios.
Matilda the Hun with Billy Corgan, Little Egypt, Hollywood. Producer Jason Connell on the left of Matilda.
GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Women of Wrestling might not be enough for some GLOW fans. It does create a legend with its own tall tales and innuendos. Did fan mail ever reach the stars? Was Pia Zadora responsible for halting the production of GLOW? And what’s the deal with Jacqui Stallone? How’d she get in this mixture in the first place?
Many of these questions are answered in additional material on the DVD. Billy Corgan, of Smashing Pumpkins (and GLOW fan extraordinare) , interviews Matilda the Hun, Hollywood, and Little Egypt about behind the scenes happenings of the cult TV show. If that is not enough, further shocks and revelations may be found in GLAMAZON QUEEN KONG: MY LIFE OF GLITTER, GUTS, AND GLORY! by Deanna Booher.
Enjoy the movie? Now read a first hand account of the real world of GLOW!
GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling begins and ends with Matilda the Hun. The movie reveals she is working on her autobiography. It is now available for purchase. If we are at the threshold of a GLOW revival, consider GLAMAZON QUEEN KONG to be its bible! The fact that both have been simultaneously released is synchronicity in action.
(photo: Dwayne Walker, wearing a Zigwear coat, with Ashley Cartier and Matilda the Hun from the cult 80’s TV show, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling)
Welcome to the world of ZIGWEAR FAUX FUR COATS & APPEAREL.This is the place where your fashion dreams become a reality! Whenever I’m out on the town , like in the above photo at the Orange County premiere of GLOW: the story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, that’s what I’m always wearing!
This promo for the Hollywood company features an interview with Zigwear creator and designer, Terry Christenson. Madame Sunset and her Hollywood Kittens (from the walkertown.com banner at the top of this page) are the featured models!
her·e·tic [n. her-i-tik; adj. her-i-tik, huh-ret-ik] anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.
Welcome to the Heretics of Hollywood!
‘Heretic’ is not a word related only to religion. A heretic is simply someone slightly out of the mainstream. Whose standards may be a little different than the majority of people. A heretic may be a man, or woman, who enjoys swimming against the crowd, swimming above the crowd, or, heaven forbid, ignoring the crowd altogether. This is relative, of course, since today’s heretics are tomorrow’s orthodox.
Hollywood, of course, was founded by heretics who fled the east coast to avoid paying camera fees owed to Thomas Edison! Edison, of course, a man rumored to have stolen from Nicolas Telsa.
Fellow on left using Thomas Edison invention for a gypsy show.Hollywood might have been founded by trade violators, but at least they gave him a star!
We who came after them, are providing entertainment through streaming media from a variety of locations. Streaming has brought Hollywood to its knees resulting in losses of revenue from movie theaters. The heresy that one does not have to migrate to Hollywood to make a movie has become reality. Even Hollywood is leaving Hollywood for cheaper locales to shoot their epics. Hollywood has abandoned itself. Their downfall is our gain.
![her·e·tic [n. her-i-tik; adj. her-i-tik, huh-ret-ik]anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.](https://hereticsofhollywood.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cropped-cropped-clearhohlogo1.jpg)
Heretics of Hollywood 