Under one roof: Some of horror’s greatest scream queens

Dark Delicacies in Burbank is a place where any fan of horror movies, books and collectibles can go crazy. Making things even more interesting is that the store also serves as host for great events. On Sunday, Jan. 26, Dark Delicacies offered The Day of the Scream Queens, and some of the great ones were there.

Not all of the ladies in attendance were actual horror movie screamers. Deanna Lund was invited for her work as Valerie Scott in the television series “Land of the Giants,” which ran for 51 episodes in 1968-70. She was married to co-star Don Matheson, and her daughter Michele Matheson is an actress (“Mr Belvedere” TV series). No longer taking on movie or television roles, Deanna is a happy grandmother and dotes on her cats and dogs.

Although Jamie Lee Curtis is regarded as the scream queen — she was not in attendance Sunday — a trio of actresses have become known as excellent scream queens: Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer, who were present and had many visitors to their tables.

Quigley is best known for her roles in “Night of the Demons” and “The Return of the Living Dead” but has had an active career since 1975. She has starred with Stevens and Bauer in such movies as “Nightmare Sisters,” “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” and as recently as 2012 they were in “1313: Cougar Cult,” a made-for-video movie in which Quigley was out sick for much of the principal shooting but whose footage later was added in through the technology of modern editing.

Quigley is currently promoting a film in which she has a role titled “Virginia Obscura,” due for release in late February.

Eileen Dietz is an actress who has had many roles over the years, from soap operas to guest shots in television series to movie roles. But she can claim fame to being a performer a lot of people saw but did not know it. A lot of the scenes in “The Exorcist” in which Regan (Linda Blair) is possessed by the demon Pazuzu actually were Dietz in heavy makeup, making an uncredited appearance in what is regarded by many as the scariest movie of all time. Dietz has recently written an autobiography, “Exorcising My Demons: An Actress’ Journey to ‘The Exorcist’ and Beyond.”

Laurene Landon made her mark in the horror/sci fi and action realm with roles in “Maniac Cop” and Maniac Cop 2″ and in the title roleĀ  as “Hundra” in 1983 in what she called a “female version of ‘Conan the Barbarian’.” But she also had a high-profile role as one of the flight attendants on the troubled space shuttle in “Airplane 2: The Sequel” and was featured in “I, the Jury.”

Early in her career she starred in “.. All the Marbles,” a film about female wrestlers, which was the last movie directed by Robert Aldrich (“The Dirty Dozen”), who died in 1983. Landon said she trained for about eight months to learn all the wrestling movies and did all of the wrestling scenes herself. Veteran actor Peter Falk played the role of her manager.

“He was crazy,” she said of Falk. “He was into improvising and would call me and Vicki (Frederick, who played the other lady wrestler) after the day’s shooting and go over upcoming scenes and the next day what we would shoot would be different from the script.” She noted that Aldrich was not a director who tolerated actors straying from the script, and as a young actress she felt compelled to go to Aldrich and apologize after he called them out for the improvising. But the great director assured Landon he was aware that Falk was the culprit in the dialogue alterations.

Other actresses in attendance at Day of the Scream Queens included Trina Parks (Diamonds are Forever” and “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery”), Helene Udy (1313: Frankenqueen” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”), Lisa London (the upcoming “”666: Devilish Charm”), Kristine DeBell (“Meatballs,” “1313: Night of the Widow” and the TV movie “A Halloween Puppy”), Donna Wilkes (“Jaws 2”), Lynn Lowry (“Cat People,” “The Crazies”), Jessica Morris (“Venom” and the upcoming “666: Devilish Charm”), Jean Louise O’Sullivan (“Alien Inhabitant” and “Puppetmaster X: Axis Rising”), Carolyn Purdy-GordonĀ  and Darcy DeMoss (“Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI”), who had a hockey-masked Jason standing by for photo ops.

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