NIGHTMARE!

OTTOLA NESMITH - "THE OLD WOMAN"
JOAN HAIG - "MISS NIGHTMARE"

"Nightmare!" was a hosted horror movie show with Ottola Nesmith as "The Old Woman" presenting horror movies on Tuesdays at 9:30 pm for KTLA, Channel 5, Hollywood, California from 1 October 1957 to 1958. Joan Haig as "Miss Nightmare" did not appear in the show, but was used to publicize the show in the local area. Haig visited local newspapers leaving a Do-It-Yourself Nightmare kit. The publicity photographs of Miss Nightmare were still circulating and showcasing her as the host, until Halloween 1957. Ottola Nesmith was born on 12 December 1889 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actor, known for Becky Sharp (1935), Four Star Playhouse (1952) and Television Spy (1939). She was married to Leon D'Usseau, with whom she had four children, including Arnaud d'Usseau and Loring d'Usseau, who were both involved in the cinema industry. She was a sharp-featured character actor playing numerous spinsters, dowagers, gossips, forbidding nurses, governesses and saleswomen from the mid 1930s to the late 1960s. Nesmith died on 7 February 1972 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA. From: N.L. Ross' book "Lon Chaney: Master Craftsman of Make-believe": On the show she played a dotty old crone that reminded one of a cross between poison-pouring Josephine Hull in "Arsenic and Old Lace" and an unemployed witch. This was not Ottola's most outstanding claim to fame. That lay in the line of handwriting, for each Tuesday night's show would open with the camera focused on a closed door on which Miss Nesmith would forge the signature of the film's heroine. This would be followed by Ottola's portrayal of that long-retired lady as a present day out-of-work, mentally deranged, has been. Now "Nightmare" premiered with a screening of "Frankenstein" starring, among others, Miss Mae Clarke as the feminine lead. Of course Ottola did her bit as a demented Mae Clarke and fooled most of the audience because she herself was so completely unknown. But that was only the beginning. Within a week the real Mae Clarke found herself the object of countless solicitous letters and phone calls from friends and fans all offering her aid in her situation of poverty and destitution. Two weeks later Miss Nesmith found herself and her channel being sued for a million dollars by an irate Mae Clarke who exclaimed, "I'm not decrepit. I'm not broke, I'm no nuts, and I'm not a has-been." Nothing ever came of the law suit beyond the fact that Miss Nesmith never again portrayed Mae Clarke or forged her signature on a door. The following are some photographs, newspaper advertisements and articles: "Nightmare!" - The Old Woman from The Professor's Scary Clips on Vimeo.

LINKS

Internet Movie Data Base "Nightmare!"	Internet Movie Data Base "Joan Haig"	Internet Movie Data Base "Ottola Nesmith"
The Classic Horror Film Board "Ottola Nesmith, Horror Host"	E-gors Chamber of TV Horror Hosts "Ottola Nesmith"	Terror From Beyond The Daves "The Real Horror Hosts From Southern California"

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