#roberta solomon

[polkadotjohnson]

RCCC 2019 Interviews - David Dastmalchian and Roberta Solomon

[draculasdaughter]

Crematia Mortem was the horror host of KSHB 41’s late night weekend television show Creature Features in Kansas City, Missouri from 1981 to 1988. Nicknamed The Ghostess with the Mostess, she was the creation of Roberta Solomon (a local television and radio talent). 

Every week, late at night on Saturday (or Friday, for a while), Crematia and her cohorts would welcome viewers into her spooky mansion’s living room, decorated with spiderwebs, skulls, and half-spent candelabras. She would emerge from her coffin in classic vampy makeup and attire, and take a seat in her massive wicker throne while cracking jokes and setting up the night’s film selection. A classic horror or science-fiction film would play, and Crematia would pop back in around the commercial breaks with a little film commentary or other antics.

Crematia’s look was mostly up to Roberta. “I wanted her to look like she had stepped out of an Edward Gorey drawing,” she says. She bought a long black wig at Wild Woody’s in Independence, a negligee at Macy’s or Kmart, a corset from Frederick’s of Hollywood, and she was set.

Mortem gained cult status and, in 2012, was inducted into Horrorhound Magazine’s TV Horror Host Hall of Fame (along with Elvira, Joe Bob Briggs and Universal’s “Shock” Movie Package).