Valda Hansen

Valda, the sensitive girl with the lovely smile. In the late 1950s, Valda was doing a play called "Accidentally Yours," when Ed Wood came backstage, and he considered her an ingenue. Ed originally wanted to cast Valda for the short film "The Night the Banshee Cried" (1957), but wound up casting her in her first movie Night of the Ghouls (1959); Valda said during filming that she was "sweet 16 and innocent" (so according to that, she would have been born in 1943). Ed had been impressed with the hand gestures of Bela Lugosi, and had Valda do a scene where she eerily moved her hands with her long, silver fingernails, and it was a quite striking effect.