“Spend any time around Tura Satana and you can’t help but fall under her spell. One whiff of that perfume – Luna Mystique, if you must know – and you’re a goner, my friend. She’s got a smoky, mischievous chuckle that says life’s a game and the deck’s been marked, so we might as well laugh. Satana still gets a kick out of life and enjoys kicking it back. There’s something noble about Tura. She slugged her way through years of gin mills and flesh pits with nary a dent to her dignity.”
/ From Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer (2005) by Jimmy McDonough /
In Memoriam: statuesque Russ Meyer leading lady (John Waters describes her tough-as-nails performance as the vicious Varla in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966) "one of the best villains in screen history”), tassel-twisting burlesque queen (billed as “Miss Japan Beautiful”) and all-round ultra-vixen, the fiercely bodacious Tura Satana (Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi, 10 July 1938 - 4 February 2011) died on this day. While nowhere near as stellar as Faster, Pussycat! Satana is also a magnificently hostile presence in berserk 1968 exploitation flick The Astro-Zombies. (The fourth of February is a cruel day for aficionados of low-brow trash culture: Lux Interior died on 4 February 2009). Do the Watusi or karate chop someone today in Satana’s memory!
