“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 the essential Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer (2005) by Jimmy McDonough /
Born on this day 88 years ago: striking Amazonian Russ Meyer leading lady (John Waters calls 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). Do the Watusi or karate chop someone today in Satana’s memory! Pictured: Tura Satana in the 1963 film Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed? via Tura Satana Productions. Their exciting 2025 documentary (simply entitled Tura!) is compulsory viewing.
