Satana was born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi in HokkaidĆ, Japan. Her father was a silent movie actor of Japanese and Filipino descent, and her mother was a circus performer of American Indian (Cheyenne) and Scots-Irish background. After the end of World War II and a stint in the Manzanar internment camp in Lone Pine, California, she and her family moved to the Westside of Chicago. She developed breasts very early and, despite being an excellent student, was constantly harassed for her figure and Asian heritage. Walking home from school at the age of nine she was gang raped by five men. According to Satana, her attackers were never prosecuted and it was rumored that the judge had been paid off. She tells how this prompted her to learn the martial arts of aikido and karate and, over the next 15 years, track down each rapist and exact revenge. âI made a vow to myself that I would someday, somehow get even with all of themâ, she said years later. âThey never knew who I was until I told them.â
Because of the rape and the bribed judge, she was sent to reform school as a teenager and became the leader of a gang. In an interview with Psychotronic Video, she said, âWe had leather motorcycle jackets, jeans and boots and we kicked butt.â At 13, she was married in Hernando, Mississippi, a short-lived union arranged by her parents and the family of her 17-year-old groom.
Satana then came to Los Angeles at age 13 with a fake ID and tried her hand at blues singing. When that failed, she started modeling as a bathing suit photography model and posed nude for the silent screen comic Harold Lloyd, who did not know she was underage. Lloyd told Satana she should be in films because she was photogenic. While working as a photographic model, Satana contracted makeup poisoning and could not wear any makeup due to the ensuing skin erosions. She returned to Chicago to live with her parents and started dancing. Satana danced at the Club Rendevouz in Calumet City, Illinois, where she was known as Galatea, the Statue that Came to Life. She was offered a raise to become a stripper. She eventually became a successful exotic dancer, traveling from city to city and working with Rose Le Rose, Maxine Martin, The Skyscraper Girl, Tempest Storm, Candy Barr and Stunning Smith the Purple Lady. Satana credited Lloyd with giving her the confidence to pursue a career in show business: âI saw myself as an ugly child.â Mr. Lloyd said, âYou have such a symmetrical face, the camera loves your face, you should be seen.â Because of her dancing, her face, and her figure, she was ultimately voted one of the 10 Best Undressed Burlesque Dancers of the 20th Century by Bill Hanna of Hanna-Barbera.
At 19, Satana got pregnant, but continued dancing for the next eight months, earning a typical weekly salary of about $1,500.
Satanaâs most noted screen role was as âVarlaâ in the 1965 film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!âa very aggressive and sexual female character for which she did all of her own stunts and fight scenes. Renowned film critic Richard Corliss called her performance âthe most honest, maybe the one honest portrayal in the Meyer canon and certainly the scariest.â
Originally titled The Leather Girls, the film is an ode to female violence, based on a concept created by Russ Meyer and screenwriter Jack Moran. Both felt at her first audition that Satana was âdefinitely Varla.â The film was shot on location in the desert outside Los Angeles during days above 100 degrees and freezing nights, with Satana clashing regularly with teenage co-star Susan Bernard, because of Susanâs mother disrupting the set. Meyer said she âwas extremely capable. She knew how to handle herself. Donât mess with her! And if you mess with her, do it well! She might turn on you!â
She was fully responsible for adding key elements to the visual style and energy of the production, including her costume, makeup, usage of martial arts, dialogue and the use of spinning tires in the death scene of the main male character. She came up with many of the filmâs best lines. At one point the gas station attendant was ogling her extraordinary cleavage whilst confessing to a desire to see America. Varla replied âYou wonât find it down there, Columbus!â Meyer cited the extreme tension on the set caused by Satana as the primary reasons for the filmâs lasting fame. âShe and I made the movieâ, said Meyer. Meyer came to greatly regret not using Satana in his subsequent productions.
Satana dated Elvis Presley but turned down his marriage proposal, though she did keep the ring. Satana married a retired Los Angeles police officer in 1981, and remained married until her husband died in October 2000. She has two daughters from a previous relationship.
Satana died on February 4, 2011, in Reno, Nevada, United States. Her long-time manager, Siouxzan Perry, stated the cause of death as heart failure.
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