Tura Satana

Tura Satana was a Japanese American actress, vedette, and exotic dancer. She was born in Hokkaido, Japan, to a father of Japanese and Filipino descent and a mother of Cheyenne and Scots-Irish ancestry. She and her father were interned in a camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, and later moved to Chicago, where she faced racism and violence. She learned martial arts and formed a girl gang to defend herself. She also became a burlesque dancer and a nude model, posing for Harold Lloyd and dating Elvis Presley. She moved to Los Angeles and pursued an acting career, appearing in TV shows and films. She is best known for her role as Varla, the leader of a gang of go-go dancers, in Russ Meyer's cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). She performed her own stunts and improvised some of her dialogue in the film, which became a symbol of female empowerment and sexual liberation. She also starred in The Astro-Zombies (1968) and The Doll Squad (1973), among other exploitation films. She retired from acting in the late 1970s, but returned to the public eye in the 2000s, attending film festivals and conventions. She was working on a documentary and a sequel to Faster, Pussycat! before her death from heart failure in 2011. She has been cited as an inspiration and an influence by many artists, filmmakers, and musicians, such as John Waters, Quentin Tarantino, Rob Zombie, and The Cramps.