Tura Satana

Luminous Beings // Radioactive Decay

Photo: Russ Meyer. 1965. -public domain. Sketch art by Don Rice.

Tura Satana was an actress, showgirl, and exotic dancer. Satana’s acting debut role was a cameo as Suzette Wong, a Parisian prostitute in the film Irma la Douce, which starred Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Her next was as a dancer in Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963), which starred Dean Martin and Elizabeth Montgomery. Soon after, Satana appeared in the television shows Burke’s Law (1964) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). Most famously, Satana then starred as “Varla” in the 1965 film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! She did all of her own stunts and fight scenes. Renowned film critic Richard Corliss called her performance “the most honest, maybe the one honest portrayal in the Meyer canon and certainly the scariest.” Faster, Pussycat! was a commercial and critical failure upon its initial release, but it has since become widely regarded as a cult classic and influential film.

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Luminous Beings // Radioactive Decay · An Ongoing Series

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