Tura Satana - An American Icon

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 13, 2007

Categories | American Cinema, Actresses, Blogathons, Ted. V. Mikels

Tura Satana in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Real bad girls who are beautiful as well as dangerous, are hard to come by. There are plenty of attractive and talented actresses who “play” action heroines in the movies but few seem like they can really hold their own off the set. They use stunt doubles for their action scenes and special effects to cover up their lack of real fighting skills. Some come from conventional or even privileged backgrounds and unless they’ve been directed to hold a weapon, they’ve never had to learn how to shoot a gun or wield a knife. Tura Satana is the real deal.

Gang member, martial artist, burlesque dancer, actress, stunt woman, nurse, police radio operator, bodyguard, wife and mother. Tura Satana has been all of that and more in her lifetime. She also managed to survive the Japanese internment camps, a horrible rape, reform school, a nasty gunshot in the stomach and a terrible car wreck that left her hospitalized for years. She’s an original American bad girl and a real Action Heroine in and out of the movies. And that’s why I decided to celebrate her work in film for the Action Heroine Blog-a-thon.

Tura Satana entered the public eye as an exotic burlesque dancer in the late fifties. She used her athletic abilities and even her martial art skills in her burlesque act, which included elaborate costumes consisting of kimonos, huge head dresses, beaded g-strings and garters. She also used lots of props in her performances such as knives, swords and a large Buddha statue. Her show was very popular and attracted a lot of attention.

After being photographed by silent film star Harold Lloyd, who encouraged her to get into acting, Tura considered a career in Hollywood but didn’t really pursue it. That all changed after a producer caught her show while she was performing at the Follies Theater in Los Angeles and offered her a part as a sexy secretary in the Hawaiian Eye television series. She would later go on to appear in other television shows such as Burke’s Law, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.

Tura’s first film role was in Danny Mann’s comedy Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed? where she got to dance for Dean Martin. That same year director Billy Wilder and writer/producer I.A.L. Diamond visited the Pink Pussycat Nightclub in Hollywood with their wives where Tura Satana was performing. They were all impressed with Tura’s risqué act and Billy Wilder’s wife suggested that Tura might make the perfect Suzette Wong in Wilder and Diamond’s 1963 film, Irma La Douce. Wilder agreed and she got the part of the prostitute Suzette Wong in his film.

It’s been rumored that Tura Satana had an affair with Billy Wilder during the making of Irma La Douce and if it’s true I wouldn’t be surprised. Tura is incredibly beautiful and she has had a lot of famous lovers in her lifetime including Elvis Presley, Joe DiMaggio and actor Rod Taylor. Hopefully her upcoming biography will offer more insight into her romantic relationships, as well as her fascinating life.

Billy Wilder examines Tura’s costume in Irma La Douce (1963)

In 1965 Tura Satana got the role of a lifetime in Russ Meyer’s classic film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The movie would make her a cult icon and cement her place in cinema history forever. She was dancing at a supper club called The Losers with fellow Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! star Haji, when Haji introduced her to Russ Meyers. Meyer’s was impressed with Tura’s beauty and naturally large bust so he cast her in his upcoming film. Tura would become a little too hot for Meyer too handle, but together the two would make film history.

In Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Tura plays Varla, a go-go dancer gone bad who beats up men and terrorizes other women. Audiences shouldn’t underestimate Tara’s contribution to the film. She created her character’s look and performs all of her own stunts in the movie. She also wrote a lot of her own dialogue and some of the action scenes.

The part of Varla came naturally to Tura who had grown up in Japanese internment camps during WW2 and learned to fight on the rough streets of Chicago after the war. When she was horribly raped by a group of young men at the tender age of nine, Tura’s father taught her Karate so she could better protect herself in the future and she went on to learn Aikido as well. Tura spent her wild youth in Chicago girl gangs where she wore leather motorcycle jackets, jeans, gloves and boots. During this time she also had to learn how to protect herself with razor blades and switchblades. She was a good student and a great athlete but she seemed to have a hard time focusing on her studies and she eventually ended up in reform school due to her bad girl behavior. At age 15 she had had enough of school and left to become a professional burlesque dancer.

Tura has dished out her own brand of real vigilante justice to men and women who have dared to cross her over the years. She had a reputation during her burlesque days for fighting with other dancers and she didn’t suffer fools lightly during her live performances. After she was raped as a young girl Tura vowed revenge on her attackers and she has said that she eventually tracked down all of her rapists. In her own words, “I made a vow to myself that I would someday, somehow get even with all of them. They never knew who I was until I told them.”

Tura brought all of her own real world experience to the role of Varla as well as her rage. Tura was an angry woman during the making of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! which led her to breaking her own hand during an argument with director Russ Meyer.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is now considered one of Russ Meyer’s greatest films and it’s impossible to measure it’s contribution to popular culture. The powerful and erotic image of Tura Satana beating a man to death in the desert in 1965 has now undoubtedly become eternally connected to female empowerment and the birth of the woman’s movement in the sixties.

Tura with her fellow Doll Squad members (1973)

After making Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Tura had a small part as a dancer in the spy spoof Our Man Flint (1966) and then she began working with exploitation director Ted V. Mikels. Tura’s first film with Mikels was the extremely low-budget sci-fi/horror film Astro-Zombies (1968). Astro-Zombies is not a good movie, but it is a “so bad, it’s good” movie and Tura Satana’s performance as the evil spy Satana is well worth your time. She looks amazing in the film and wears some incredible low-cut sixties fashions while shooting cops and pushing burning cigarettes into her enemies’ faces.

In 1973 Tura appeared in Ted V. Mikels’ entertaining action-packed film The Doll Squad which is one of the best female action movies made in the seventies. The Doll Squad was the inspiration for the much tamer Charlie’s Angels television series and it tells the story of a group of elite female commandos who work for the U.S. government. In the movie, the Doll Squad led by Sabrina (Francine York) must come together to stop a mad man named Eamon O’Reilly (Michael Ansara) who plans to takeover the world by disbursing plague-infected rats throughout the population. The ass kicking Doll Squad girls use guerrilla warfare tactics, martial art skills and their seductive charms to put an end to Eamon O’Reilly’s evil plans. Tura plays Doll Squad member Lavella Sumara, but unfortunately she is not used enough in the film even though she manages to steal every scene she’s in.

Unfortunately Tura’s film career seemed to come to an abrupt end after she was shot in the stomach by an ngry ex-boyfriend with murder on his mind right after making The Doll Squad. Thankfully she survived the shooting, but she didn’t return to acting until some 30 years later in Ted V. Mikels follow-up to Astro-Zombies called Mark of the Astro Zombies (2002). Why the long delay? Following the shooting, Tura ended up in a terrible car accident which kept her hospitalized for years. She also spent a lot of her time focusing on her family and raising her kids.

Tura and Francine York in The Doll Squad (1973)

Tura also stopped performing as an erotic dancer in the seventies. She was a talented tassel twirler, but she never performed completely topless and when the topless clubs started becoming regular adult entertainment in the late sixties she decided to stop dancing. Tura Satana was a sexy and exotic performer who didn’t need to get completely nude to entertain her audiences. The art of burlesque was becoming a thing of the past so she turned her talents towards nursing and started working in Los Angeles hospitals.

It’s a real shame that Tura Satana didn’t make more films during the sixties and seventies. The handful of movies she did make clearly show that she had talent. Her beauty, as well as abilities as an action star, could have been used to great effect if other directors offered her more interesting roles. Tura didn’t get film roles in Modesty Blaise and the Matt Helm films because casting directors didn’t find her “feminine enough” and director Russ Meyer came to greatly regret not using her in more of his productions even though she refused to do nude scenes.

Tura Satana is now 69 or 72 years old (her exact birth date seems debatable) but she continues to act occasionally and is currently writing her biography which she hopes to turn into a film. She occasionally makes special appearances at film revivals and conventions. This summer Tura Satana will be attending the Midnight Mass Anniversary Show with John Waters and Mink Stole in San Francisco and she’ll also be at the International Comic-Con in San Diego July 26-29.

For more information about the amazing Tura Satana please visit her official website:
- The Only Official Site of Tura Satana