RIP Tura Satana

[Christina]

Changing my profile pic back to Tura in her honor. She was so boss.

[Sarah]

I was reading her Wiki page yesterday.  Someone should make a movie about her.  Get this:

Walking home from school at the age of nine she was gang raped by five men. Her attackers were never prosecuted and it was rumored that the judge had been paid off. 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. "I made a vow to myself that I would someday, somehow get even with all of them," she said years later. "They never knew who I was until I told them."

Now, I'm not sure I believe everything about this story (the entry does not strike me as entirely reliable; consider the following, for example: "Because of the rape and the bribed judge, she was sent to reform school as a teenager and became the leader of a gang"--now does that make sense?), but what a movie!  Married at thirteen!  Fleeing to LA the same year and embarking on her career as a stripper!  The protégée of Harold Lloyd!  Continuing to strip eight months into her pregnancy at age nineteen!  And much much more!

I will watch Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! in her honor today.

[Christina]

I know - the details in the story are a little too "perfect" ... I think it was also said she was interned at Manzanar. At least some of all of that is probably true. One of the best stories I've heard about her is that she was one of the few actresses from the Russ Meyer movies who didn't let him push her around - & she owned her own image, so any time it was used, she had to give permission and/or get paid for it, All those posters, t-shirts, etc, of Pussycat, his most famous movie? That must've chapped Meyer's hide big time.

For a long time there was talk about an autobiography she was working on called The Kick Ass Life of Tura Satana, and then I heard there's a documentary underway w/the same name. Maybe that will get finished up now. I thought I heard it was almost done.

[masterofsparks]

That story is like the true life version of I Spit on Your Grave.

I read the Russ Meyer biography by Jimmy McDonough, and Tura owning her own image would indeed infuriate Russ. Good for her. Boy did I leave that Meyer biography not liking him very much.

[Chris L]

Glenn Kenny quoted an excerpt from John Waters' 1981 book Shock Value about his calling Satana before she had re-emerged in public.

[Martin]

A friend of mine's girlfriend's foster dad is Tura Satana's nephew. So yeah. RIP.

[Christina]

Glenn Kenny quoted an excerpt from John Waters' 1981 book Shock Value about his calling Satana before she had re-emerged in public.

I remember this! In fact, it may have been where I first heard about Russ Meyer ...

[Christina]

I read the Russ Meyer biography by Jimmy McDonough, and Tura owning her own image would indeed infuriate Russ. Good for her. Boy did I leave that Meyer biography not liking him very much.

Yeah, and the executors of his estate even less.

[Rick in Salt Lake]

She was so boss.

Indeed she was. Nobody made watching the act of breaking dudes' backs look so hot...