R.I.P. Tura Satana

Last Friday, Tura Satana, of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! fame died of apparent heart failure at the age of 72. After the difficult shoot, Russ Meyer later regretted not having cast her in future movies, as she made her mark (in a way) with Ted V. Mikels in such films as The Astro-Zombies (1968), The Doll Squad (1974), and Mark Of The Astro-Zombies (2002), as well as cameos in mainstream films such as Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed? and Irma La Douce.

Her biography reads like an improbable journey of everything that would scar a girl for life, including getting gang raped as a child (and later exacting revenge on her assailants one by one after a corrupt judge let them walk), a failed arranged marriage as an early teen, a failed career as a musician, underage nude modeling, and stripping. But she became a silver screen legend regardless, mostly remembered as ''Varla'' in the 1965 Meyer classic.