Tura Satana

Tura Satana was an exotic dancer, showgirl and actress of Japanese-American heritage. Born in Hokkaidō, Japan, she moved to Los Angeles and took up burlesque dancing as a teenager, later touring as a successful exotic dancer and modeling for the silent comic Harold Lloyd. Her first screen role was a cameo as a Parisian prostitute in Irma la Douce, followed by a dancer part in Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963) and television appearances on Burke's Law and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. She became best known as Varla in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), doing her own stunts and fight scenes; critic Richard Corliss judged the performance the scariest and most honest in the Meyer canon. She later worked with director Ted V. Mikels on The Doll Squad (1973) and The Astro-Zombies (1968), and in 2002 returned to acting in Mark of the Astro Zombies.