By Jason Marsiglia

Exotic dancer turned cult B-Movie icon Tura Satana passed away Friday in Reno, Nevada. Raven-haired and irresistably curvy, Tura shot to B-movie superstardom in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill as Varla, the leader of a trio of strippers who go out looking for trouble and cash. Proving back in 1965 that sexy women could also be lethal, Tura was nothing short of a cinematic trailblazer for the Women’s Movement as she punched and kicked the hell out of any man dumb enough to try and take advantage of or underestimate her. The film’s no holds barred attitude and frank sexuality broke down boundaries and paved the way for countless attempts to re-create what made the film so memorable.

If you really think about it, the film and namely Tura were responsible for just about every “tough chick” film and television series to follow. Everything from obviously brightened and bubbly action shows like “Charlie’s Angels” to modern bare-knuckle action flicks like the recent Bitch Slap or Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse segment “Death Proof” echo everything Satana stood for in this little cult classic. Meyer himself would even try and reclaim some of that magic with his Supervixen and Valley of the Dolls films, but nothing came close to the impact left by Tura and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Though she appeared in a number of other B-movies including The Astro-Zombies, The Doll Squad and even recently lending her voice to Rob Zombie’s twisted animated fable The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (as Varla, no less), Tura will forever remain that curvatious femme fatale with the heaving cleavage and plunging neckline, Varla in the undisputed champion of “girl power” films, and proof that women can be independant, dangerous and drop-dead sexy all at once.

“I’ve always told Ted, you can’t let anything get you down. Look at the positive side. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep the negative side buried.” – - Tura Satana on what she considers “the most important secret of all”.