Wild Nothing / Abe Vigoda

In Exclaim! here.

Tura Satana 1935-2010

Imagine you work in an office. One day the copier breaks down. All your co-workers are gathered around, scratching their chins, trying to figure out how to make the damn thing work again. Just as someone's about to call for service, you recall a trick you learned from working on the student newspaper in college and work your magic. The copier works better than ever, and from that moment on you are known as "the copier guy/girl." You come in to work and it's, "Hey copier guy!" You show up for a board meeting and are asked if you've "fixed any copiers lately?" When you go to apply for a job at another company you're forced to put "know my way around a copier" on your resume because it's your calling card. The rest of your working life is mapped out for you, but you find it impossible to transcend.

Tura Satana, who passed away Friday at the age of 72, was responsible for one of cinema's most iconic performances - the fire-spitting hellcat Varla in Russ Meyer's 1965 masterpiece, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The film, which was Meyer's first box-office disappointment, is the gateway drug through which many are introduced to RM's weird world, and even those who haven't seen it are familiar with it iconographically. The hard-centre of the film is Satana's Varla, who rages over the proceedings spitting out Meyer's gleefully insane pulp dialogue with a curled lip sneer and utter crazy-eyed conviction.

Satana, who had a crazy real life, growing up way too fast and witnessing the dark sleazy side of human nature first-hand, doubtlessly invested much of herself and her experiences in her one film with Russ Meyer. One gets the sense that she is Varla, minus the sociopathic tendencies. Her work in the film, including her own contributions to Meyer's extraordinary dialogue, fits perfectly within Meyer's id-sophrenic world, shoving aside every demure, half-baked, wide-eyed innocent Kewpie doll that Hollywood had ever dished out. Satana's gutsy, forthright, and ultimately tragic Varla endeared both her and Meyer to feminists and academics, yet their dedication to cheap thrills allowed both to remain cult figures.

Ultimately her body of work was slim, and she was lost and forgotten by the '70s stepping out of the limelight and into the straight world, not making any films for 29 years. Yet she was smart enough to know how powerful her work in Faster, Pussycat! was, and happily peddled her image to adoring fans at conventions. People will always try to emulate her style and attitude, but there will only ever be one Tura.