(arrows whooshing)
(dramatic music)
- [Tura] I was walking home
when I noticed a car
following me.
But I'd seen it in our
neighborhood before,
so I didn't think
anything of it.
The car caught up to me.
There were five men inside.
They asked me a question.
As I started to answer,
hands were suddenly grabbing
and pulling at me.
They dragged me into the back
seat and the car took off.
They shoved a rag in my mouth
and pushed me to the
floor under their feet.
I tried to fight back
by kicking them.
That's when the first
fist hit me.
(punch thud)
(dramatic music)
I was seeing stars
when one of them put his
hand up my shirt.
"Hey, these t*ts are real,"
he yelled out.
Another one told him
to "Shut up."
They'd "all get a
chance soon enough."
My blood went cold because I
knew what was about to happen
and no way would I make
it out of this alive.
I prayed to God, "Please
let me die now,"
so I wouldn't feel anything.
But I don't think he
was listening,
because I felt it all.
(iron slam)
Those men wanted to hear this
Japanese girl beg for mercy
but that's the one thing they
weren't gonna get from me.
In fact, and little did they
know,
they'd just created Varla.
(footsteps crunching)
(car door opens and closes)
(car engine revving)
(rock music)
On a starry night
In the velvet shine
It vanishes before
my very eyes
In the darkest hour
You're the brightest star
Don't fade to black
or wash away in time
With a whisper and a
kiss, I'd never dream
That you'd exist
And in my heart I
know you'll never die
(car engine accelerating)
(piano music)
- [Dita] When I think
about her, calculating out
as a 10-year-old little girl
about what she was gonna do
to get her revenge, it's
like such an incredible story
and a great story about
how to turn things around.
- [Tura VO] There were so many
things that were against me
when I first started out
that I either had to
be a fighter
and work on getting
everybody's respect
or I would've gone down under
and I wasn't gonna let that
happen to me.
I got even... with all of them.
- [Announcer] Superwomen,
belted, buckled and booted.
For your own safety, see
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
(tires screech)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] In the histories
of film and burlesque,
few women have been as
iconic, controversial,
or impactful as Tura Satana.
- [John] I think women like
her, men are scared of her,
but they think she's hot.
She kicked a*s, she was a leader
and she was sexy and she
was in control.
- [Ted] She could stare
right through you, you know.
She had a personality
that was overpowering
to a lot of people.
- [Russ] She and I had a
contest going all the time,
who was the strongest.
And she always felt she
was the strongest,
but I respected her.
- [Greg] She combines
everything that's great about
that propulsive fifties
rock and roll rebel thing
with a female element, and
she's bodacious on top of it.
- [Pamela] She was a
fantastic feminist role model.
See, 'cause those early
feminists pretended
they didn't have t*ts
so she was kind of the
opposite of that.
- [Eric] The idea of the
femme fatale character,
like look at Sharon Stone
in "Basic Instinct."
Tura set the stage for
characters like that.
- [Narrator] But you don't
just snap your fingers
and become Tura Satana.
- [Selene] I think
there was a lot you
didn't know about her.
- Yeah, she did go like
get her revenge
on these guys, right,
which is amazing.
- [Peaches] You know,
I wanted to think
that Tura Satana was out
there k*lling men
when they pissed her off.
You know, I wanted to
believe in that.
- [Dennis] A mass majority of
the people, they only know her
from the movie.
We who knew her, we had
the opportunity
to see the other Tura.
- [Jade] If something
that happened to her,
something she lived through,
something that she
suffered through,
could help someone else,
she felt that would
validate her existence,
why she was who she was.
- [Dita] She had this amazing,
colorful,
and dangerous and
tumultuous life,
and there's a lot of people
that don't have the
courage to have that.
- [Narrator] Tura may
have started down
the road to revenge,
but ended up somewhere
more powerful
than she could have
ever imagined.
- [Peaches] Tura Satana!
(audience cheering and clapping)
- She was a good actress
and she was good at
being a cult movie star,
and those two things,
that's why she'll last.
- Good. Let's get started.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Filmmaker
Russ Meyer was ready
to try something new.
He was fresh off a string
of big box office hits
and not the kind you see
at the Oscars.
Meyer was king of the
"nudie-cutie,"
movies with simple plot lines
and a ridiculous amount
of frolicking, naked,
big breasted women.
- Those movies were
sexploitation movies
that were incredibly successful.
That's what they were.
- [Narrator] Now, Meyer
was shifting gears
from sex to violence.
His latest project, "The
Leather Girls," featured a trio
of gorgeous go-go dancers
who race, seduce
and m*rder their way
through the Mojave Desert.
- This was proudly l*sbian with
punk way before punk though.
This was a burlesque star
k*ller l*sbian.
- [Narrator] Tura Satana
was cast as Varla,
the karate-wielding
Asian g*ng leader.
An actress and exotic dancer,
Tura seemed to be more
than the perfect fit.
(1960's dance music)
- She was definitely
exotic for her time.
You never saw a leading
woman who looked like her.
- [John] It was certainly "These
Boots Are Made for Walkin'"
and all that kind of stuff
was suddenly new and sexy.
Tura came up with a look
that became a classic.
- She was just so larger
than life and over the top.
- Wow. Look at her.
So tall, statuesque with
that black outfit she wore.
The tiny waist, the long
black hair, the bangs.
- Those bangs.
- She had the Bettie Page bangs.
- [John] Those eyebrows.
- [Eric] The Kabuki
style eyebrows.
- Oh, what a woman. And then
she wore the black gloves,
I loved it.
- She didn't reference anything.
She came up with something
completely new
and that's why it still lasts.
- [Russ VO] The idea of Tura
Satana was, there was one girl
that could play the role.
I mean, it was tailor-made.
I mean, she had this
monumental figure,
she was Oriental,
and she knew karate.
- (film projector sound)
- (clapperboard claps)
- [Narrator] Filming began,
and the movie's title changed.
to "Faster, Pussycat!
k*ll! k*ll!"
(dramatic music)
- You're all that's left, lover,
and you ain't gonna be
around for long.
- I don't believe it.
- You better believe it.
(upbeat music)
(clapperboard claps)
- I was in high school
when I saw it
and I saw it at the drive-in,
and I went back the
next day and took Divine
and we went every
night and saw it.
For like a week, we
went every single night
and smoked pot and got
high and watched the movie
and I became obsessed by it.
And that's how I first knew
about Tura.
Tura was scary and people
thought, whoa, who is this?
- That film, I could never
get tired of watching it.
The way that it's filmed
in black and white
and her look as it translates
into black and white is
so intense, such a powerful
and enduring image.
- She was probably a bad
influence on me
because her shouting of
every line, we imitated.
So in my early movies,
it's like, god, these people
have to shout all the time.
Well, we have it, good, it's
like sensurround, basically.
- What the hell happened?
- She damn near k*lled me,
that's how.
Me, a cr*pple.
- And what caused that? Her
pushing you outta your chair
or nothing you did, of course.
- I am tied to this
chair for life.
- Better you should be
nailed to it.
- [Dennis] She just let
stuff pour out of her.
I mean, she was different.
I mean, she was
really different.
- [Narrator] When the
cameras started to roll,
even Meyer was caught a
little off guard.
- [Siouxzan] I don't think
it was a conscious thing,
I think it just
exploded out of her.
- [Narrator] No longer just
a character in a script,
Varla tore from the page
with a vengeance no
one saw coming.
What the others didn't know,
Tura wasn't just playing Varla,
and this wasn't just
acting for her.
In many ways, this had
been her life.
(dramatic music)
- [Angel] In our day, men
beat the f*ck outta women.
No woman beat the f*ck
outta men. She did.
- There was no acting job.
Tura was Varla, that's
why the film worked.
- [Narrator] Tura smashed
every stereotype there was.
Her performance was so
groundbreaking,
you can see its
influence in the worlds
of film, music, art,
and fashion to this day.
But more than that, people
felt a connection to Tura.
They took her to heart.
- [Peaches] There was
something more there.
It resonated so much more deeply
than just an actress
playing a crazy part.
And when you hear the whole
story, you know, you can sort
of connect those dots.
- [Narrator] It's almost as if
Tura had willed Varla
into existence.
It was a role she'd been
working on since she was nine.
While other girls were
still playing with dolls,
Tura's life took a
different turn.
(ethereal music)
(upbeat 1930's music)
- [Tura] Everything
started in California.
My father was a sailor
who dropped anchor
in the port of Los Angeles
before the w*r
then landed work doing bit
parts in Hollywood B movies.
That's where he met my mother.
They married when she was 15.
She was a dancer, a
traveling circus performer
who traded her Capezios
for a life slinging Gerbers
to four daughters and a son.
It was a choice she
grappled with all her life,
something she always
resented us for.
My mother was white. My
father, Japanese-Filipino.
As a mixed race Asian
American family,
we were considered the
lowest of the low,
treated like we didn't exist.
Forget that my father had served
in the Navy during World w*r I,
defending the people who
now called us slant eyes
and gave us so much trouble.
I guess it was easier to
pick on us than think about
who we might really be.
- [Jade] The insecurities
that our family felt,
especially her generation,
being part Asian was
not accepted.
I'm sure my grandmother
and grandfather were
considered outcasts.
- [FDR VO] December 7th, 1941,
a date which will
live in infamy.
(somber piano music)
- [Announcer] Evacuations.
More than a hundred thousand
men, women and children,
all of Japanese ancestry,
removed from their homes
to wartime communities
established in out of
the way places,
bounded by a wire fence and
guarded by military police.
- [Tura] All our
money was taken.
Property my father
owned was lost,
confiscated by the government.
I was raised in Chicago's
Jane Addams housing projects
during the Second World w*r.
My family was relocated there
from the Manzanar
internment camp.
The life we led was not a
very nice one.
My father could pass as Filipino
and got a job with the railroad.
Still, no one wanted to
fraternize with the enemy,
especially after Japan
attacked Pearl Harbor.
And that really
affected my mother.
She did crazy things to try
to make us more Americanized
like taping our eyes open
to give them less of a slant
and threatening me with
plastic surgery.
She sought refuge
inside Kingdom Hall,
joining the Jehovah's
Witnesses when I was young.
They claimed to be
sympathetic to our plight,
but as much as she felt the
false aura of inclusion,
my father and I felt
the same prejudice there
that we did on the street.
- I don't remember there
being that flow of love
with Mom that there
was with Dad.
- [Tura] School was
no different.
I loved learning new
things every day
and wanted to be a singer
when I grew up.
But as the only Asian
girl in class,
it seemed like everyone, the
other kids, even the grownups,
were blaming me for
Pearl Harbor.
The harassment never stopped.
I had no choice but to fight.
- [Ted] The
circumstances she faced,
that she had to fight her
way to school,
even, just going to
grade school,
had to endure all sorts
of mistreatment.
- [Tura] As a child,
I never understood
why others, also poor
and mistreated like us,
would never leave me or
my family alone.
To them, we were the non-people.
- [Nancy] As a mix-raced
Asian American girl growing up
in Chicago where there were
just no Asians at the time,
it must have been
incredibly difficult.
There were posters that
likened Japanese
to lice, to apes,
to maniacal,
animalistic reductions.
There was no
distinction between,
really, Japanese Americans
and Japanese in the
minds of Americans.
People are very much identifying
all Asian appearing faces
as the enemy.
- [Tura] None of my actions
sat well with my mother
and I was the lightning
rod for her unhappiness.
Her biggest fear in life was
that one of us kids would
bring more embarrassment
to the family than we already
had by just being who we were.
That fear manifested into a
nightmare I would never escape.
- [Jade] She was very young but
as it happens in our family,
when you're first
starting to hit puberty
and first starting to turn
from little girl to woman,
the breasts are the
first thing to develop.
It happened to all of us.
Mom was very well endowed
and I think she was, what, 10,
9 or 10 at the time?
(suspenseful music)
She was walking home
from the store.
She had to go to the
store to get something
for either my grandmother or
my grandfather, can't remember,
and a group of guys drove by.
She got cornered.
They like backed up and
got out of the car
and they took her to
another location.
(eerie music)
- [Tura] The car traveled
through back alleys
and parked in a garage.
The men wasted no time
tearing off my panties,
grabbing at my breasts.
- [Lani] The five of them, one
on each leg, one on each arm,
holding her down spread
eagle, while they took turns.
- [Tura] I'll never
forget the pain
as the first one drove
himself into me.
On seeing blood from my vag*na,
he gloated to the others
that he was my first.
All five took turns getting
great pleasure
from brutally raping
this 9-year-old.
- [Lani] During the time
they held her,
They r*ped her repeatedly.
- [Tura] Yelling in my face
and calling me names like
"slant eyes" the whole time.
- Several of them beat
her as well, you know,
to get her to comply
because she put up a fight.
- [Tura] By the end, my blood
was on all five of them,
and they couldn't
have cared less.
(dramatic music)
They dumped me in an
alley, hoping I would die.
Bruised and bleeding, I crawled
and stumbled the two miles home.
People saw me,
but no one stopped
or even offered to help
the slant-eyed girl.
I've never felt such hatred
in my heart as I did then.
I wanted to k*ll them all.
- (shower sounds)
- (sparse music)
There are no words
to describe the filth I felt
within my soul and body.
I tried and tried to
wash away the feeling,
but it never quite came out.
- She told me about being r*ped
at a very young age, and...
- I get asked a lot in
my personal life about,
well, why did I become a
burlesque dancer?
Did something happen to me,
you know?
There are little things
that maybe influenced me
wanting to be someone
that I wasn't born, you know,
but when I think about Tura
and what she went through as
a 10-year-old little girl,
that's like something you
don't even hear
about happening now, really.
That's so, so intense
and like what she went
through with her ethnicity,
ostracized for something
that wasn't even your fault.
- Pretty tough stuff.
(city sounds)
- [Tura] The local
police weren't too interested
in investigating a
crime committed
against the only Asian
family in the neighborhood.
- [Lani] When my grandparents
took her to the police,
no one believed her.
They did not investigate
it thoroughly.
When they did get brought
in for questioning,
they made some excuse about,
you know, she was coming
onto them and...
- [Jade] I think that
they had no idea
that she was as
young as she was.
- But it didn't stop 'em.
- [Jade] It didn't stop 'em.
- Even when she tried
to tell 'em.
(suspenseful music)
- [Tura] The doctor took
specimens,
but somewhere between
the hospital
and the courtroom,
they got lost.
During the trial,
I learned that one
of them was from a
wealthy family,
and they paid the judge a
thousand dollars
for their acquittal.
A thousand dollars. That was
the price of my virginity.
(dramatic music)
In the end, I was the one
at fault and I was punished.
According to the court,
I had tempted those men
into raping me.
- She was the one that the
family was embarrassed of.
She's the one that got
sent to reform school
and none of the boys
got charged.
- [Nancy] It should never
happen to a young girl,
and yet I can imagine
it happening
because there's no
concern on the parts
of these white affluent men
that they could get
away with it,
because that's just
the expectation
that no Asian is
gonna fight back.
(somber music)
- [Tura] After the r*pe,
my father was furious
and went looking for
the men himself.
My mother was a different story.
She said I was unworthy
of being a human.
She said I brought
disgrace to her, my father
and the family name.
She told everyone.
Now, I had to put up with
even more taunts at school
and at Kingdom Hall meetings
where I could feel the lust
of the men in the room
all over my body.
I believed in God, and now I
wasn't allowed to worship him
because of what happened to me?
But those people
were hypocrites.
Later, when I started
making real money
as a dancer, they
wanted that money,
but they still didn't want me.
(mournful piano music)
- [Lani] I don't think our
grandparents were prepared
to help her through that.
She had to learn to
cope on her own.
Back in those days,
you certainly never talked
about going to therapists.
- [Jade] My mom had no
one to talk to.
I don't think she
learned how to cope.
- [Narrator] In fact,
Tura didn't learn to cope.
(inspirational music)
Something snapped and
there was no going back.
Tura invented a new
story for her life,
one where she was in control
and would never be the
victim again.
- [Lani] That was a strength
that she made
to protect herself.
- [Peaches] It was
empowering for her to say
I'm never gonna let
this happen again.
I'm gonna learn martial arts,
I'm gonna learn how to
defend myself,
and I'm going to be fierce.
- [Tura] I made a promise
to my father and myself.
I didn't know it at the time,
but that promise... was my
destiny.
(piano music)
(jazzy music)
My mother wanted me out
of the house.
She tried to marry me off at 13.
Needless to say,
that didn't work out.
But I had a plan of my own.
- (g*n fires)
- (person screaming)
- [Eric] I was born and raised
in Calumet City, Illinois.
If you've never been, it's a
real sh*thole, so don't go.
(g*nsh*t)
It's the original Sin City.
I mean, before there was Vegas,
Calumet City literally
was called Sin City.
There was a main
thoroughfare, State Street,
which back in the twenties
when alcohol was ill*gal,
Al Capone opened up all of
these speakeasys and brothels,
and there were titty bars and
strip clubs,
and it was just this
den of iniquity.
- [Tura] I was 15 when I
copped a fake ID
and landed a job as a dice
girl at a Cal City Club.
One night, a dancer
called out sick.
The owner wanted me to
perform in her place.
Singing, I inquired?
Tsk... Turns out the
audience was more interested
in my chest than my
vocal chords.
But it paid a hundred
a week, so I said yes.
(trumpet music)
- [Eric] She was stripping
at this bar called
Club Ron-Da-Voo,
and she stripped under
the pseudonym Galatea,
which was the statue
that came to life.
- [Narrator] But dancing
in Cal City was hard.
A far cry from the popular
images of the time.
(big band music)
- There is a lot of like
misconception, I think about
what burlesque was.
There's movies about burlesque
dancers like Gypsy Rose Lee
with Natalie Wood, and it always
paints this glamorous thing
with the big lights
and the flowers
and the champagne and
the fur coats.
They weren't all Gypsy
Rose Lee and Sally Rand.
Those were like the 2%.
(sultry music)
Very few burlesque dancers
back then were
actually celebrated.
You know, they were kind of
looked down on
as like, you know, only a few
steps up from prostit*tes.
Burlesque, it was so nice and
everyone went to
burlesque shows.
No, it was like dirty
entertainment for men.
- In those days, Burlesque
was all about men,
which was what I loved.
- [Dita] Generally, this was
like working in a strip club.
Even now, you've got people,
you know, still looking down
on lap dancing and strippers
and you know, those girls are
still kind of those girls.
Even now. If you can imagine
what it might've been
for someone in the fifties...
Totally different.
(tense music)
- [Tura] Cal City ended
when a club owner told me
to start turning tricks
with the customers.
I said I was quitting.
"Oh yeah? The only way
you leave here is
with a scarred face or
in a pine box."
That was a mistake.
I knew Tony Accardo
and he owed me a favor.
One call to Tony
and the club owner was
sh1tting himself, giving me
weeks of severance pay,
and wishing me the best
of luck in my new gig.
(gong sound)
But I already knew this was
gonna be hot.
(upbeat music)
New Orleans was a blast.
I danced under the name
Devilon Satana at first.
It seemed appropriate
since I was going from
one hellhole to another.
I went to shows, dated
various guys and a few girls.
- [Narrator] The Big Easy
was Tura's launch pad.
Visiting Japanese dignitaries
unofficially named her
Miss Japan Beautiful.
She took the tassel and ran
with it, ratcheting her looks
and Asian heritage up to
insane new proportions.
- Embrace what's different
about you and go with it.
Her playing up her Asian
heritage, definitely.
- I don't think anyone looked
like her back then. No.
That was part of her game plan,
and it really worked
really well for her.
- [Narrator] For Tura,
dancing led to a seismic shift
in the power dynamic between
her and the men around her.
- [Pamela] She was the
one in control,
and she really relished
that, having the men,
she would like 'em to be
actually down on their knees
in front of her, you know.
She was the one with the reins.
- [Narrator] She also met an
agent who put her on the road
for $300 a week, about
3000 in today's money.
Not bad for a 15-year-old.
- One of the things I
love about old Hollywood
and burlesque, of course,
is that
every single star was self-made.
No one handed it to you. That's
why we still remember her.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Tura hit the
road and never looked back.
(upbeat music continues)
- [Siouxzan] She played cities
everywhere.
She was in St. Louis, she
was in Hawaii, she was in LA,
she was in Reno,
she was in Vegas.
- [Tura] It seems like all
my money went into costumes.
Most girls spend money
on things to put on.
I spent thousands on
things to take off.
- [Ted] It was 1958 or nine.
I went to the Silver Slipper.
This fantastic performer
dancing, swinging her
hair around.
What she did, the gyrations,
her body, her look,
I called my buddies who
were rambling around
and I said, "Come on over,
you gotta see this woman.
You gotta see her."
And anyway, that was
of course, Tura Satana.
- [Narrator] Tura also
discovered
and perfected a very
unique talent.
- She could spin those things
like this and like this
on her back.
Oh my god.
- [Sandra] Was that like one
of your specialties, was
spinning tassels?
- When I was a dancer? Yeah.
- You spin 'em in
opposite directions?
- Yes, and one at a time
and I used to lay flat on my
back and spin one at a time.
- Stop it.
- Wow.
- And change directions.
- Whoo.
(classical piano music)
- [Narrator] With the very
adult life she was living,
it's easy to forget. She
was still a teenage girl.
- [Kitten] It was a hard life.
Her life started as an
adult very young,
she was almost an adult.
So to me that was sad
because you're still a child
but she had to grow
up very fast.
- [Narrator] Tura's choices
were a double-edged sword
that kept her demons at bay,
but one day, they'd be back.
(sneaky music)
The press loved
Miss Japan Beautiful.
Tura toyed with reporters,
recalling details
of her life differently in
each interview,
(bell dings)
depending on her mood.
(sneaky music continues)
These wild stories helped
to build her legend.
Her shots as a pinup didn't
hurt, either.
(burlesque music)
Tura's adventures and
temperament are legendary
in the burlesque world.
- There were some bad girls
that were in burlesque.
- [Angel] She was tough.
She was very, very tough.
If somebody made a remark
in the audience like,
"Hey Joe, did you watch
the game last night?"
That's all she had to see
you do is turn your head
and the party was over.
She'd be off that stage,
whipping 'em
to death with them tassels,
bam, bam, bam
and then they'd be slappin'
him in the face and everything.
And of course the drummer's
laughing. Ah-ha-ha-ha.
Oh, you think that's funny?
And then she'd run over to the
drummer and take his sticks
and throw his sticks into the
audience,
and then take her tassels
and do 'em on the top hat.
- [Kitten] When she was
stripping, she didn't eat.
Her meal was just the
bottle of whiskey.
And it would make her so mean
that if any guy was rude
to her, she'd just jump off
of that stage and clobber him.
- [John] Being a stripper
gives you anger against men
because they just can't stand
looking
at those piggish men every day
like, uggh, you know.
- [Ted] She soon was able
to read the intentions
of the males that
were around her,
and very often it plain
just ticked her off.
- [Narrator] But it wasn't
all fistfights.
(gong sound)
(sneaky music)
- [Tura] I was on stage
in Union City, New Jersey.
Wait, was I seeing things?
No. The theater's whole
front row was filled
with tiny men. Little people.
Well, you know me. I had to
find out what that was like.
I met them after the show
and asked if they liked
Oriental food.
The smartest, a pro
wrestler named Tiny Tim,
caught on right away.
"I love Oriental food, but
you have to keep it close
because an hour later
you're hungry again."
(bell dings)
After dinner, we went
back to my hotel.
I stepped into the shower,
surprised when Tim
followed a moment later.
Without saying a word,
he picked up the soap.
Mmm, the feeling of those
tiny hands reaching up,
lathering my breasts.
He definitely proved the
old adage, it's not the size
that counts, it's
how you use it.
Some of you might say I
was promiscuous,
but I took my joy where I
could find it.
(classical piano music)
- [Lani] She was a very
deeply sensitive person.
She wrote poetry.
She wrote a lot of her feelings
and things down.
She didn't necessarily
share them with people.
- [Narrator] One person
Tura did open up
to was former silent movie star
and photographer Harold Lloyd.
Famous for his portraits of
Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield,
and Bettie Page, Lloyd
saw something in Tura
that everyone else had missed.
- [Tura] "The camera
loves your face.
You should do
something with that."
For the first time,
I thought I could do
something really constructive
with my life.
Exactly the opposite of what
I'd been told as a child.
Listening to him built up
my confidence.
From that point on, I walked
around feeling good
about myself.
I would not have
accomplished half
of what I did were it
not for him.
(swanky music)
- [Siouxzan] She was on
the road a lot,
but she also had the
best time of her life.
Like, you know how most guys
have a girl in every port?
She pretty much had a guy in
every port, or two or three.
- I don't wanna use the
word was a starfucker
but, I think she did
pretty good in Hollywood.
- [Tura] I don't know if you
believe in love at first sight,
but that's what I felt with Rod.
When Rod would call,
I would be there.
- [Kitten] David Janssen...
Oh, I forget, but there's
a lot of them.
- [Lani] Mom said the largest
one she ever dealt with
was Forrest Tucker,
from F-Troop.
She said, "That man
was hung." (laughs)
- Yeah, I've heard that
story since I was little.
Can you tell why I am a
little whacked right now?
- She told me some
stories about these guys,
but you know, it's X-rated.
Oh my god. He ate p*ssy
like nobody's business.
- [Narrator] But it was a
late night chance encounter
that had the most impact.
Not only for Tura,
but eventually the world
and millions of screaming girls.
(fans screaming)
(1950's music)
- [Pamela] For me, Elvis was
my first true rock and roll
love, and he started
the whole thing rolling.
- [Narrator] To say author
Pamela Des Barres is a
massive Elvis fan
would be an epic understatement.
- [Pamela] Well, he's
the f*cking king.
There's no one that comes
close to his importance.
I went to a party at
my friend Ali Willis'.
She invited a lot of the
Russ Meyer girls this night,
and my ex-husband, Michael
Des Barres was already there
and I walked in and you
know, hanging out with people
and I saw him talking to Tura,
right?
And I didn't even know
at this point
that she had slept with Elvis,
right?
- Elvis, I still wear the ring
because she wore the ring.
- Oh my God,
I've gotta talk to her.
And at that same time,
there was a bunch of
the girls there talking
about the guys they'd
slept with, right?
I said, oh, I've gotta get in
on this and I've gotta listen.
So I piped out a few names,
Mick Jagger, whatever.
They were talking about,
you know,
she's from an era a little
earlier than mine, right?
So they were talking
about Frank Sinatra.
She threw his name out there
and I went, whoa. My god.
And then finally when she
threw out the name Elvis,
everybody became silent.
(record scratch)
(cricket sounds)
There was a competition, really,
trying to one-up each other
who they'd slept with, right?
And so that was that.
Okay, well, competition
over. She slept with Elvis.
(acoustic guitar music)
She met Elvis when
he was nobody,
when he was just burgeoning,
just coming into himself,
on the beach, walking
down the beach,
and she didn't even know
who he was at that point.
- [Tura] I was dancing
on State Street
when Augie brought
Elvis backstage.
I could have fallen
through the floor.
It was the man I'd met
on the beach.
"I really enjoyed your show.
Some of those moves, the
shimmy, the high kicks.
Phew. Would you show
those to me?"
"From what I understand, you
can do the shimmy already,
at least with one leg.
Are you trying to turn on
every girl in the audience?"
"Well, no ma'am.
I wanna learn them in
case I'm ever lucky enough
to get close to you."
Elvis came to my show
the next night.
I could feel the exact moment
he walked into the theater.
I did the best show of my
life, knowing he was there.
- [Pamela] He was very entranced
with her.
And of course, you know, I
mean, she taught him everything.
(chuckles)
- [Tura VO] I taught
him how to kiss.
I taught him how to please
a woman in many ways.
I know I taught him
how to please me
and he got no complaints
after me, so. (chuckles)
- Allegedly, Elvis had
proposed to Tura
and she allegedly
turned him down.
- I said to him, "I have
to ask you a question about
a friend of mine, Tura."
He said "Tura, oh, she's a babe.
You know, I wanted
to marry her."
And I said, "So why didn't you?
You're the king.
You can do anything."
- [Tura VO] We were sitting
in Grant's Park in Chicago,
and he got down on one knee.
He said, "Would you
please marry me?"
I said, "Well, I'll
think about it."
- [Angel] He loved her.
He loved her.
He gave her this beautiful
diamond ring.
- She said, "I never
would've married him."
First of all,
she was a stripper.
They had this
wonderful friendship
and they were friends up
until he died,
and she was very upset
about his drug use.
He would call her and ask
her for advice.
He could talk to her
like a real person
and she wasn't
infatuated with him
or, "Elvis called me last
night," it was never that.
It was never that.
- [Interviewer] Like, I
taught you how to kiss.
- Yeah, I taught you how
to kiss. Don't forget it.
- [Lani] It's hard to
explain to people.
I knew he and Mom had
dated at one time.
I remember Elvis sitting
there and saying to me
when I was a little girl,
"You know, you were supposed
to be my little girl."
"Mom, what's he mean?"
- [Angel] There was a
lot of people
that discredited Tura and
the Elvis thing.
You know what? f*ck you.
I was there. My mother
was there, yeah.
- [Narrator] Although
they never married,
Elvis refused to take back
the ring, telling Tura
"You keep something of mine
because you belong to me."
- [Tura] You know, it's
funny how things happen
when you least expect them.
(detuned music box plays)
For the longest time, I blamed
my mother for what happened.
But it wasn't her fault.
I thought I'd put it behind me,
but take it from me,
revenge is sweet.
(jet plane landing)
I had a gig in Chicago.
After work, I dropped
into the all night diner.
I was ordering when
he walked in.
I recognized him right away,
but I knew he didn't
recognize me
because I wasn't this
gangly Asian kid anymore.
I remembered this man
fumbling and hurting me
as he was trying to r*pe me.
- [Lani] She remembered
because of them raping her
so brutally and repeatedly.
She remembered all their
names, all their faces.
- [Tura] He was the
youngest one.
He thought I had the
hots for him
because of the way I was
staring at him.
"Hi, sweet thing, can
I join you?"
"Sure. I love having
company for dinner."
(suspenseful music)
After we ate, I let him
take me to the motel.
He expected sex in exchange
for buying me my meal.
He started to reach for
me, but I stopped him.
"Let me ask you. Have
you ever r*ped anyone?"
"Of course not. I would
never do that to a woman."
"How about a child?"
- [Narrator] The man went pale.
Tura beat and tortured him
all night, leaving him tied
to the bed at sunrise,
the words "child r*pist"
scrawled across his chest.
Over the next decade,
Tura tracked down all
five of her rapists
and took revenge,
permanently disfiguring them.
And who could blame her?
She was handing out long
overdue justice, society
and the courts were
unwilling to.
(dramatic music swell)
(western music)
- [Dita] That is exactly a
Quentin Tarantino movie, right?
I mean, that's what it is.
It's like, I'm gonna go
find you and k*ll you.
- To take, I don't know,
20 years, 10 years,
whatever it was, to
look for them
and kick their f*cking a*s.
Hurt them, hurt them.
I don't think that was
the way to do it
but we didn't have a
choice in those days
but to be the vigilante.
- [Tara] There can never be
justice for what was done to her
or what's done to other
people who are victims
or survivors of sexual
as*ault, let alone as children.
You know, there can
never be enough justice.
- She obviously
deserved that revenge.
- Hm-hmm.
- [Jade] If it gave her some
sort of peace
and some sort of closure,
then I'm glad she did it.
- That was a core
part of her then,
and she didn't feel right
until she got even
with all of them.
- [Interviewer] A lot
of people admire
that about your mother.
- Oh yeah. I do too.
- [Kitten] She definitely
wanted children
and she tried very, very hard
to have the the babies she did.
- [Interviewer] What's it
like having Tura Satana
as a mother?
- That is a question
we get a lot, isn't it?
- Yeah, all the time.
- All the time, and...
- When you consider normal,
you'd probably think
"Happy Days," okay.
I never knew that lifestyle.
(mellow Hawaiian music)
- [Siouxzan] When Tura
was in Hawaii,
Lani was very much a
part of her life.
- [Lani] She had several months
where she was contracted there.
We spent a lot of time
on the beach.
She'd be doing pyramids
and back bends
and some really muscly guy's,
you know, doing a handstand
on her tummy.
People would come and
stare and applaud.
- [Siouxzan] She would stand
like with five or six guys
and then Lani would
be on the top
and she was a little,
little girl.
- [Lani] I was
afraid of heights,
so I ended up having to
be bribed with popsicles.
- [Tura] But there
was a problem.
In those days, it
was a big no-no
to have a child out of wedlock.
Lani's father was married
and a big star.
I didn't wanna cause
any trouble.
So I paid Kenny to be
my husband in name only.
It lasted just long enough,
then I was back on the road.
(upbeat music)
(plane taking off)
- [Narrator] Hollywood
was now home,
and Tura danced at
hotspots like the Body Shop
and Pink Pussycat.
In the sixties, dancing
was one of the few careers
that let women with
enough moxie break
through the glass ceiling
of a male dominated world.
- I was a key punch operator
and I didn't make much
money and it was boring.
You just key punch and look
at the paper all day long
and your head would
get like sizzle,
and I said, I can't do
this the rest of my life.
- [Angel] Graduated
from high school,
was gonna go to San
Francisco State. Got a job
and it was kind of a
corporate thing.
- So one of my girlfriends
across from where I
lived had a sister
that was kind of chubby
and she told me she was
a bottomless dancer.
- And one of the girls
ran into my office
and said, "Oh my gosh, Angel,
you're not gonna believe this.
There's an amateur strip
contest down on Broadway."
- She made $800 a week. And
I said, I wanna do that.
- I won. It was $100
bill, a crisp $100 bill.
And I was making $99
as a professional
secretary every two weeks.
I said, this is the kind
of career stuff they should
have taught you at school.
This is the kind of
math I understand.
Goodbye, job. Hello, burlesque.
- And I went and auditioned
and I got the audition.
Not only did I get the
job, I got the guy too.
- [Pamela] A few of the
GTOs stripped.
I just didn't want to.
It wasn't because I wasn't
flashing my t*ts everywhere
because I was, but I really
loved to go see them dance
and I never, you know, thought
anything negatively about it.
That's for sure.
- I'll be back in a minute
with your tranquilizer.
Would you remain in
your room please?
- Well, you know, I will.
Don't I always mind you, dear?
- In.
- [Narrator] It was inevitable.
Tura made the leap from
stage to screen.
- Maybe it needs more
feathers on the bottom.
- You know, I think
you're right.
I think that's exactly
what it needs.
Hello, Fred?
- This is what I call
onsite inspection.
- [Narrator] But racial
and gender stereotypes
were everywhere,
especially in Hollywood.
Tura was typically cast
as a criminal,
stripper,
or... a criminal stripper.
- We have the boy,
Mr. Solo. Must we harm him?
- [Narrator] At least it
was a notch up
from playing hookers or Geishas.
In those days, no one wrote
leading roles
for women like Tura.
- The fact that she's
an Asian American woman
that was able to get
into pictures
and even do what she did is
inconceivably significant.
- [Nancy] Tura as a mixed
race Asian woman,
it's really, really hard.
There were very, very few films
that even had Asians as
side characters
and certainly almost none
that had leads.
Nancy Kwan, who's also huge
around the time of Tura,
kind of had a breakout role
in "The World of Suzie Wong"
and she was a prost*tute, right?
They're stereotypes, right?
The characters that
they're portraying is
very much disempowered.
Tura was very much not
about being dominated
by somebody else and so
that totally goes
against the kind of Asian
woman type in Hollywood.
- I thought it was the old
Japanese custom
for the servants to follow
the master by Hari-Kari.
- You've got the wrong century,
Jack.
- Good show.
- Anything I can do for you?
- No, thank you. Just browsing.
(cool jazzy music)
- [Tura] Billy Wilder
saw me dancing
and cast me in "Irma La Douce."
I wasn't in the
habit of sleeping
with people
I worked with,
but for him I made an exception.
He was funny, charming, and
gave Forrest Tucker a run
for his money in the
c*ck department.
- We have till Friday.
- Can I go back up and get my
stockings?
- No, come on, come on.
- [Tura] He was married
and dating other girls from
the film, but I didn't care.
I didn't wanna marry him.
I just wanted to screw him.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] By the 1960s,
Hollywood studios
were in trouble.
With the advent of television
and society in a rapid
state of change,
the rule book didn't
apply anymore.
Unwilling to accept the
shift in moviegoer taste,
studios stuck to old formulas
and lost their audience
to a new era.
Yet at the same time, one
genre of film continued
to thrill moviegoers
and earn boatloads of
money for its producers.
Exploitation film, also
known as drive-in
or grindhouse movies.
(upbeat surf music)
- They called it exploitation
because we exploited everything
there was to exploit.
- I first saw
exploitation movies,
I knew about them
because in Sunday school the
nuns would tell us we'd go
to hell if we saw these movies
so I wrote down the titles.
- It blew me away, you know,
that this kind of
filmmaking existed.
- Any time you're not
with a major studio
and you're putting
together your movies any
which way you can with or
without money, it seems
to fall into the category of
exploitation.
- We used Peter Falk's
house for Astro-Zombies
and part of my house for
Astro-Zombies.
The car I drove was my car.
You know, I mean, low
budget films are like that.
You have to use or improvise
with whatever you have.
(Pamela laughs)
- [Pamela] What was
the difference?
One was way out on a limb
and the other ones were staying
very safely under the tree.
- It had nothing to do with
a studio would ever release.
- [Narrator] Tackling
subject matter
Hollywood wouldn't touch
with a 10 foot pole,
exploitation film had
become an important part
of America's cinema landscape.
- [Ted] Getting into theaters
against the multimillion
dollar movies was tough
so you got into drive-ins.
The drive-ins would play
movies that were not rated
by the Motion Picture Board.
- [Announcer] Meet Sugar.
She's beautiful, in chains,
and she's bustin' out.
(woman screams)
- [Announcer] Night... of the
Living Dead.
(fiddle music)
- [Ted] There are
several reasons
why drive-in theaters
were so successful.
A full carload could go
into a drive-in for a buck.
- [Kitten] 'Cause you could
go watch 'em in your pajamas.
A lot of times you just went
to drive-in movies to screw.
- We don't have drive-ins any
more, which drives me crazy
because I think we've lost
something there
in the experience.
- [Ruby] Kind of dangerous,
kind of sexy, kind of exciting.
You were outside the
grasp of proper society.
- There is no new genre
that is causing trouble,
that's ill*gal, that's getting
busted and that kind of stuff,
which those films were.
- There was a magic to it.
- When I was in high school, I
would go to the drive-in theater
and we would go to the
Burlingame Four or the Redwood.
Those are the two main ones.
And they always had "Mudhoney,"
or one of those kind of
super-sexy Russ Meyer
seventies ones.
(rumba music)
- [Narrator] Russ Meyer was
a former World w*r II
combat photographer
who segued into sh**ting pinups
and some of the first
Playboy centerfolds.
In 1959, he directed
"The Immoral Mr. Teas,"
which was not only a huge hit,
but an important movie moment.
Teas was the first
American wide release film
to show fully naked
women on screen
since the adoption of
the Hays Code in 1934.
- People went crazy
about t*ts in the fifties
and they still never
got over it.
- [Narrator] Overnight,
Meyer became king
of the "nudie-cutie."
But it's one personality trait
he's best remembered for.
- Look at the waitresses.
- Yeah?
- I haven't seen four
women like this together
outside of a Russ Meyer film.
(audience laughing)
- [Dita] He wasn't that into me.
My breasts weren't big
enough for him.
By the time that I met him,
he was really
into like this thing, you know?
- That's why that movie
called "Up!,"
that was the perfect
title for Russ
'cause he was always looking up
at t*ts like they were
about to smother you.
(chuckles)
(surf music)
- [Narrator] In 1965,
Meyer found himself
in uncharted waters.
- 1965. You know, Varla,
there's nothing like it before.
- [Narrator] For the first time,
a Hollywood leading role had
been written for an Asian woman
that destroyed every r*cist
stereotype there was.
A defining moment in
cinema history.
- It was a statement basically,
I think on Russ' part,
that females really didn't
have to be weak and mild.
We were feminine even
though we were
kicking butt (laughter),
you know.
If you want wild livin'
- [Announcer] Ladies and
gentlemen,
go, go for a wild, wild ride
with the Watusi cats.
But beware, the sweetest
kittens have the sharpest claws.
For your own safety, see
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
(upbeat music)
- "Faster, Pussycat! k*ll!
k*ll!" of course starts off
with that incredible go-go girl
sequence.
You get to know that these
are go-go girls
who are also very
quickly introduced
to us as race car drivers.
A bunch of things happen
where the women are trying
to find this fortune
and it erupts into
violence, anger, lesbianism,
and other sorts of seduction.
I don't want to give
away the ending,
but, you know, it's a
fantastic film.
- My favorite is how
that movie opens
when the guy's yelling,
"Go, baby, go, go."
We always say that every time
anyone dances, "Go, baby, go."
And it's just so great,
it's so great.
Go, baby, go
Go, go, go
- I love the one-liners
in the movie.
- Are you trying to
say something?
- I never try anything.
I just do it.
- You know, that's what
I believe in,
seeing America first.
- You won't find it down there,
Columbus.
- What did she say?
- "You won't find it
down there, Columbus,"
when the guy's looking
down her blouse.
(movie projector sound)
(1960's western music)
- My name's Dennis Busch.
I played "The Vegetable" in
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
and it was a real experience.
- Everybody had to cook,
everybody had to do everything.
- Was it Haji who said,
they had a five person crew.
So that means there's
no money at all
and you're, you know,
there's no catering.
- I like the idea of
having things hard.
I don't like it to be easy.
I like to slog up a mountain
and carry the camera myself.
I'm a militarist at heart.
I like that kind of stuff.
- [Dennis] As far as him
being a director
and everything, everybody
really admired him.
He didn't squander language
whatsoever.
He just made it real simple.
You're gonna do this and
you're gonna do it that way
and if it didn't go,
he just said, you're
gonna do it again.
Now listen to me carefully.
You're going to do this,
and you're gonna do it that way.
That was Russ.
- He loved her. He
always called her Satana.
Get over here, Satana.
(laughter)
- We were always at
swords points.
One thing that helped a lot
with Tura was that she
made it clear,
I had a law always
that nobody could have,
you know, exchange wondrous
body fluids during the
course of production.
- She was very sexual
and she liked to have
sex whenever she wanted.
Nobody was gonna tell her
that. It was her life.
- She says, "I know
you got a thing
about not having people
get together."
She says, "I need it."
And I knew she had me
by the ba*ls
'cause I couldn't very well
discharge her.
- She made it very clear she
wasn't gonna sleep with him,
but he says, "Well, where are
you gonna find anybody out
in the desert?"
And she's like, "That's
for me to worry about.
Not you. Just, you
know, go do your thing."
And she did.
- [Tura] Russ was a funny guy.
I chose Gil, the assistant
director, to be my lover.
After filming all day, I
looked forward to a nice shower
and the feeling of his
body next to mine.
A few nights into
our rendezvous,
I realized someone
was spying on us
and I caught a glimpse
of Russ ducking around the
corner outside.
Mmm hmm... It was time for
those little episodes to stop.
The next night, we dimmed
the lights before we began.
Gil bounced around on the bed
and I groaned like he was
pounding me through the wall.
In the midst of it,
I slipped outside.
Sure enough, there was
Russ, peeking in the window,
pants down at his ankles.
I snuck up and nailed him
with a bucket of ice water.
(water sloshing)
The shock value was priceless.
He didn't come
around after that.
- What's the matter?
- The watch, she won't
give it back to me.
- Let's have it.
You've got a weird
sense of humor.
- Try again. I get funnier.
(rock music)
- [Siouxzan] This was an
outlet for her.
A way to get all of this
out of her, from being r*ped
to being sent to reform school,
to being made fun of when
she was a kid, all of it.
- She seemed to
really be into it
as far as wanting to do
her scenes correctly.
I mean, she really was a
stickler at that.
Very intelligent, carried
on a great conversation.
She was very mild.
You know, it's interesting
how people read her.
What is she really like?
Is she really like that?
Did she yell a lot like that?
She was quite a different
person when you got to know her.
And when she wasn't on camera,
she was just an ordinary gal.
That woman had a heart.
(retrospective music)
- [Narrator] 9-year-old
Tura's promise
to herself had become
her destiny.
She had become Varla.
Where would the road lead next?
- (sirens blaring)
- (woman screaming)
- [Announcer] Terror
st*lks the streets as
a scientist's human
transplantation experiment
runs amuck.
"The Astro-Zombies."
(funky music)
- When I started "The
Astro-Zombies,"
I had done, you know,
other things in between,
"Black Klansman" and some of
those movies.
- [Narrator] Noted
Exploitation director
Ted V. Mikels was casting
"The Astro-Zombies"
when he got an interesting call.
- Her agent called and said,
"Can we make an appointment
for an interview with
Tura Satana?"
"Wow. Yeah, of course."
So Tura comes in and she's
got black leather gloves on.
She looked just like she
did in Faster Pussycat.
I said, "Wow, you came
like that to the interview.
That's interesting."
She says, "Yeah," her words,
"I just punched out the
principal of the school
'cause he was
mistreating my kid."
That was what she said, I
punched him out. (chuckles)
(face slap)
- Yes, and don't you forget
it. Now shut up and listen.
- After I cast her in the
movie and we worked together
and became, you know, close
friends, she would get off work
as a dancer at 2:00
in the morning
and she'd come to my
editing room,
which was in my studio
office across from Paramount.
Of course, I'm working
on the Moviola
and cutting the movie and so on.
I'd bring food
and we'd have a lunch about
2:30 or 3:00 in the morning.
- We are aware of your
experiments, doctor.
We know that you have succeeded
in creating an Astro-Zombie.
- How did you know that?
- The recent murders, the news
description of the suspect
and a tape of your lecture at
the Astro Science Conference.
- I absolutely loved
and adored Ted.
He was like family,
utterly and completely.
He wrote his scripts
with her in mind.
- [Announcer] The beautiful,
voluptuous,
deadly, vicious Satana.
A woman who would
stop at nothing
to gain control over the
Astro-Zombies.
- [Lani] It was a special
friendship and relationship.
She certainly loved him and
respected him.
- We had something that's rare
and it wasn't the right time.
Things changed in my
life and in hers,
but I kept closely in touch.
- [Lani] I don't think he ever
got over being in love with her.
- [Interviewer] You
really loved her.
- Oh, I did.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] In the
late sixties,
Tura faced an unexpected turn.
- She had an affair
with a very nice man
named Tim O'Mara,
and I was conceived.
(moody music)
- [Lani] Mom was not
having a good pregnancy.
She was having some difficulties
and I remember watching her
come into the front room,
jumping up in the air,
and landing on her behind
so that she could try and
cause herself a miscarriage.
- [Jade] I don't really
believe Mom wanted to be a mom.
It was pretty apparent
when we were young.
She liked her freedom too much
and it was okay with one,
but two was kind of too much.
- Tura was kind of
like at the point
of, I don't think I want kids.
I wanna do what I wanna
do, and you've got kids.
So Lani ended up
being mom to Jade.
- [Lani] She was never
taught the things necessary
in order to be a
"hey, let's bake cookies"
type of mom.
Jade and I became very
self-sufficient.
We learned a lot very early,
but I don't blame my
mother for that.
She is a product of what
she grew up with
and the things that
she didn't know.
- If she spent time at
home, it was like a treat
to be able to sit with
her and watch TV
or just sit and be near her.
So when I was young, she
was always on a pedestal.
It's kind of hard being
the oops baby.
(upbeat music)
But you make do.
- [Narrator] Despite
her prenatal misgivings,
Tura gave Jade a normal
and loving childhood.
Well, as normal as it could
be if you're Tura Satana.
- Our mom loved to give, very
generous heart and spirit.
It was not unusual for people
to come hang at our house.
I would come home from
elementary school
and Tony Curtis was in
our living room
(bell dings)
and he spent hours
teasing me saying,
"I'm not Tony Curtis,
I'm Bernard Schwartz,"
which of course is
his real name.
We went to George Lucas's house,
and that was long before
his "Star Wars" days.
- [Jade] Those were the people
that, they weren't in her
life regularly per se,
but came in and out
as old friends.
- Her joy was being on stage.
Her joy was making movies.
Her joy was dancing and
being out and on the road
and kids don't fit in.
I mean, she loved 'em, my
god, but it was this choice.
You can't do both.
(swanky music)
- [Narrator] The world of
burlesque was changing.
The orchestras were gone.
The topless era had begun.
- Tura and Haji never
wanted to go nude.
When the club went naked, all
those girls stopped working.
- What if we have these girls
drink with the customers
and sit with them, then
we make even more money.
What if, we better put
a brass pole up
because the girls need
something to hold onto
because they're
drinking too much.
- I mean, you got one
leg on the East Coast,
one leg on the West Coast,
and the wife is
sitting right there?
I don't think so.
- [Lani] So Mom turned
away from all of that.
She actually got a job
as a police dispatcher.
(radio crackling)
- [Narrator] She did act in
one more film for Ted Mikels,
"The Doll Squad,"
widely considered to be
the inspiration
for "Charlie's Angels."
(bell dings)
- We invited Aaron
Spelling to my screening
at 20th Century Fox
and it was actually Tura
that invited him (laughter).
(pensive music)
- [Narrator] Tura finally
stopped running,
and it wasn't long before
her demons caught up.
- [Jade] I don't recall a lot
about John.
I just knew as a little kid
that I did not like him.
She had just lost her father
who she was very close with.
- [Lani] She let herself
be more vulnerable to him
than she normally
allowed herself.
He was very jealous.
He didn't like people
looking at her.
He didn't like the
entertainment world.
He chipped away at her
a little bit at a time.
He wanted her to be a more
traditional type woman.
- That husband, ugh.
She did everything to
make him happy.
He made her get rid of all
her costumes and pictures.
He says, "That's the past.
Give it up."
So then Russ, he says,
"I don't wanna be dealing
with some cuckold,"
so he never asked her to do
another film, unfortunately.
- [Narrator] With no
creative outlet,
the effect was devastating.
- [Lani] It was a very
bad situation.
It hit her really hard.
She almost became suicidal.
When Jade was a baby,
my mom got very angry
and I grabbed Jade up
and held onto her
and I turned so that
Mom couldn't hit Jade.
I just let her hit on me
because she needed to get
that anger out.
- I quite honestly
believe my mom was a
very undiagnosed bipolar.
That doesn't make her
a bad person.
It just means she
needed some help
that she didn't know she needed.
(tense music build)
- [Narrator] Tura was in a spin
and headed for the wall fast,
but no one thought it
would end like this.
(g*n fires)
(sirens blaring)
- I remember coming home
and, "Your mom was taken
to the hospital."
"What happened to your mom?"
All the neighbors are
coming over.
I'm like, "I don't know."
Turns out she was shot
in the stomach.
Now, the story that I was told
when I was young was
that he shot her
and that it was covered up
because he was a cop, you know,
and then there's always
been whispers
that she did it herself
in front of him to make him
pay for breaking up with her.
I don't know what the truth is.
Only Mom and John know that.
(poignant music)
- [Lani] For as beautiful
and intelligent
and strong as our mother was,
there was a little
insecure girl inside of her
always seeking approval.
She wanted the men in her
life to fill a void for her.
Unfortunately, I don't
really know any of 'em
that were able to.
- [Narrator] Tura had
survived again.
It wasn't long before the
usual hijinks resumed.
(quirky music)
- Maybe nine or 10 years
old, we were invited over
for dinner to Russ's house
and I'm wandering the house,
kind of just like looking
at all the artwork and
the things he had hanging
on the walls from his
different movies and stuff.
And I made the mistake
of actually kinda looking
in the bedroom.
Russ was very proud of
his man parts
and there was lots of
pictures of them on the walls.
(laughing)
I was a kid, I was traumatized.
I'd never seen one before.
- [Interviewer] Wait a minute.
The first time you saw a p*nis,
it was a picture of
Russ Meyer's?
- [Jade] On his wall (laughter).
- The only negative I
ever heard about the movie
during the course of the whole
movie was from Russ Meyer
and he said, "I don't
know what we've got here.
I'm really not sure of this."
- [Ruby] I hated it. Hated it.
I was this kind of
right on feminist.
I was, you know,
very judgmental,
very sure of my stance.
Russ Meyer was just this
leering exploitative director
who wanted to kind of make
this movie to sell to guys
who wanted to jerk off.
- Faster Pussycat was not a hit
when it came out, compared
to his other movies
because there wasn't enough
nudity in it actually.
It was marketed well,
but when the audiences
saw it, they were just mad
because there wasn't any t*ts,
that's all.
That's what you came
to see Russ Meyer for.
You didn't come 'cause
it was a good story.
You came to see gigantic t*ts.
- It went into obscurity.
I mean, it just disappeared.
(echoing voices)
(soft piano music)
- [Narrator] Living in Reno,
Tura did her best to lead
a quiet, normal life.
Little did she know a tsunami
was brewing beneath her.
(upbeat music)
- [News Anchor] In
business news,
the video cassette
recorder is one
of the hottest products
on the market.
- [News Reporter] Home videos
have become the latest craze
in America, as indicated
by the growing number
of video stores.
Every month now,
one million video cassette
recorders are whisked
off the store shelves.
- They are a wonderful
piece of equipment.
- You bet.
- [Narrator] Home video was
the holy grail for movie buffs,
especially in cult and
exploitation films.
- [Peaches] I found these
other worlds through movies,
you know, through VHS
tapes really.
- So I remember I had like
a weekend with my friends.
We watched Faster Pussycat and
Beyond the Valley of Dolls.
And of course,
she's the strongest
character in this film.
- "Faster, Pussycat!
k*ll! k*ll!" was named
as John's favorite movie.
He called it the best
movie ever made
and the best movie that
would probably ever be made.
- I used to show it at
my birthday parties.
I used to show it at Christmas.
I always showed that movie and
it never disappoints anybody.
I've never met somebody
that saw Faster Pussycat
and didn't like it.
- I think you've seen a million
pictures come off the back
of this, obviously, movies
like "Thelma and Louise."
- I love to write noir.
"Ringer" was a noir and
Sarah Michelle played twins,
one good, one bad.
And there's no question
that the role
that Tura played informed
the characters that I write.
She played the ultimate
femme fatale.
(garage rock music)
- [Narrator] A whole new
audience was discovering Tura.
This time around, they got it.
- Suddenly I found myself
seeing Faster Pussycat again
and going nuts for it.
What happened in those
30 years in between?
She was 30 years
ahead of her time.
- Some people said that
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
was an ode to female violence,
but I thought it was an
ode to female empowerment.
- She was out there kicking
some butt and looking great,
proud of her t*ts and
everything, I loved it.
- When punk came along,
when I was a teenager
Faster Pussycat was
completely included in that.
It's got fast cars and
dudes getting k*lled
and all the things that made
punk awesome
as opposed to a bunch of
white guys telling you
what was what.
- It's just now.
It's just this moment
of female rage
and empowerment and sexuality.
- She knew it was going
to be groundbreaking
for some people.
- Isn't it amazing?
All the movies that
Russ did, the soft porn,
all of that stuff he did,
and his only straight movie
is what he's famous for.
(rumba music)
- [Narrator] At first,
Tura wasn't even aware
her career was rebounding.
- For a while she tried
to teach me how to crochet
or she just let me
watch her crochet.
- [Interviewer] You have like
a regular private life now.
You're out of the mainstream.
- [Siouxzan] She started to
get reach-ins from people
that she had no idea
she affected.
Tura, I don't think,
knew what impact she had.
- It was early days for Facebook
and I'd connected with Tura
and I started the first fan
page on Facebook for her.
- [Tura] I was surprised.
I really was surprised
when I found out
there was so much
response to the film
when it got rereleased.
I'm just stunned, you know.
I thought, you know, the thing
was old and dead and buried.
You know, it's 30 years ago.
- [Narrator] Resurrecting
Varla was the last thing
on her mind.
But Varla kept calling.
Tura's comeback looked
like a sure thing,
but sometimes old
habits die hard.
(mood music)
- Tura had an accident.
A pickup truck come in
and banged right
into the side of her,
cracked her back and ribs
and really messed her up.
Her back was partially
made immobile,
and that's when she
did get married.
I remember her being
carried by the husband out
of her wheelchair and to
go up some steps
and then back in the wheelchair.
- [Lani] Ed was a wonderful man,
but just like Johnny, kind of
did the same thing with Mom.
What happened in the past
was great, but, you know,
and that was part of your past.
- Right.
- He never
acknowledged her career,
didn't want to know from it,
didn't wanna watch her movies,
but she, you know,
she stuck with that.
She just adored him.
They weren't together
that long before he died.
- [Narrator] Tura's
mother also passed.
For the second time in her life,
Tura found herself alone
in a new world.
She had but one choice.
(car engine revving)
- (fireworks exploding)
- (crowds cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Our guest tonight has
left a lasting impression
on everyone whoever saw
her kick butt
in Russ Meyer's masterpiece
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
Here's the fabulous Tura Satana.
(rock music)
- It was like a
butterfly happened.
It was perfectly timed,
absolutely perfectly timed
for her to wanna do this again.
It just all fused and she
just rocketed.
Dusted off
Shake the world
one more time
You're the only one they
couldn't stop
(cheering)
k*ll the lights
Check the mirrors behind
The checkered flag
- We have a clip of "Faster,
Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!"
- It stars a lady,
incredible lady, Tura Satana.
No one else could have
done the job.
- Yeah, she's amazing.
- Spectacular lady.
- I got a call in my
office from my son.
He said, "Faster,
Pussycat! k*ll! k*ll!" is
all over Seattle.
I said, "What are you
talking about?"
He says, "Your name's
on a marquee right here.
I'm standing by it."
And I thought, my god, you know,
this movie is really
making headlines.
- We couldn't keep up with it.
We could not keep up with it.
It was a constant flow
of being asked
to do this show or that show.
- [Narrator] Pent-up fan
energy was exploding,
including in the LGBTQ community
who had embraced her as an icon.
- Please give your big,
warm, Seattle welcome
for Tura Satana (cheering).
Tura
Shine on
sh**ting through the stars
Tura
Shine on
Forever, where you are
sh**ting through the stars
I never try anything,
I just do it
You have to please me...
- I'm Rob Zombie. Welcome
to TCM Underground.
Tonight we feature two
Russ Meyer classics,
"Faster, Pussycat! k*ll!
k*ll!" and "Mudhoney."
- I was out on the
lake with my dogs
and my cell phone rang
and it was Rob Zombie.
- Hey Squirrel, do I look
like I wanna talk to you?
- I ain't here to talk.
I'm here for the
all American a*s party.
- TCM and all that stuff,
no one could imagine
that was gonna happen.
- Any plans to return to
any movie stuff?
- Well, I have had
several offers
and I'm just gonna start
reading some scripts
and see if maybe I wanna
get back into it.
(beep)
Hi, I'm Tura Satana.
Me, some Pussycats and the Dolls
have just completed a film.
The name of the film is
"Sugar Boxx."
You ought to check it out.
But if you don't, I'm
gonna come out there
and I'm gonna kick the
living sh*t out of you.
And, you know, I won't try it.
I'll just
do it. (vase shatters)
- Ha.
- (boards breaking)
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
"Sugar Boxx" and don't
you forget it.
(burlesque music)
(audience applauds)
- [Siouxzan] We did a burlesque
show in downtown LA
at one of the old theaters.
We needed to go in the front
to sign the pictures.
It was like having Elvis.
I didn't, we were not prepared
for what happened.
She got completely
mobbed by fans.
People were reaching.
It was that kind of crazy.
(audience cheering and clapping)
- [Peaches] We were
doing our show
at the Bridge Theater in
San Francisco.
The line was quite long.
Everyone wanted to meet Tura
and there was some sort of
kerfuffle and screaming.
And you know, Tura was
up at the front
and I was there as
Peaches with Tura
and someone who, you know,
worked for me ran over
and said, "Oh my god, oh my god!
There's a man having a
heart attack."
You know, and I said,
"Call 911."
They said, "Yeah, he's
having a heart attack.
His husband is terrified
he's gonna die."
I said, "Call 911."
And then they say,
"He's refusing to leave.
He's refusing to leave
until he meets Tura."
So sure enough, man having
a heart attack gets brought
to the front of the line.
You know, he's like holding
himself, meets Tura,
as the ambulance is showing
up, paramedics are showing up,
takes a photo with Tura
while having a heart attack
and then gets, you know,
taken away in an ambulance.
That is the kind of fan
Tura Satana had.
(classical piano music)
- She was really nice
to everybody
and really great and
funny and smart.
After the movie was out and
it was suddenly a midnight hit
and all the hipsters
knew about her
and I'd see a picture of her
today when she looked happy.
To see her like that was
touching and wonderful.
- My role models were
women like Tura.
If you didn't know very
much about what they did,
it could be like, oh, well
she's just a stripper,
or she just did this movie with
this car and had big boobs.
You know, like, you
could just say that
but, they're the ones
that we'll remember.
- [Narrator] By now,
many were aware
of Tura's childhood trauma
and tumultuous life.
- I've met fans that have
gone up to her
and have been crying and said
"You don't know
what you've done for me.
You've changed my life.
You've made me see
that I'm okay."
- [Jade] She loved hearing
stories from fans.
- Yeah.
- Because of you I was
empowered to do this
or you know, I escaped
this a*usive relationship
because I saw your movie
or I saw you in an
interview or whatever
and I think that all really
gave her a lot of meaning
that she craved, you know?
- [Narrator] But how's
the saying go?
Even the fastest pussycats
only have nine lives.
(sighs)
- You know, her illness
came real fast on.
- She seemed to be doing okay.
When we were at that film
festival in Cleveland,
she was fine.
- Can you grab my purse?
- Yeah.
- Hi there. (chuckles)
- She had problems that were
undiagnosed.
- Back issues from the old
car accident that she had
and that was flaring up
to where it was painful
for her to do things.
- But she still so much
wanted to meet with fans
that she would still go
to the shows.
- She would get cortisone
shots in her back
so that she could at least
travel and meet the fans.
She was also having a lot
of heart issues.
- It's supposed to keep
my heart from stopping.
- [Woman] Why,
does it stop often?
But it won't anymore?
- Well, supposedly no.
- She just would not
listen to doctors.
She wouldn't do what
she was told.
She was a horrible patient.
That was her demise.
She just kept going
and kept going.
And I knew she was too
sick to do most
of the things she was doing,
but she would not stop
until she was hospitalized.
(moody music)
- [Tura VO] Hi, Girlwerks Media.
This is one of your clients.
I just thought I'd
give you a call.
I am in Renown
Hospital right now
because of a falling
and you don't need to
know all this crap, but
I am and will be here for
next at least couple of days.
I've already been here
for three days,
so I'll talk to you later.
Bye for now. Bye.
(reflective piano music)
- We kind of knew that
she was on her way out.
We just didn't know when.
Mom was in the hospital,
she was not conscious.
They did not have her on
life support at that time.
Her body's shutting down,
but I don't think her spirit
wanted to leave in front of us.
She wouldn't have wanted us in
there like crying and pacing.
She wanted us to live our lives.
I went to martial arts
class that night.
I went from the hospital
to martial arts class
and then back to the hospital.
On my way back to the
hospital, the nurses called
and said she was gone.
We went into the room
where her body was
and we all said goodbye.
And pretty much,
we had to leave her.
There was no staying there,
you know,
because she wasn't there.
It's hard to explain,
but what made her, her,
wasn't in that room any more.
So we just said goodbye.
(somber music)
Oh my love
It's not time for us
to say our farewell
Not to deny ourselves from
ourselves
You are
The drug in my veins
And I'm waiting
To feel it again
- [Narrator] Tura's was a
complex life.
For all that is known about her,
much remains
shrouded in mystery.
During the making of this
film, revelations surfaced
that give us deeper
insight into who Tura was,
but also conjure up
more questions.
(slow piano music)
- [Siouxzan] She believed that
Tony Bennett was Lani's dad.
- When my mother came home
to Chicago to have me,
Tony Bennett showed up.
- It was the early nineties.
Tony Bennett was
playing in Reno.
Mom called him up
and we were in the show
that night, backstage.
He actually said "Kalani,"
when he saw me
and I'm like, "No,
that's my sister."
He and Mom were sitting
next together
on a couch, you know,
in the dressing room
and they were just kind of
holding hands
and talking, you know, having
their little reminiscence.
Very soft spoken and
very loving,
what a sweetheart of a man.
- [Lani] I had no reason
to believe otherwise
because that's what my
mother told me.
I decided to send in my DNA.
When I got my results,
there did not indicate
any Italian. (chuckles)
My dad was Marty Allen,
the comedian.
- [Narrator] Marty Allen, a
popular comedian who opened
for Tony Bennett and
played the same venues
as Tura in the
fifties and sixties.
She always did like
a good laugh.
- (thunder clap)
- (Asian music)
- Asian, Asian-ish, you can't
quite put your finger on it.
You couldn't really identify
what she was,
and she was mysterious,
I think because of that.
- [Narrator] Tura spent
her whole life living
as an Asian American
Japanese woman.
She'd been Miss Japan
Beautiful since 15.
But new DNA tests showed Tura
to be Filipino and Chinese,
not Japanese.
(dramatic music)
- [Jade] It was really shocking.
You start questioning everything
you know about yourself.
- [Narrator] Why would Tura
identify herself as Japanese?
- [Jade] She always knew
her ethnicity,
but she held onto her persona.
- [Lani] That was part
of her image.
It was part of the appeal.
People found a Japanese beauty
with large breasts to be
very attractive.
- For Tura to be able
to take something like
objectification, fetitization
and use it in a way where
she was more in control.
(expl*si*n)
- [Lani] We had just defeated
them in World w*r II.
There was a shame associated
with what the Japanese
had gone through.
- She had been that for so
long, she chose to be Japanese.
- [Narrator] But was
that a choice she made
or an identity slapped
on her from childhood
by a society looking for
scapegoats
or cowardly men
wishing to harm her
as misguided payback
for the w*r.
Why not turn the tables and
use it to her advantage?
- These terrible things
could have happened to her
and she could have just like,
you know,
just quietly gone away
and submitted.
Or, the contrary,
which is she just like,
threw herself into life.
- [Tara] Larger than life,
strong and capable
and dangerous.
It's not over.
Her influence is living
on right now.
(inspiring music)
- [Narrator] Tura turned her
biggest tragedies into a power
that transcended revenge,
touched lives,
and created a legend
that lives on.
(audience cheering and clapping)
- [Peaches] I don't see it
dying down anytime soon.
In fact, I see it more and
more and more around the world.
- Just respect for Tura Satana.
- I think she'll be
remembered forever.
- [Tura VO] I think it's
very important
that women do keep their
integrity, their stamina,
their, their ability to show
everybody that they can do it.
They don't need anybody else.
They can do it on their own.
And as long as I can show
women to do that, I feel
that I've
accomplished something.
(dramatic music)
(uplifting music)
If you want, wild
living fast and
If you want to end up
giving your all
That's because pussycat,
she's living reckless
Pussycat, she's riding high
If you think that you
can tame her, well
Just you try
It's sad, she doesn't see
What's wrong from right
She's running fast
And free, child of the night
In her life will be no
time for love
You'll never take
her, make up your mind
You will find
Pussycat, she's
living reckless
Pussycat, she's riding high
If you think that you
can tame her, well
Just you try
Just you try
Come on and try
Come on and try
Come on and try
(upbeat music)
Livin' with my eyes closed
Goin' day to day
I never knew the difference
I never cared either way
Lookin' for a reason
Searchin' for a sign
Reachin' out with both hands
I gotta feel the kick inside
All fired up, now I
believe there comes a time
All fired up, when
everything just falls in line
All fired up, we live and
learn from our mistakes
All fired up, the deepest
cuts are healed by faith
And I believe there
comes a time
When everything just
falls in line
We live and learn from
our mistakes
The deepest cuts are
healed by faith
Now I believe there
comes a time
When everything just
falls in line
We live and learn from
our mistakes
The deepest cuts are...
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Tura! (2024)
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