Tura Satana

Tura Satana
Satana in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, 1965
Born	Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi (1938-07-10)July 10, 1938 Hokkaidō, Japan
Died	February 4, 2011(2011-02-04) (aged 72) Reno, Nevada, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1963–2011
Spouse(s)	John Satana (m. 1951–52) Endel Jurman (m. 1981–2000)
Children	2
Website	turasatana.com

Tura Satana (July 10, 1938 – February 4, 2011) was a Japanese American actress, vedette and exotic dancer. From 13 film and television credits, some of her work includes the exploitation film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), and the science fiction horror film The Astro-Zombies (1968).

Satana was born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi in Hokkaidō, Japan. Her father was a silent movie actor of Japanese and Filipino descent, and her mother was a circus performer of American Indian (Cheyenne) and Scots-Irish background. After the end of World War II and a stint in the Manzanar internment camp in Lone Pine, California, she and her family moved to Chicago.

Walking home from school just before her tenth birthday, she was reportedly gang raped by five men. According to Satana, her attackers were never prosecuted, and it was rumored that the judge had been paid off. She tells how this prompted her to learn martial arts, such as aikido and karate. Over the next 15 years, she tracked down each rapist and exacted revenge. "I made a vow to myself that I would someday, somehow get even with all of them," she said years later. "They never knew who I was until I told them." Around this time, she formed a gang, "the Angeles", with Italian, Jewish, and Polish girls from her neighborhood. In an interview with Psychotronic Video, she said, "We had leather motorcycle jackets, jeans and boots...and we kicked butt." Because of frequent delinquency, she was sent to reform school. When she was 13, her parents arranged her marriage to 17-year-old John Satana in Hernando, Mississippi, which lasted nine months.