Actress Tura Satana dead at 72

07 Feb, 2011

The newspaper said Satana's death on Friday was confirmed by her manager, Siouxzan Perry, who said Satana, often referred to as "the Arnold Schwarzenegger of bad girls," was 72.

In "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" Satana played Varla, the leader of a sports car-driving all-girl gang.

In the movie, Varla kills a young man with her bare hands and takes part in kidnapping his girlfriend as the gang attacks the desert ranch of a wealthy older man and his two sons.

According to The Times, Satana was born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi in Japan in 1938 before her family moved to California,

During World War II, the family was sent to the Manzanar internment camp housing people of Japanese descent.

After the war, the paper said, Satana grew up in Chicago, worked as an exotic dancer and nude model.

Her other credits include the film "Irma La Douce" in 1963 and the television shows "Burke's Law" and "The Man From UNCLE," the report said.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011

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