‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’ actress dies at 72

LOS ANGELES -- Tura Satana, who gained cult status for her role in the 1965 Russ Meyer movie "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" has died of heart failure at age 72.

The Los Angeles Times reports Satana's death was confirmed by her manager, Siouxzan Perry, who said Satana died Friday at a hospital in Reno, Nev., where she lived since at least the mid-1990s.

Satana worked as an exotic dancer on the Strip in the 1950s and '60s. First billed as "Miss Japan Beautiful" in burlesque revues at the Silver Slipper, she was still a featured headliner under her own name in "Minsky's Burlesque" at the Aladdin in 1969.

In recent years, Satana worked frequently in Las Vegas with cult moviemaker Ted V. Mikels, for whom she starred in "The Astro-Zombies" and "The Doll Squad." The two were feted at a Huntridge theater tribute in 1995.

Satana's final screen credit was in Mikels' 2010 "Astro-Zombies" sequel "Astro-Zombies: M3 -- Cloned." She also appeared in 2002 "Mark of the Astro-Zombies" and promised Mikels that she would appear in the next "Astro-Zombies" installment, "M4: Invaders From Cyberspace," which is now in production, Mikels said.

" 'I'll be with you on "M4, ' " Satana promised Mikels, the filmmaker said. And indeed she will: Mikels said she would appear "in hologram and flashbacks."

The two worked together for more than four decades; Satana starred in Mikels' original 1968 "Astro-Zombies" and as one of the members of his 1973 "The Doll Squad," which inspired not only "Charlie's Angels" but Quentin Tarantino's two-part "Kill Bill."

But it was Meyer's "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" that preserves her in pop culture. Satana played Varla, the leader of a trio of thrill-seeking go-go dancers who kills a man with her bare hands. The movie proved "women aren't wimps," she told the Review-Journal in 1995.

"We were basically your avant-garde (forerunner) for women's rights."

Satana's other credits include the 1963 film "Irma La Douce" and the television shows "Burke's Law" and "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."

The Review-Journal contributed to this report.