Sadly, Satana died yesterday of heart failure (her age has been reported as 72 or 75). Born in Hokkaido, Japan, Satana (born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi) was the daughter of a silent film actor. She fought her way through some extremely difficult early years to achieve cult stardom as Varla in 1965. In 2008, she told Entertainment Weekly of her most famous role:
"A woman, like my character, was able to show the male species that we’re not helpless and not entirely dependent on them. People picked up on the fact that women could be gorgeous and sexy and still kick ass."
Hear, hear!
As well as Pussycat, Satana appeared in a less prominent role in the more prestigious (though, let's face it, not nearly as good) Billy Wilder film Irma La Douce (1963), the horror flick Astro Zombies (1968), and Rob Zombies's cartoon The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009) in which she revisited Varla.
And come to think of it, Billie had the bulk of the film's great lines, but Satana did, indeed, have the best one.