Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

No pussycat was faster than Tura Satana, who just died at age 72.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence..."

If her biography is to be believed, the buxom bad-ass stripper/actress' life was at least as interesting as her films: "Walking home from school at the age of nine she was gang-raped by five men. According to Satana, her attackers were never prosecuted and it was rumored that the judge had been paid off. This prompted her to learn the martial arts of aikido and karate and, over the next 15 years, she claimed that she had 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."

"This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs..."

She was sent to reform school as a teenager and, for self-protection, became the leader of a gang. In an interview she said, "We had leather motorcycle jackets, jeans and boots and we kicked butt."

Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor's receptionist, or the dancer at a go-go club..."

She eventually became a successful exotic dancer, traveling from city to city and working with the likes of Tempest Storm, The Skyscraper Girl (?!), Candy Barr, and (how's this for a Tom Waits character) Stunning Smith the Purple Lady.

"...the unmistakable smell of female..."

After her star-making turn in Russ Myers' 1965 classic, she went on to other cinematic gems like "Astro-Zombies" and "The Doll Squad."

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! soundtrack

Includes: music by Igo Kantor, Bert Shefter & Paul Sawtell (the Shefter/Sawtell team scored lotsa sci-fi, e.g.: "The Fly" and "Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea"); the classic title song by the otherwise unknown "Bostweeds;" highly quotable dialogue from Satana and her co-stars; sound effects.

The music ranges from killer rock'n'roll (The Cramps memorably covered the theme), to lewd bumping and grinding, to your basic soundtrack orchestral stuff. Some theremin-ish sci-fi sounds pop up, as well.