Tura Satana

This is an era where there are no original famous women displaying truly empowered sexuality combined with camp-not one. We have these fast food fetish jokes calling themselves "empowered" and "quirky" when all they really are simply exploitative (or exploited) airheads spawned from Madonna. There is not one woman in the media today who could approach Tura Satana's persona, to say nothing of her stunning, all natural dancer's figure. Tura Satana also had one of the biggest hearts in the world and took the time to write her fans and give them advice.

Despite a severe beating and gang rape as a young child (for which the assailants were never prosecuted) she stayed true to herself and was brave enough to share her pain and her rage with the world. If you wrote to Tura on My Space she wrote you back. If you had a family member or friend serving in the military, Tura wrote them a lovely letter of her own volition, graciously thanking them for their sacrifices. When Tarantino mentioned casting "Eva Mendez" as Varla in a proposed remake of  "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Killl!" along with Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian, she wrote me stating that "none of them have the balls to play those parts."

And Tura was of course right.

For so many of us Tura fans, she personifies the early Indie/Camp film era and extreme pinup-the authentic incarnate. Today the majority of those rebranding and reselling Pin Up are followers simply along for the ride. Many just don't understand what the original vibe was all about-power and mystery. More and more as raunch and slut culture invades mainstream and Kustom Kulture with a pestilence similar to when skinheads ruined Punk, the standards that Tura, Bettie Page and others set are being abandoned. Thankfully, in the sea of  narrowly built Bettie Page clones and Confederate flag wearing silicone fetish airheads there will always be the true Amazon cult goddess Tura Satana. I don't dislike porn nor fetish, but porn and fetish culture belong on hard drives, behind closed doors far, far away from the mainstream and far away from children and teens.

Tura was a conservative at heart, one who clearly knew the difference between her cult persona and reality. When to be sexy and when to act with cautious decorum. From the emails we exchanged, I could see that it was saddening for her to watch so many pinups she inspired (whether they knew it or not) "give up the store" and act sleazy just to get some fleeting attention and a few bucks. Tura set a high standard to follow but most women who live alternative lives should try as hard to emulate her stability. She had values, class and grace.

A mint original, she will be forever missed yet also live forever on the silver screen, Tura Satana didn't beat clocks-she beat people.