Speaker 1: I'm so excited because we y'all listeners know that we
Speaker 1: produced this show out of our car where we live.
Speaker 1: Um uh, you know, just everything's very um. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say lo fi or d I. It's it's
Speaker 1: a little d I Y, a high tech d I Y.
Speaker 1: But we got the hell out of the coffee shops
Speaker 1: and got a cowork space yesterday. It's great. I love it.
Speaker 1: I mean one day I love it. Yeah. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: we haven't had a chance to just like it, but
Speaker 1: it was spooled to just be like, okay, I know
Speaker 1: exactly where to go. There's plenty of outlets, plenty of shares.
Speaker 1: Nobody is here to do anything but work, so that
Speaker 1: was that was a nice I'm not dropping, you know,
Speaker 1: coffee to justify my presence here. No, no baristas are
Speaker 1: casually looking over going when the hell are they going
Speaker 1: to leave? I remember thinking it would be too expensive,
Speaker 1: and then we did the math and we're like, no,
Speaker 1: it cost going to a coffee shop every single day
Speaker 1: and it's like minutes away from our house. Yeah, so perfect.
Speaker 1: We are what do they say, blessed and highly favored.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's us know. The coolest thing that is
Speaker 1: we saw so many friends this week. Molly was in
Speaker 1: town by Molly, I know you listen, so hello. Really
Speaker 1: awesome to see her, and we saw a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: In the course of seeing her, I had to get
Speaker 1: together with other friends we haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 1: And the best part of moving is when you come
Speaker 1: back and visit, right, you see a lot of people
Speaker 1: at once, And then the best part of your friend
Speaker 1: moving because they come back and visit and all your
Speaker 1: friends get together, like finally, but yeah, and then it
Speaker 1: was our friends Sammy's birthday, so we got to go
Speaker 1: staying karaoke and yeah, it has just been a nice
Speaker 1: social calendar this week. Sammy listens to you better say
Speaker 1: hello to her, right, Hey, Sammy, and listen regularly. Samy
Speaker 1: and I were just talking yesterday because she texted me
Speaker 1: one of my own jokes from the show and it
Speaker 1: took me a second to figure out what she was
Speaker 1: talking about. I was like, oh, yeah, that's great, feels
Speaker 1: such a compliment. We're like, I wanted you to know
Speaker 1: how dad I am from the shop. Well, today we
Speaker 1: have an awesome story, so I think we should just
Speaker 1: go for it. Any ready for this one? Because I
Speaker 1: was really into this one because today we want to
Speaker 1: tell you, guys about tourist Sitana, who is the lead
Speaker 1: star of the nineteen seventies cult classic B movie Faster
Speaker 1: pussy Cat, Kill Kill, which is just a great movie.
Speaker 1: She was a busty and beautiful Japanese American woman. She
Speaker 1: had an incredibly tough childhood, but that made her an
Speaker 1: incredibly tough woman. She became a burlesque dancer. She had
Speaker 1: cameos and several films. Obviously she starred in Fast Pussycat.
Speaker 1: She had a black belt in karate. She passed info
Speaker 1: to the FBI about the mafia. She beat the shift
Speaker 1: out of some rapists. She had flings with Frank Sinatra,
Speaker 1: Joe DiMaggio. She even taught Elvis how to kiss. This
Speaker 1: is just one irrepressively badass bitch, and we cannot wait
Speaker 1: to tell you about her. So Faster Eli record recall,
Speaker 1: Let's go and let's go. Hey the French, come listen. Well,
Speaker 1: Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no
Speaker 1: matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love.
Speaker 1: It might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 1: abstract cons that from a concrete wall. But if there's
Speaker 1: a story, were a second clanch ridiculous roles production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Tua was born Toura Yamaguchi in in Hokkaido, Japan.
Speaker 1: Her mother was a native American and Scotch Irish circus performer,
Speaker 1: and her father was a Japanese and Filipino silent movie stars.
Speaker 1: What I know, I would love, Like what a life.
Speaker 1: They rest, very interesting people just have around you. Mom's
Speaker 1: cooking dinner, like on her walking on her hands. That's
Speaker 1: miming eating. He's like, I'm walking on her hands in
Speaker 1: the name. Yeah, I'm not going to eat this because
Speaker 1: you made it with your feet, but I'm gonna You're
Speaker 1: gonna believe I'm eating it. And the family moved to
Speaker 1: America in two but that wasn't really the best time
Speaker 1: to be Japanese in America. That is the year that
Speaker 1: the US decided to round up a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: thousand men, women and children and put them in military
Speaker 1: style internment camps for the duration of the war. So
Speaker 1: Tura and her father were separated from her mother and
Speaker 1: sent to Mansanar, which is one of ten such internment camps,
Speaker 1: and they were there for several years, and then when
Speaker 1: the war was over, they did get to reunite with
Speaker 1: her mother and they moved to Chicago. Tora had a
Speaker 1: really tough time in this Polish Jewish Italian neighborhood on
Speaker 1: the West side of Chicago. She says that she was
Speaker 1: tormented daily as what she called quote a tojo or
Speaker 1: a monkey person, awful thing to say to anyone. Um.
Speaker 1: She also had to fight her way to and from school.
Speaker 1: She developed very early. She had like a very voluptuous
Speaker 1: figure when she was very young, and she tried to
Speaker 1: hide this by wearing baggy clothes. But when she was
Speaker 1: about ten years old, her mother sent her to buy
Speaker 1: some bread. On her way back from the bakery, tour
Speaker 1: was grabbed and thrown into a car, where five men
Speaker 1: brutally raped her and then pushed her back out in
Speaker 1: the street. This cop showed up, but he turned out
Speaker 1: to be a cousin of one of the rapists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then even worse than that, these guys managed to
Speaker 1: pay off the judge. To her describe herself, she said,
Speaker 1: quote one thousand dollars for a little girl's virginity. And
Speaker 1: the case, of course, never went to trial. The judge
Speaker 1: told her that she had quote enticed the men into
Speaker 1: raping her. He called her a juvenile delinquent, and as
Speaker 1: a punishment for this ten year old girl being raped,
Speaker 1: she was sent to a reform school. It is I
Speaker 1: want to understand who you are to look at a
Speaker 1: ten year old girl in the eye until her she
Speaker 1: enticed five men into raping her. Like, no, no, she
Speaker 1: did not. That is a sick, horrible thing to say,
Speaker 1: aside from the fact that no one has ever enticed
Speaker 1: anyone into raping that right now. Tara's parents responded to
Speaker 1: this attack in some interesting ways. Firstly, Tara's father started
Speaker 1: teaching her martial arts like aikido and karate in the
Speaker 1: hopes that she would be able to protect herself in
Speaker 1: the future, since obviously probably had very little faith in
Speaker 1: the justice system at this point. So Tara rounded up
Speaker 1: some other girls in her neighborhood and started a girl
Speaker 1: gang called the Angels that roamed around like, ready to
Speaker 1: beat the ass of anyone who was bothering young women
Speaker 1: in the area. Okay, she was like, I'm just determined
Speaker 1: that what happened to her would not happen to anyone else. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just think that's an amazing response. Eventually, she
Speaker 1: would go on to earn a green belt in iikedo
Speaker 1: and a black belt in karate. But her parents also
Speaker 1: thought that a husband might be the answer for too
Speaker 1: is like rowdiness and like her fighting and everything, and
Speaker 1: so they arranged a marriage for her when she was
Speaker 1: only thirteen years old to a seventeen year old family
Speaker 1: friend named John Satana in Mississippi. Both these people too
Speaker 1: young to be married. I'll tell you that right now,
Speaker 1: And the marriage, of course, only lasted about nine months.
Speaker 1: Shook off her husband, but she kept the cool last name,
Speaker 1: and she fled to Los Angeles. She had a fake
Speaker 1: I d and she got hired to dance at the
Speaker 1: Trocadera Club on Sunset Boulevard, and then she was working
Speaker 1: as a swimsuit model by the time she was only
Speaker 1: fifteen years old. At some point she caught the eye
Speaker 1: of silent comedy film star Harold Lloyd, who's the best.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know him personally, but Harold Lloyd
Speaker 1: was always I liked him the most. Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: a very interesting career. By this point, Harold was experimenting
Speaker 1: with photography and he was taking nude photos of stars
Speaker 1: like Betty Page and Toura modeled for him too. Now.
Speaker 1: He apparently did not know that she was under age
Speaker 1: at the time, because she had this fake ID and
Speaker 1: she looked much more mature than than her age. She
Speaker 1: is featured in the book of his photos, which was
Speaker 1: later published by his granddaughter called Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes
Speaker 1: in three D, which I gotta I haven't seen this book.
Speaker 1: Are they like blue and red pictures? The old style
Speaker 1: three D glasses of because he said he was experimenting
Speaker 1: with three D photography. It was like, are they like
Speaker 1: pop up and the tips come popping out? Now? Toura
Speaker 1: credits Harold Lloyd with giving her the confidence to get
Speaker 1: into acting. In an interview for Jimmy McDonald's biography on
Speaker 1: Russ Meyer called Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, she said, quote,
Speaker 1: I saw myself as an ugly child. Mr. Lloyd said,
Speaker 1: the camera loves your face. You should be seen. But
Speaker 1: she went back to Chicago first and started making a
Speaker 1: name for herself in Illinois nightclubs. First, she performed under
Speaker 1: the stage name Galatea, after the Greek myth of the
Speaker 1: statue that Pygmalions sculpted and fell in love with so
Speaker 1: she did this act where Galata came to life. Um.
Speaker 1: And then she began performing in a kimono as missed
Speaker 1: japan Beautiful. And she became famous for her Tassel act,
Speaker 1: which blended, you know, sexy dancing with martial arts and acrobatics.
Speaker 1: So it's really unique act. Um. She described it for
Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribune quote, I wore a Japanese kimono and
Speaker 1: a huge headdress, and I carried my own Buddha. He
Speaker 1: would sit on a stool on the stage. After the
Speaker 1: dance routine, I'd take a very small harakirie knife and
Speaker 1: pretend to kill myself. This act sounds great, very creative.
Speaker 1: According to Edmund Valen's blog Mafia History, Toura eventually started
Speaker 1: earning around a thousand dollars a week, which would be
Speaker 1: worth around ten thousand dollars today. Okay, insane money. That's
Speaker 1: half a million a year in today's money. One of
Speaker 1: the theaters that she performed in was the Folly's Burlesque
Speaker 1: Theater in Chicago, which was mob controlled, of course, like
Speaker 1: most of the entertainment industry at the time. Edmund Valen
Speaker 1: says that it was owned by the brother of mafio
Speaker 1: so Nick Carsella, and while she was dancing there in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties, she caught the eye of Henry Susk,
Speaker 1: who was a wealthy auto dealer with mafia connections, and
Speaker 1: the two of them got romantically involved, and then Toura
Speaker 1: was introduced to Susk's associate, Gus Alex, who was this
Speaker 1: mafia big shot. I mean, this is a guy, you
Speaker 1: know Cement shows with the fishes, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: especially Chicago, You're like right in the thing. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a thing in Chicago for a while there.
Speaker 1: Valin writes that Gus Alex quote supervised gambling and vice
Speaker 1: in Chicago's underworld and eventually rose the wits upper echelon.
Speaker 1: He was a top target of the FBI. Sitana developed
Speaker 1: an intimate relationship with Alex that attracted the FBI's attention,
Speaker 1: and that is when tourist Satana started passing info to
Speaker 1: the FEDS. It's the spy ship. She like, she wasn't
Speaker 1: so close to these mafia guys that she could give
Speaker 1: the FBI anything super juicy, like I know he killed
Speaker 1: this guy or something like that. But one piece of
Speaker 1: information that she passed to them turned out to be
Speaker 1: pretty crucial. Um. She told them about a suite at
Speaker 1: Chicago's St. Clair Hotel that guests Alex used for meetings
Speaker 1: or to make incriminating phone calls. She told her handler
Speaker 1: William Romer that quote all the top Chicago hudlums used it,
Speaker 1: and she was able to provide the floor plan in
Speaker 1: case the FEDS wanted to bug the room, as well
Speaker 1: as warned them that the manager of the hotel was
Speaker 1: really friendly with Alex and he would definitely tip him
Speaker 1: off a media atly if anyone started asking any questions. Additionally,
Speaker 1: she told them the fake name that the suite was
Speaker 1: rented under, and how the manager would cater lunch so
Speaker 1: that their meetings the mob meetings would be uninterrupted. Unclear
Speaker 1: exactly how this information managed to play into their investigations,
Speaker 1: but Romer wrote in his memoirs that quote as the
Speaker 1: years went by, this information was to serve me very well.
Speaker 1: So they definitely got some good info from bugging the room.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they picture them like getting wheeled in with
Speaker 1: the catered lunch and they're like hiding under the cart
Speaker 1: like an ocean's love them. Well. It was also at
Speaker 1: the Follies in Chicago. Apparently that Tura caught the eye
Speaker 1: of an as yet unknown president. According to her, she
Speaker 1: taught him everything he knew about the locking lips and
Speaker 1: shaking hips. We're gonna hear about how she got him.
Speaker 1: Right up of this Welcome back to the Hotbreak Hotel.
Speaker 1: So tourist Sitana is dancing with this giant Buddha on stage.
Speaker 1: She's doing all kinds of cool martial arts moves. In
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties, when Elvis Presley himself became smitten
Speaker 1: with her. Toura claims that they met in Biloxi a
Speaker 1: year before while she was touring, and then when he
Speaker 1: was in town to perform at the Chicago Theater, he
Speaker 1: caught her act at the Folly's and he went backstage
Speaker 1: to say, Hi, You're like, excuse me. I was just
Speaker 1: looking for the bathroom and couldn't help. Oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize this is where all the performers are in and
Speaker 1: the agents like to hang out. Remember me from Biloxi?
Speaker 1: Whoa watch the shoes? I'm really sens and uh write
Speaker 1: a song about it. You should start in Elvis, I
Speaker 1: should start Tom Hank. Yeah, let's reboot last year's Elvis movie,
Speaker 1: It's time for a gritty Elvis reboot get uh Man
Speaker 1: in his late thirties to play young Elvis. Presley uh
Speaker 1: Pamela de bar in her two eight book Let's Spend
Speaker 1: the Night Together Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and SuperGroupies,
Speaker 1: wrote the quote, he wanted to know how she did
Speaker 1: the slide and the splits at the same time, how
Speaker 1: she did the shimmy, how she shook all over. He
Speaker 1: was quite intrigued, so Tura gave Elvis some of them
Speaker 1: hip shimmy lessons that he would go on to make famous.
Speaker 1: Who knew Elvis borrowed part of his act from a
Speaker 1: minority person and then used that earned fame. I know
Speaker 1: it does tracked now. They did start dating, but Tura
Speaker 1: was not satisfied by what she called Elvis' is quote
Speaker 1: wet fish kisses. Damn, Elvis did not have game. I know, right,
Speaker 1: it's really demystifying this sex symbol. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: know we don't do romantic advice on this show, but
Speaker 1: you'll get your kiss game together. Your kisses wet. I
Speaker 1: know those wet fish kisses. I know they are gross
Speaker 1: or like real tight lips. Oh, I was thinking real
Speaker 1: loose lips. Well yeah, well or I should or or
Speaker 1: you need lips like concrete. You know, you've got to
Speaker 1: go in tighten hard. That's what I always say about kissing.
Speaker 1: That's what I always People ask a lot, and that's
Speaker 1: how I respond. That's why we don't do romantic tips
Speaker 1: on this show, because that's kind of advice you get
Speaker 1: like a vice grip. You know, I want to feel
Speaker 1: like your face is being sucked off by jellyfish, you know.
Speaker 1: Loose lips sink ships, tight lips swing hips. I always say, wow,
Speaker 1: that's what you always I only say a few things,
Speaker 1: and I say them constants, the one you should get
Speaker 1: some new things, just fresh it up. So yeah, Tira
Speaker 1: said Elvis was kissing like a wet fish, so she
Speaker 1: to give him some lessons on the art of French kissing.
Speaker 1: And she described to Pamela dey Bar like a series
Speaker 1: of secret dates that they went on. They even had
Speaker 1: dinner together at her parents house and quote more intimate
Speaker 1: tutorials in the bedroom. Uh so she was really getting
Speaker 1: Elvis together, getting him together. She's like, you got all
Speaker 1: the managers and the agents and the and the vocal
Speaker 1: instructors in the world, But who's teaching you what really matters?
Speaker 1: Out of Love. Tour said that Elvis was quote a
Speaker 1: very considerate lover and the old type Southern gentleman, always
Speaker 1: saying yes, ma'am, until I told him to stop because
Speaker 1: he was making me feel a hundred years old. He said,
Speaker 1: what should I call you? Sugar? I said that's good enough.
Speaker 1: I'm picturing, of course in bed. She's like, just like that,
Speaker 1: and he said that was amazing. Elvis, let me hold
Speaker 1: the doll for you. She's like, we're in bed, there's
Speaker 1: no door. I'll find a door. I'll open it. Door
Speaker 1: for no reason. It's just like people now, people can
Speaker 1: see me. Elvis was spitten enough with Ta that he
Speaker 1: eventually proposed to her, but she turned him down. She
Speaker 1: explained in two thousand and eight, quote I told him
Speaker 1: if anyone knew about us being engaged, it would cost
Speaker 1: him his career, which honestly might be true. Um, you
Speaker 1: know it. Not only would it be an interracial marriage,
Speaker 1: which anyone who heard our Sammy Davis Junior episode knows
Speaker 1: that nobody was into at that time. Um, but it
Speaker 1: would also be a marriage with a nude model and dancer,
Speaker 1: and that would really hurt Elvis's like all American boy
Speaker 1: image that he would later craft. So she went on
Speaker 1: to say, quote, I tried to give his ring back
Speaker 1: and he told me to keep it. He said, you
Speaker 1: will always have a part of me with you, and
Speaker 1: I still have it. It's a solitaire diamond about three carrots.
Speaker 1: He could afford a three carrot diamond ring and afford
Speaker 1: to say no, you keep it. I know, right, I
Speaker 1: feel he'd be like, all right, I'll take that. She
Speaker 1: claims that Elvis was stuck on her enough to insist
Speaker 1: that his wife Priscilla dressed like her, wearing gobs of
Speaker 1: black eyeliner and long flowing black hair that he'd quote
Speaker 1: have her put up in a big ponytail or a
Speaker 1: huge beehive like mine. Okay, but the Chicago Museum points
Speaker 1: out that her timeline doesn't really line up with Elvis's career.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, it's a bit weird to be like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make my wife style herself after my ex girlfriend.
Speaker 1: That's strange for anybody to me. But you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I weirder things have definitely happened, sure now in the
Speaker 1: Chicago Magazine's Estimation Tour as story about Elvis coming back
Speaker 1: stage at the Follies to see her would have happened
Speaker 1: around nineteen fifty five, but he didn't perform in Chicago
Speaker 1: until fifties. Evan and Toura also gets no mention in
Speaker 1: either of the definitive Elvis Presley biographies. By nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: when Elvis married Priscilla, heavy highliner and big beehives were
Speaker 1: kind of hugely popular of a trend already, So Priscilla's
Speaker 1: style might not have had that much to do with
Speaker 1: Toura herself. Yeah, but you know, other sources say it's
Speaker 1: still possible. Uh, Tura might have simply mistaken some of
Speaker 1: the dates or places through just you know, quirks of memory.
Speaker 1: Remember everything perfect. I don't know the difference between seventeen
Speaker 1: right now. Like literally, if you gave me two events
Speaker 1: and said which one happened in which year, not a chance, right,
Speaker 1: good luck to you, because and that's true if you're
Speaker 1: if you're like, I'm just dancing in a club, it's
Speaker 1: sometime in the mid fifties and I met Elvis, Like
Speaker 1: if you got the year wrong, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's still possible. And she did live in Mississippi if
Speaker 1: she says he lived, you know, they met in Biloxi
Speaker 1: and stuff. So there, you know, there is some threads
Speaker 1: for sure, you could pull and see if they were real,
Speaker 1: and you could see them leaving out, leaving it out
Speaker 1: of his graphy. I mean, his image to this day
Speaker 1: is curated, you know what I mean? And I mean
Speaker 1: even oh, he was in love with this lady and
Speaker 1: then they didn't get married, that's not that interesting, Like
Speaker 1: would you not want to focus more on the person
Speaker 1: he did marry. She's making it up. It's a crazy
Speaker 1: story that she could have totally made up, and who
Speaker 1: would who would be able to say otherwise? Right to
Speaker 1: like add to her own legends stuff like she does.
Speaker 1: She does like her legend. You know, she has a
Speaker 1: she has a crafted image as well, and at that point,
Speaker 1: she's got some other stories like Torres Sitana also apparently
Speaker 1: hooked up with baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. She did, however,
Speaker 1: say that Elvis was a much better lover. Sorry Joe,
Speaker 1: home run this time. She told Pamela day Bar quote,
Speaker 1: I always felt like Joe was comparing me to Maryland.
Speaker 1: He was a very strange person, subdued and reticent. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a good lover, but he wasn't bad either, which again,
Speaker 1: like it sounds like someone's self inflating story to say,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I s love with Joe to Maggie and
Speaker 1: he was just always comparing me to Marilyn Monroe. You,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I suppose he would. Maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what we have him on our list
Speaker 1: as well to do mary Is. I keep telling we're
Speaker 1: about that story, we get to it, and he definitely
Speaker 1: was like that's who he He probably compared every woman
Speaker 1: to Maryland, wouldn't you. I guess if you were with
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe, it's true, so you could definitely see it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I also, I mean, you know, he was
Speaker 1: not a good lover, but he wasn't bad either. Kind
Speaker 1: of says to me that maybe they just weren't sexually compatible,
Speaker 1: like you know, sometimes you need something more to have
Speaker 1: a good set, have a good time of it, but
Speaker 1: not always. Because she also slept with old Blue Eyes himself.
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, who Tura said quote was built like a
Speaker 1: stead horse and knew what he was doing. Now that's
Speaker 1: the most believable things. I said. You could say that
Speaker 1: about anyone, could say it about Frank, and people would
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I feel like the man got practice,
Speaker 1: he had no shortage of opportunity. Yeah. Uh. And she
Speaker 1: claims that bond girl Ursula and Dress hit on her
Speaker 1: at a party at Frank Sinatra's house. Also and a
Speaker 1: profile for fanzine, Toura said, quote everyone was saying Dean, Judy,
Speaker 1: Jack Lemon, everyone. Ursula and Dress saw me at the bar,
Speaker 1: and she comes up to my side and asks me
Speaker 1: if I've had my first girl yet. Tura apparently explained
Speaker 1: to her that once she had slept with every single
Speaker 1: man in the world, then she'd be ready for her
Speaker 1: first girl. But quote not till then, sweetie. Okay, but
Speaker 1: Ursula Andress would be a pretty good for you girl.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you know, being clear about your heterosexuality. You
Speaker 1: know that's fine, That's well. I feel like Ursla and
Speaker 1: Dress would uh certainly could be a tipping point. I know.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well, I mean, get another dude over here,
Speaker 1: and we can make some happy just for the experience.
Speaker 1: Where's Frank. I want so bad well, okay, I I
Speaker 1: want so badly and I want so badly to not
Speaker 1: be at this party with Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Jack Lemon,
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra dress. Like what a time we talked about this.
Speaker 1: I think recently we watched Babylon just you know, which
Speaker 1: is earlier than this, but old old Hollywood. There's just
Speaker 1: this era of Hollywood where I'm like, it sounds so
Speaker 1: fun and also so chaotic and dangerous and miserable at
Speaker 1: the same time. But I would love to pop in
Speaker 1: for one party in my little time machine, like exactly
Speaker 1: in our time travel agency where we get to go
Speaker 1: to very specific parties in history. This is one that
Speaker 1: should be in the list. Oh my god. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody's like, who would you who would you kill if
Speaker 1: you had a time machine? What would you do? What
Speaker 1: party would you go to? Party? Who would you have
Speaker 1: dinner with? None of that stuff. You have a time
Speaker 1: machine and you could pop into one party where they
Speaker 1: won't really know you're there because it's so crazy. Where
Speaker 1: are you going to go? And it makes sense because
Speaker 1: like it's time travel, so you're you're afraid, you know,
Speaker 1: to fund something up and change the future with it's
Speaker 1: a party, so like just go, no one will notice. You,
Speaker 1: there's not much you can do except like kill someone
Speaker 1: at this party maybe, but like, well this party and
Speaker 1: have a good time and leave and do very little
Speaker 1: to the timeline experience. You and I end up sleeping
Speaker 1: with dress and yeah, she can't get her mind off us,
Speaker 1: starts performing badly. Yeah then then what and what have
Speaker 1: we done? I like to get back in the time
Speaker 1: machine take it all back. Oh god, but we'll still
Speaker 1: have our memories, I hope right in tell us which
Speaker 1: party you would go to with the time machine in history,
Speaker 1: because I would. I would love those answers. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: read them out on the show. We have had a
Speaker 1: few parties on our show that we have said we
Speaker 1: would go too, So I would definitely love to hear
Speaker 1: what y'all think, Okay, and then Toura Stanna's daughter Kalani,
Speaker 1: was born in ninety seven, when Tura was nineteen, and
Speaker 1: her second daughter, Jade Kim, was born in nineteen sixty nine. Now,
Speaker 1: Tura claims that her baby daddy's are jazz crooner Tony
Speaker 1: Bennett and The Birds actor Rod Taylor, but she does
Speaker 1: not specify which kid belongs to which dad anywhere that
Speaker 1: we could find um. The only thing I could see
Speaker 1: was who somebody asked if her daughter had a Australian accent,
Speaker 1: and she said, because Rod Taylor is Australian and she
Speaker 1: said no, but Rod Taylor didn't either when I was
Speaker 1: with him. Also, do they know that accents are genetic? Okay?
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know. Well, it was actually
Speaker 1: a really cute little ride up where he was like
Speaker 1: he was meeting her after screening, and he was super nervous,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I was just trying to think
Speaker 1: of something cool to say because I really idolized her.
Speaker 1: And why you're the lamest person ever when you're around
Speaker 1: someone that you adolized. Just like the only thing I
Speaker 1: could think of which I find relatable. I wonder what
Speaker 1: Tony Bennett has got to say about this, right, And
Speaker 1: I did. I did look at Tony Bennett and Rod
Speaker 1: Taylor's Wikipedia pages at least, and no mention of Tura
Speaker 1: on either of them, or any kids like with her
Speaker 1: or anything. So again, it's you know, who knows what
Speaker 1: she's embellishing or what they are willing to admit to,
Speaker 1: or what cares take it all a face value. Well,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like pretty much everyone involved. I
Speaker 1: mean Tony Bennett is still with us. I believe pretty
Speaker 1: much everyone involved as Dead's like, who cares? I fucked Elvis? Fine, okay,
Speaker 1: you say so. So. Toura's on screen career really started
Speaker 1: to kick off in the early nineteen sixties. She's she's
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff before she's even the right indi
Speaker 1: wire dot Com writes that she quote earned her guild
Speaker 1: card on the TV show Hawai, I and I after
Speaker 1: being spotted dancing at the Los Angeles Follies by a
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers scout. In this she would have played a
Speaker 1: sexy secretary in nine nine, but it must be said
Speaker 1: that if she was on that show, it was never
Speaker 1: listed on her IMDb credits page. Most sources say that
Speaker 1: her first on screen role was actually in the Shirley
Speaker 1: McClain Jack Lemmon movie musical Irma La Douce. The story
Speaker 1: is that the director of this movie, Billy Wilder, and
Speaker 1: his wife decided to go hang out at the Pink
Speaker 1: Pussycat in West Hollywood one night when Toura happened to
Speaker 1: be dancing and they were just like totally enraptured with
Speaker 1: her performance. They realized that she was the perfect person
Speaker 1: to play Suzette Wong, who was one of Irma's fellow
Speaker 1: Parisian prostitutes in the movie. Toura told Ruth Stein in
Speaker 1: an interview for s f gate dot Com that she
Speaker 1: had the same number of costumes as Shirley McClain, saying quote,
Speaker 1: I had one with Tassel's hanging off the end of
Speaker 1: my boobs. Billy just loved those things, Billy Wilder Tassel fan.
Speaker 1: After that role, she landed another cameo as a stripper
Speaker 1: in Dean Martin's Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed. I
Speaker 1: love the names of movies, old movie and probably a
Speaker 1: question Dean Martin asked all the time, Like he said,
Speaker 1: who that um Natura is also uncredited for that role
Speaker 1: in in Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? But she
Speaker 1: apparently also was the choreographer for Carol Burnett in that,
Speaker 1: which would be so dope just to work with Carol
Speaker 1: Burnett for an hour. She also got other roles in
Speaker 1: television shows like Burke's Law and The Man from Uncle
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, which crossover Alert also featured a
Speaker 1: very young Kurt Russell. Hey, Hey, we know him from
Speaker 1: our episode about him that's right, and then Goldie, but
Speaker 1: it was softcore King russ Meyer who gave her her
Speaker 1: most famous role. And while she was working on Irma Deduce,
Speaker 1: she got the call to come read for Russ's movie
Speaker 1: Leather Girls, and Indy Wire says she didn't have time
Speaker 1: to change between work and the audition, so she showed
Speaker 1: up in the wedding dress she was wearing for the
Speaker 1: film and he handed her the script. He asked her
Speaker 1: how she'd play it. She responded, quote, I'd make her
Speaker 1: kind of feminine but also a bitch on wheels. After
Speaker 1: her cold read, russ told her, quote, you are definitely Varla,
Speaker 1: and she got the part and the title of the
Speaker 1: film was changed to Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, which is
Speaker 1: a great title. It's so great and I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if y'all have seen this, but it is
Speaker 1: just the wackiest movie. Yeah, it's this whole kind of
Speaker 1: style of filmmaking. You're into it or you're not, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. And I was not for a while, but
Speaker 1: I came to appreciate this kind of stuff. It is
Speaker 1: so campy and ridiculous, overacted and crazy, but it is
Speaker 1: really fun. It's just shouting every line like there's no
Speaker 1: subtlety to the performance. There's no like the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no subtext. This was a sexploitation B movie and
Speaker 1: it basically kicked off the female action hero. The tagline
Speaker 1: was women Belted, buck olden booted, and it was just
Speaker 1: unlike anything movie audiences had ever seen before. It's probably
Speaker 1: unlike anything you've seen now unless you've seen the many
Speaker 1: things copying it. You know, since then, Varla her character
Speaker 1: was the leader of a killer girl gang of go
Speaker 1: go dancers. Yes, I love it already. During the movie
Speaker 1: as Days Digital Rights, she quote drag races across the desert,
Speaker 1: unleashes some of the cattist one liners to have hit celluloid,
Speaker 1: most of them improvised, and generally kicks patriarchal ass. Now
Speaker 1: the movie, you know, it didn't win any Oscars. It
Speaker 1: should not, but it did have a major influence on
Speaker 1: filmmakers like John Waters and Quentin Tarantino got John Waters especially,
Speaker 1: I mean this just like his whole vibe absolutely King
Speaker 1: of King of filth Right. Critic Roger Ebert once wrote,
Speaker 1: quote what attracts audiences is not sex and not really
Speaker 1: violence either, but a pop art fantasy image of powerful women,
Speaker 1: filmed with high energy and exaggerated in a way that
Speaker 1: seems bizarre and unnatural until you realize Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone,
Speaker 1: Jean Claude Van Dam and Steven Seagal play more or
Speaker 1: less the same characters without the bras. Of course, maybe
Speaker 1: they should have the bad but I think thought about
Speaker 1: that Sylvester Stallone changed the format a little now that
Speaker 1: Arnold would wear one, but Stephen would not. Steven Seagal
Speaker 1: would never agreed. Well, Arnold was great at teasing himself,
Speaker 1: like finding the comedy in his own image. That's one
Speaker 1: of the best things about Arnold's movies, especially as comedies.
Speaker 1: It's like he knows how silly he is. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, Seagal way too self serious. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think this is such a great quote from obviously Roger,
Speaker 1: who knows what he's talking about. Um that it's not
Speaker 1: really all that different from something like Commando or Cliffhanger
Speaker 1: or something where it's kind of ridiculous, right, I think
Speaker 1: it's I think Myers movies are a little more frenetic,
Speaker 1: you know, a little more chaotic, and admit a little
Speaker 1: more of their own silliness. Yeah, but I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of similarities there, and you're like, well, how
Speaker 1: can you like it when he does it? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to see, uh, something like Faster Pussycat
Speaker 1: but made by a team of women, because at first,
Speaker 1: like Commando and stuff like that, are made by teams
Speaker 1: of men, so their idea of hyper masculinization and stuff
Speaker 1: is all playing out. This is still sort of russ Meyer,
Speaker 1: you know, there's still a male gaze element to it.
Speaker 1: I guess you didn't know that Commando is directed by
Speaker 1: Jane Campion. Wow, I had no. I would totally watch
Speaker 1: Jane Campion's version of command Can you imagine now? Varla
Speaker 1: in Faster Pussycat was also a revolutionary role in the
Speaker 1: way that it pushed back against existing stereotypes of Asian women.
Speaker 1: Even in Toura's burlesque act, which obviously played on audiences
Speaker 1: geisha girl fantasies. You know, she's in a kimono, she's
Speaker 1: dancing with a Buddha. She's definitely playing into that. But
Speaker 1: it didn't adhere to the stereotypes because she had these
Speaker 1: incredible costuming and authentic martial arts moves. And a lot
Speaker 1: of sly humor that she incorporated that kind of lifted,
Speaker 1: kind of elevated it from just regular Geisha girl stuff
Speaker 1: days Digital writes, quote as a fearsome protagonist, a faster pussycat.
Speaker 1: She smashed through the Hollywood stereotype of Asian women being
Speaker 1: sexually available and submissive, crushing dull all American boys under
Speaker 1: her knee high boots. And you know, it would be
Speaker 1: wrong to give creator and director russ Meyer all the
Speaker 1: credit for this, because even he said that he and
Speaker 1: Tura Satana aid Faster Pussycat together, and apparently he was
Speaker 1: not great at sharing credit, so that was quite something
Speaker 1: for him to shout her out. Um. And it makes
Speaker 1: sense because she performed her own stunts, She choreographed her
Speaker 1: fight scenes and several other people's fight scenes, and she
Speaker 1: ad libbed most of Varla's best lines. For example, in
Speaker 1: one scene, a guy is like ogling her cleavage as
Speaker 1: he talks about wanting to see America and tour retorts. Quote,
Speaker 1: you won't find it down there, Columbus, turn those three
Speaker 1: ships around. Amazing how russ Meyer apparently had a rule
Speaker 1: that no one was allowed to have sex while they
Speaker 1: were making this movie. It's probably just to avoid a
Speaker 1: bunch of problems between actors because drama rama. But Toura refused.
Speaker 1: According to ruth Stein, she said, quote, I told him
Speaker 1: I had to have sex every day because otherwise I
Speaker 1: get very frustrated. He said, we're filming in the middle
Speaker 1: of a desert. Where are you going to find anyone?
Speaker 1: I said, that's my problem. Get some That's funny. I
Speaker 1: had read it. That's my that's my problem. I don't
Speaker 1: know either way. It's great, that's my problem, my problem.
Speaker 1: You don't worry about that. I'll take care of that part.
Speaker 1: The film itself cost forty dollars to make. It came
Speaker 1: out in the summer of nineteen sixty five and it
Speaker 1: became a cult classic. And she never worked with Russa
Speaker 1: Meyer again. But she was cast in two Ted V.
Speaker 1: Michael's movies, The Astro Zombies in Night and The Doll
Speaker 1: Squad in ninety three. I have not seen those two
Speaker 1: me neither, and I did. I did read an article
Speaker 1: that said, like Fastro Zombies is is like not as
Speaker 1: good as Faster pussy Cats. It's like even more campy
Speaker 1: and stuff. But her character and it is apparently really
Speaker 1: cool um. But another just very just two very b
Speaker 1: movie style stuff, and apparently rest Meyer did regret never
Speaker 1: casting her again. He wished that they had worked together
Speaker 1: because that movie is still being talked about. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: might have wanted her by your side. But look, tourists
Speaker 1: got all this experience. She's been playing these badass killers,
Speaker 1: and she was actually more like Varla than anyone realized
Speaker 1: because she took all that knowledge and experience and then
Speaker 1: she spent fifteen years tracking down each and every one
Speaker 1: of her childhood rapists to exact some sweet revenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into those breaks right after this break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. So yeah, not only did to reform
Speaker 1: her own girl gang as a kid again. They were
Speaker 1: called the Angels, and they were like motorcycle jackets and
Speaker 1: jeans and boots, wandered around trying to beat the ass
Speaker 1: of any dude trying to get fresh um. But she
Speaker 1: was also determined that her own rapists would get some
Speaker 1: form of justice, even if it had to come from
Speaker 1: her own fists. She said it took around fifteen years
Speaker 1: for her to track them all down. And while there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of detail out there, Tura did describe
Speaker 1: some of her punishments to Michael Musto in interview for
Speaker 1: Village Voice. They included taking off pieces of skin with
Speaker 1: her nails, kicking one guy in the face and in
Speaker 1: the crops, and hanging another guy by his genitals so
Speaker 1: he now speaks quote in a very high voice. She
Speaker 1: also said quote they never knew who I was until
Speaker 1: I told them, And I mean, this is the movie
Speaker 1: I want to watch because you could just see her
Speaker 1: like heavy winged eyeliner, big hair, you know, badass leather outfit,
Speaker 1: standing over some piece of ship, being like, remember a
Speaker 1: ten year old girl you raped in your car? Well,
Speaker 1: guess what, bitch, she's me and she's about to rip
Speaker 1: your dick off. Right, you won't find it down there.
Speaker 1: Columbus Wolf, Yeah, do it, go get them. I love it.
Speaker 1: I think that is true. Again. I hope that it's true,
Speaker 1: and I hope she was very sure, exactly right right,
Speaker 1: very good points. But I guess if they went through
Speaker 1: a whole like court situation, she probably has their faces
Speaker 1: pretty clearly in her mind. She might have had a
Speaker 1: couple of connections at the old FBI. Still very true
Speaker 1: or mob connections either way. Connect Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: After the movie the doll Squad wrapped up to her
Speaker 1: decided that she was going to leave show business and
Speaker 1: spend more time with her daughter's Klanni and Jade. She
Speaker 1: got back into nursing, which she had actually intended to
Speaker 1: go into when she was in high school. She got
Speaker 1: a job at a hospital, but she did continue dancing.
Speaker 1: But then an ex boyfriend showed up at her club
Speaker 1: and shot at her twice. He hit her once in
Speaker 1: the stomach. By the time, and no word on which
Speaker 1: ex boyfriend, and we assume it wasn't Elvis No, in fact,
Speaker 1: no mention to his biography. I shot a lady in
Speaker 1: the top bustlerman. I commutely left that part out. By
Speaker 1: the time that tour was out of the hospital, she
Speaker 1: decided to give up dancing as well, and according to
Speaker 1: The Guardian, changes were made to California licensing laws that
Speaker 1: made most nightclub owners decide that everyone would have to
Speaker 1: perform topless. But Toura. She really liked those tassels that
Speaker 1: she wore, so she said, nuts to that, not doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm a burlesque dancer. I don't do all
Speaker 1: that ship. No nips from me, no nips from Sitana.
Speaker 1: She worked as a nurse and later as a police
Speaker 1: dispatch operator for the l A p D. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's how she met her second husband, Endil German, former
Speaker 1: police officer, who she married in Nate Team one. What
Speaker 1: a life like starting out as a dancer at the
Speaker 1: Trocadero and a swimsuit model. You get some time in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: some time with the mob, and then you become a dispatcher.
Speaker 1: It's so weird. I love looking at like one time
Speaker 1: movie stars, you know, people who were like, oh the
Speaker 1: you know, just just one hit wonders, you know, and
Speaker 1: then like they got out of the business, and you're like,
Speaker 1: what are they doing now? Oh they're a vet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh they work at a at the stockyards. Like it
Speaker 1: could be people got to continue having lives. No, very true.
Speaker 1: They're like real estate agent, like Vanilla. Oh yeah, like
Speaker 1: just like Vanilla. And not long after she married Andel German, though,
Speaker 1: Toura was hit by a car um It was going
Speaker 1: sixty miles per hour in per hour zone and the
Speaker 1: driver was unlicensed and it broke her back. Tour spent
Speaker 1: two years in and out of the hospital recovering. She
Speaker 1: required two major operations and around fifteen smaller ones um
Speaker 1: and her doctors warned her that she may never walk again,
Speaker 1: but Tora, of course replied, quote, not only will I
Speaker 1: walk again, Doc, but I'm gonna do everything else I
Speaker 1: used to do Columbus, Columbus, That's right. And aside, you
Speaker 1: know from her impressive martial arts moves, she did keep
Speaker 1: that promise. She couldn't quite you know, do the kicks
Speaker 1: and crazy ship that she used to do. But otherwise
Speaker 1: she she walked and ran around. She did her her
Speaker 1: regular life, so awesome. Nice job to ra She went
Speaker 1: on to work hotel security and Reno Nevada, so she
Speaker 1: must have had an okay back to drag those drunks
Speaker 1: out of the casino sometimes. But honestly, her smartest move
Speaker 1: was to trademark her own name and image, which meant
Speaker 1: anytime russ Meyer reissued Faster Pussycat or altered the poster,
Speaker 1: he had to pay her. Again. Smart Now, at first,
Speaker 1: it's probably didn't matter because the movie was a up
Speaker 1: but it became a cult classic over the years, and
Speaker 1: besides all the ubiquitous T shirts and poster prints, Tura
Speaker 1: also ended up cashing in on a Halloween mask and
Speaker 1: an action figure. Hell yeah, please make me an action figure. Now.
Speaker 1: A lot of opinions about the movie Faster Pussycat have
Speaker 1: changed with time, like this. One feminist film critic be
Speaker 1: Ruby Rich, who coined the term new Queer Cinema, saw
Speaker 1: the movie when it came out and she said she
Speaker 1: was quote absolutely outraged that I had been forced to
Speaker 1: watch this misogynist film that objectified women and that was
Speaker 1: really just short of softcore porn. But then she watched
Speaker 1: it again in the ninety nineties and she quote just
Speaker 1: loved it and ended up doing a whole talk about
Speaker 1: how films get edited by history because the movie was
Speaker 1: one thing in the seventies and then in what she
Speaker 1: called the quote heyday of queer culture in the nineties,
Speaker 1: it met something completely different. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really interesting point, Like sometimes you make a movie and
Speaker 1: it just isn't for its own time, but as time
Speaker 1: goes on, it becomes more and more appreciated, um and
Speaker 1: because culture changes around it. So I found that really
Speaker 1: fascinating or less appreciated. You know, the other flip side
Speaker 1: being you you watch it. You know, there's so many
Speaker 1: movies now that people are like, I can't even like
Speaker 1: two thousands era comedies and stuff. You're like, I can't
Speaker 1: even watch it's so uncomfortable. I laughed my ass off
Speaker 1: at the time. And now it's just like I can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about, you know, things I've heard about how
Speaker 1: people are harmed by this kind of language or this
Speaker 1: or movies like this or whatever. And you're like, well,
Speaker 1: it's okay that I laughed at this then and don't
Speaker 1: want to now, Like that's that's all. Yeah, the context
Speaker 1: of your entire world that you're existing and has changed,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. I saw and Reddit the other day
Speaker 1: people talking about movies that have you know, aged in
Speaker 1: different ways like we're talking about, and somebody was like,
Speaker 1: you know, had brought up Blazing Saddles and they were,
Speaker 1: you know, really hard defending it. A lot of people
Speaker 1: were almost no one was attacking it. Um, but I
Speaker 1: know you and I saw Blazing Saddles for the first
Speaker 1: time fairly recently. I think I had seen it before,
Speaker 1: but but you had not, right, And um, and I
Speaker 1: love mel Brooks. I mean, I like, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, Robin Hoodmen in Tights and Spaceballs were like
Speaker 1: my favorite movies. But I just never got around to
Speaker 1: that one, and while I'm like, yeah, I mean, people defend,
Speaker 1: they're They're like, this was a really brilliant movie, and
Speaker 1: it is. It's it's funny, it's got a lot of
Speaker 1: commentary that's very biting and uh, you know, can work
Speaker 1: really well in some context. And also just for me
Speaker 1: at the time that I saw it, it it was kind
Speaker 1: of hard to watch. And I'm you know, not I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell anybody they're wrong for liking it or
Speaker 1: or or vice versa. It's just also subjective art people,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, it's hard to have a wrong opinion
Speaker 1: about art. Yeah, the point is that you're you get
Speaker 1: to look at it and react to it. Period. You've
Speaker 1: got to let people love things, and you've got to
Speaker 1: let people hate things. You know. I used to who
Speaker 1: I used to get pretty frustra it at when people
Speaker 1: didn't like something that I liked, and really brought up
Speaker 1: myself a lot of peace when I was like, it's
Speaker 1: okay again. You know, in terms of the collective human experience,
Speaker 1: how lame is it if we all liked and dislike
Speaker 1: the same things. I mean, why are we all live
Speaker 1: in the same life here? People? Very true? Very true.
Speaker 1: Although I do love the scene in Blazing Saddles when
Speaker 1: he holds himself hostage and kind of doing both stereotypes
Speaker 1: of black people at the same time, and it was
Speaker 1: It's so clever. And it does help to know that
Speaker 1: Richard Pryor wrote like all of all of that characters
Speaker 1: stuff and everything and not melt brooksitt here like throwing
Speaker 1: the N word around. Um, But but I feel you.
Speaker 1: We did watch him. We were like, hey, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he would just have to do it differently today, that's all. Well,
Speaker 1: he wanted to make the same points, you would have
Speaker 1: to do it differently. And yeah. And that's not to
Speaker 1: say that like it's it shouldn't exist today or it's
Speaker 1: wrong for existing or whatever. It's just like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: would approach I don't even think you would have to
Speaker 1: make a different A lot of people say, like, this
Speaker 1: movie couldn't get made today, and I'm like, it could.
Speaker 1: People just might not respond to it well. Or you
Speaker 1: would find different ways to approach the same subject, you know,
Speaker 1: because we already had Blazing Saddles, So are we not
Speaker 1: building off of that? Right? Why would you make it today?
Speaker 1: You couldn't make it today because Blazing Saddles already exists.
Speaker 1: You can't make something in the vacuum of that movie
Speaker 1: not existing because it does. But no, there's some amazing
Speaker 1: stuff in that movie. It's it's it's clearly brilliant. Oh
Speaker 1: we're so far off subject. Meanwhile, all that to say
Speaker 1: be Ruby Rich changed her mind. Yes, And Meanwhile, John
Speaker 1: Waters loved Faster Pussy Get from the get go. He
Speaker 1: wrote that it was quote beyond a doubt, the best
Speaker 1: movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film
Speaker 1: that will be made in the future, and when he
Speaker 1: watched it years later, he simply stated that it quote
Speaker 1: aged like a fine wine. There was a rumored reboot
Speaker 1: of Faster As You Get, Kill Kill with of course,
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino attached, and he was apparently considering Brittney Spears
Speaker 1: to come play Varla. According to Vice Now, Tourra, when
Speaker 1: asked about this, simply said that if Tarantino ever went
Speaker 1: through with the project, quote, I'd kill him. He'd kill
Speaker 1: my part, so I'd kill him, And I gotta say
Speaker 1: I believe her. I think she would straight up kill Bill.
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino was kidding, but I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: his house and five point Palm Exploding Heart track that guy, Quentin.
Speaker 1: Tarantino was like, oh, that's what he didn't I don't think.
Speaker 1: I do think Britney Spoons is a strange choice. Well,
Speaker 1: he just wanted, you know. I could see where he's like,
Speaker 1: I want someone who's not going to look like a
Speaker 1: natural actress in this part, because that's that's how tour
Speaker 1: uplayed it. So I could see Tarantino being like, I
Speaker 1: want a non actress, you know, a performer. I want
Speaker 1: a performer to play this a stage presence, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily unbelievable, right, I guess it's more the martial arts
Speaker 1: stuff that I'm an outside brit to do necessarily, Like
Speaker 1: why not find a like an m M A fighter
Speaker 1: or something? Sure, you know, I mean she's a dancer,
Speaker 1: so she could probably do some of the moves. That's true.
Speaker 1: She has some acrobatic skills. Maybe she could have pulled
Speaker 1: off the vision Tarantina was looking for. I don't know.
Speaker 1: He didn't, and we're probably better off for it. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, it's probably best we don't know.
Speaker 1: Toura Sitana also became a regular at cult film conventions,
Speaker 1: of course, and even though she had a pacemaker put
Speaker 1: in in two thousand three, she was like tougher than ever.
Speaker 1: In one interview, she talks about being at a convention
Speaker 1: to do a signing and one over enthusiastic fan hid
Speaker 1: in her hotel room afterwards and then like popped out
Speaker 1: to reveal himself. Well, guess what happened to her described
Speaker 1: it quote, he went flying across the room and wound
Speaker 1: up with a broken arm, busted nose, and a badly
Speaker 1: twisted leg. The house detective carried him out. So she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm might have a pacemaker and I might have broke
Speaker 1: my back. So you kick your sucking ass if you
Speaker 1: hide my room. Yeah. So yeah, Tura still kicking ass.
Speaker 1: As the rest Meyer himself once said, quote, Tua was
Speaker 1: extremely capable. She knew how to handle herself. Don't funk
Speaker 1: with her, and if you have to fuck her, do
Speaker 1: it well she might turn on you. Damn Wow, that's
Speaker 1: uh important advice. Like listen, she told Elvis to his face,
Speaker 1: he kissed like a wet fish, So be careful. She's
Speaker 1: got that's my problem, that's my problems, that's my problem.
Speaker 1: In one interview, Stana said, quote, I learned to be
Speaker 1: tough because of what life kept handing me. I could
Speaker 1: either go down for the count or I could get
Speaker 1: up and kick ass. Words to live by Endel German.
Speaker 1: Tora's second husband died in two thousand two. Were never remarried.
Speaker 1: She passed away from heart failure on February fourth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, in Reno, Nevada, leaving behind her two daughters,
Speaker 1: Klanni and Jade, two sisters, Pamela and Kim, and a
Speaker 1: really cool life story. Yeah for real, I mean, just
Speaker 1: a dope legend it is. Again, I mean, obviously there's
Speaker 1: questions about about you know, obviously a lot of this
Speaker 1: came from her interviews. How she described her life, not
Speaker 1: necessarily corroborated by the people she said she was interacting with.
Speaker 1: But it's one of those stories where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't care, Like this is a great story if you
Speaker 1: tell me an amazing story, and then at the end
Speaker 1: you're like and it's true, and we're like, Okay, that
Speaker 1: part wasn't what I was worried about. I just thought
Speaker 1: it was awesome. Right, It's really rad to have a
Speaker 1: life where any of this could have happened, Like, even
Speaker 1: if we don't know for sure, there she has the
Speaker 1: connection she was in the right places at the right times.
Speaker 1: You know, it is possible. And I mean if I
Speaker 1: said I had done any of this, there's no chance.
Speaker 1: So like I slept with I don't know, Ryan Gosling,
Speaker 1: you know, be like, okay, I taught Ryan Gosling had
Speaker 1: a kiss when we all ever and not doesn't quite
Speaker 1: track with the what I do know to be true. Right,
Speaker 1: But she lived a life in which any of this
Speaker 1: could be real. She was she was really cool. I
Speaker 1: liked Torris Sitana. She was. We gotta watch that movie again. Yes,
Speaker 1: I do want to watch it. We did do um
Speaker 1: once upon a time with our theater company, did a
Speaker 1: Restmeyer send up and everybody had to wear these giant
Speaker 1: fake boobs and big hair. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But we I think we watched at least some of it.
Speaker 1: We watched this whole movie. Okay, maybe even another one,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, for research for that, you know, and
Speaker 1: get our acting together and are aesthetics together. I mean,
Speaker 1: our whole group was always very into like John Waters
Speaker 1: and that kind of whole aesthetic, that camp and hyper stylized,
Speaker 1: over the top sort of stuff. It wasn't what I
Speaker 1: came into the group having a background in our friends,
Speaker 1: but like our you know, our friends James and Rob
Speaker 1: and a lot of others who were just like that
Speaker 1: was the stuff they loved and they got us into
Speaker 1: it too. It's it's pretty amazing. You've got to open
Speaker 1: yourself up to it. You've got to kind of change
Speaker 1: your vision of what a movie should look and sound
Speaker 1: and feel, like I think, because I think it's one
Speaker 1: of those things were very early on, not even very
Speaker 1: early on, but like you know, even even in high
Speaker 1: school or college, I could have watched that movie and
Speaker 1: said this is trash. Why would you want to sit
Speaker 1: through this? But you kind of like put that away
Speaker 1: and say, well, wait a minute, this isn't I'm not
Speaker 1: watching you know, Christopher Nolan. Here, I'm I'm engaging in
Speaker 1: a completely different experience, and I shouldn't be comparing them, right,
Speaker 1: and that they're not trying to make that right? So
Speaker 1: did they really fail? You know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: russ Meyer was not trying to make Schindler's List. He
Speaker 1: was trying to make Mr Pussycat and he succeeded, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the difference between riding on a luxury
Speaker 1: jet and a Carnival Ride. You know, like you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to compare them, right, exactly if you enjoy them
Speaker 1: like Air Force one vomit over the you enjoy them
Speaker 1: very different wys for very different reasons. Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So I have to recommend seeing Faster Pussycat out there.
Speaker 1: If anyone wants to check it out, you should, because
Speaker 1: it is definitely a snapshot of cinema history. Also, it's
Speaker 1: like a sixties B movie. There's nothing like them, But
Speaker 1: there's just nothing like a sixties B movie or any
Speaker 1: any type of exploitation felt like blaxploitation, sexploitation. They're also
Speaker 1: interesting and have their place. Yeah, and I think also
Speaker 1: give you a different kind of appreciation for things like
Speaker 1: Tarantino and John Waters and stuff like that, kind of
Speaker 1: seeing what was inspiring them to do things the way
Speaker 1: they do them, which is very different. Um. And I
Speaker 1: mean I'm even hit or missed with Tarantino a lot
Speaker 1: of times. I can't stand him as a person, but
Speaker 1: um but I've watched his movies differently after I saw
Speaker 1: some of the sort of source material movies that he
Speaker 1: relied on. Yeah, well, we hope you enjoyed this story.
Speaker 1: As much as we did. It was so fun to
Speaker 1: kind of go to the seventies and and get out
Speaker 1: of the literary world. No more Western European authors this week,
Speaker 1: not this week. But yeah, we hope you enjoyed her
Speaker 1: as much as we did. Um. As always, we love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Reach out, let us know what
Speaker 1: you thought of this episode or what parties through history
Speaker 1: you would love to attend. All right, Email addresses radic
Speaker 1: Romance at gmail dot com. That's right. You can find
Speaker 1: us also on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at O Grade,
Speaker 1: It's Eli, I'm at Dianamite Boom, and the show is
Speaker 1: at ridic Romance. That's right, And thanks so much for
Speaker 1: spending your time with us. We love hanging out with
Speaker 1: y'all and we will see you next time. All right,
Speaker 1: So long friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening
Speaker 1: to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncle s indance
Speaker 1: to listen to a show Ridiculous roll Dance