RIP: Dame Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011

More sad news to report.  Mythic Hollywood actress, Elizabeth Taylor passed away last night at the age of 79.  Her health had been failing for quite sometime now due to congestive heart failure.  

As previously mentioned she was a legend of the highest order in Hollywood appearing in films since the age of nine.  She appeared in seventy films and television roles during a career that spanned seven decades,  winning two Oscars for best actress (for 1960's BUtterfield 8 and 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf).  In spite of her prolific career, Dame Elizabeth became known for her erratic love life which saw her marry seven different men, her most famous and passionate union being her affair and two marriages to celebrated Welsh actor Richard Burton.  In her twilight years she spent most of her time championing several for humanitarian causes, most notably HIV/AIDS related charities.

I don't want to say too much more about Dame Elizabeth at this point, because I would like to give her the full Bombshell for the Ages treatment sometime in the near future.  Her death is particularly shocking, because of her history of cheating death throughout her long life.  Looks like the lives of Maggie the cat have finally run out.  Rest in Peace Ms. Taylor, your beauty, talent, and generosity of spirit were truly inspiring.  

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RIP: Jane Russell 1921 - 2011

Yet another sad passing to report.  Famed actress and classic Hollywood sex symbol. Jane Russel passed away on February 28 at the age of 89. 

Russell first rose to fame as the star of Howard Hughes' western The Outlaw (1943), in which the films entire marketing campaign revolved around Ms. Russell's ample cleavage.  If you've ever seen Martin Scorcese's The Aviator (2004), you're probably familiar with the scene in which Howard Hughes defends featuring Russell's breast so gratuitously in The Outlaw, at a moral decency hearing when it was believed that her assets violated the Hayes code. In spite of her controversial introduction to the world she went on to a successful film career, highlighted by staring roles opposite Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra.  Her most iconic role was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1952), starring opposite Marilyn Monroe. 

Although Hollywood cast her as the sultry sexpot, in real life Jane Russell was a devout Christian.  As her film career declined she went on to headline various nightclub and musical acts.  She also became a Playtex bra spokeswoman during the seventies.  She married three times, staying happily married to her third husband until his death in 1999.  She was very active in the Christan community and was also passionate about helping orphaned children find homes, fonding the World Adoption International Fund in 1955.

RIP : Tura Satana 1938 - 2011

Sad news. The star of the Russ Meyer exploitation classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Tura Satana passed away on February 4 from heart failure in Reno Nevada.  Those unfamiliar with the film, have probably seen the iconic image of the amazonian Satana wrestling a man to the ground in the famous shot below.  Playing Varla, the homicidal leader of a trio of violent go-go girls who rome the desert wrestling men to death and trying to rob a wealthy old man, Satana is forever immortalized in the annals of popular culture for her role in Meyer's 1965 cult classic.

Satana was the Japanese born daughter of a silent actor of Japanese and Filipino decent and a circus performer of Cheyenne and Scots-Irish decent, contributing to her exotic appearance.  Her childhood growing up in Chicago was very difficult.  At the age of nine she was gang raped and the perpetrators apparently walked free due to a crocked judge.  After her attack young Tura started learning judo and aikido to protect herself.  She also claimed that she used her martial art skills to enact her own form a revenge on her attackers.  While spending her early teen years in reform school and joining a biker gang, Tura married at the age of thirteen (arranged by her parents and the parents of the 17 year-old she married).  At the same age of thirteen she went to Los Angeles where she became a failed Blues singer and a secretly under aged bathing suit and sometimes nude model (she modelled for silent film star Harold Lloyd who suggested that she become a film actress).

Setana eventually moved back to Chicago where she became a very successful burlesque dancer.  She began touring with some of the biggest names in the burlesque world.  She began getting bit parts in various television shows and movies and was cast in Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! i 1965.  While Meyer is quoted as saying that she was the main reason that the film the cult success that it has become, he never cast the buxom Satana in another one of his films.   Her performing career had winded down by the mid-seventies and she ended up working in a couple of public service jobs until she married a police officer in 1981.  In the years leading up to her death she had become a popular fixture at various comic and fan conventions.

Interestingly, Satana was a former girlfriend of Elvis Presley who proposed to her during their courtship.  While she said no to the king she kept the ring he gave her.   Tura Satana knew how to kick some ass.