Quentin Tarantino would give five years of his life to collaborate with this late legend. John Waters thinks one of her films is the among the greatest features of all time. Of course, both auteurs are speaking about the one and only Tura Satana.

Late actress Satana’s history is one for the record books: An Asian American trailblazer onscreen, Satana got her start in burlesque (she went by the stage name “Miss Japan Beautiful” as a teenager) and went on to lead the iconic 1965 classic “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,” which solidified her status as a karate master in action films.

While Satana’s life had all the glitz imaginable (she infamously dated both Elvis and Rod Taylor), her traumatic childhood in part led to her acting career. At age nine, Satana was kidnapped, assaulted, and left for dead in a race-driven hate crime post-Pearl Harbor in 1948. She vowed to take revenge on her attackers, and did by way of her success.