HAJI CAT

Very little is known for sure about the mysterious Haji, also occasionally credited as "Haji Cat" and "Haji Catton", we don't even know the story of how she got her famous moniker (when questioned, Haji says that story is a long one). One thing that is known for sure however, is that the notorious sexploitation king Russ Meyer thought enough of her to cast her in several of his films, --a noteworthy accolade from a director known for usually only working with an actress once or twice, and then never calling her again. How Haji got started in show business appears to be another one of her mysteries but she did spend some time working as an exotic dancer at a club called The Losers on La Cienega Boulevard in LA. While she was workin' it as a go-go dancer, she met Tura Satana, who Haji later introduced to Russ Meyer. The two would co-star in what is one, if not the most famous and acclaimed of all his films, 1965's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.

Before portraying the eclectically accented third of the hell-raising hell-cat gang, Haji starred in Motorpsycho! (1965), the third of Meyer's black and white gothic melodramas. Though the plot revolves around Corey, an ineffectual veterinarian attempting to avenge the rape of his wife, Haji's Ruby Bonner is easily the most compelling character in the narrative. A newly remarried Cajun widow, she falls out with her current schlub of a husband on the road, and decides to team up with our "hero" to seek vengeance on the gang-raping bikers that killed her previous husband. From the moment she appears, Ruby becomes the hardest driving force in the film. It is Ruby who sucks the poison out of Corey, it is Ruby who watches over Corey as he rests and recovers from the poisonous snake bite, and it is Ruby who defends herself and Corey from one of the bikers with a classic mantis move.

After Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Haji continued to work with Meyer, appearing in Good Morning...and Goodbye! (1967), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), and Supervixens (1975). She often wrote her own dialog for her parts in Meyer's films, and contributed psychedelic elements, like body painting, adding extra atmosphere to his rural sex-romps.

More than just a staple of the Russ Meyer stable, Haji appeared in John Cassavetes's crime-drama The Killing of Chinese Bookie (1976). She had a supporting role in the outrageous "women-in-prison" sexploitation film Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) as a spy disguised as a dancing girl, and also made an appearance in the musical '70s soft-core take on Don Quixote, When Sex Was a Knightly Affair (1976).

Born in Quebec, Canada, Haji now lives in Malibu, California. Though more or less retired from acting these days, she still gives the occasional interview, and has contributed to several "making-of" documentaries over the last decade including Go, Pussycat, Go! (2005) a short documentary on the making of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. A long-time supporter of environmentalism, Haji has maintained a keen interest in nature and the outdoors throughout her life, reportedly starting her mornings by body-surfing in the buff at 6am.

From the Burlesque circuit to the Cult Cinema circuit, Haji's been there and back. However, she's given several interviews over the years and never sounds cynical. Instead she reveals herself to be smart and savvy, if perhaps a bit spacey. Whether she's living the glamorous life as an entertainer on La Cinega, or the quiet life near the coast, thinking about all the little creatures in the ocean, Haji remains one of the most mysterious and fascinating figures of exploitation cinema.

Further Reading:

Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film; Jimmy McDonough,(2006)
Invasion of the B-Girls; Jewel Shepard, (1992)
Motorpsycho clip

JOANNA LUMLEY

The absolutely foxy Joanna Lumley had her first forays in front of the camera as a swinging sixties model, but it wasn't too long before she moved from the still image to the motion picture in 1969. She's played roles ranging from Bond Girl, to action icon, to a Van Helsing, to science fiction elemental being, to the infamous Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone, and her career shows little sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Before becoming a television star in the late 1970s, Joanna Lumley appeared in several fantasy, science fiction and horror films. After playing The English Girl in On Her Majesy's Secret Service (1969), Lumley appeared in a fantasy-horror feature based on the Scottish folk tale of Tam Lin. Released originally as The Ballad of Tam Lin (1970), this film is also known as The Devil's Widow, The Devil's Woman and Games and Toys. Starring Ava Gardner, Tam Lin retells the famous legend with a group of young and beautiful jet-setters under the power of Gardner's Black Magic Woman. Lumley only puts in so much screen time as one of the PYTs frolicking on the huge country estate but she is just as immediately striking and instantly recognizable as she is in any of her starring roles. A couple of years later, Lumley appeared as Jessica Van Helsing in what would be the eighth Dracula feature for Hammer studios, and the final starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, a film called The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973). While this film is largely considered to be the worst of the Hammer Dracula series, her turn as a scream-queen was well received. Interestingly enough, in this film Lumley was replacing Stephanie Beacham, co-star of the aforementioned Tam Lin, who had played Jessica Van Helsing in Hammer's previous Dracula picture Dracula AD 1972 (1972), this film is largely considered to be the second worst Dracula film in the Hammer catalog.

Though the comely Miss Lumley may now be best known for her comedic talents as Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, she was an action heroine first. Just like fellow foxy ladies Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman, Joanna Lumley has been both a Bond Girl and an Avenger. From 1976 - 1977 she thrilled ITV audiences as the sharp-shooting secret agent Purdy. Credited with helping to name the character, Lumley high-kicked her way to becoming a television icon that combined a cool charm with an athletic sex appeal. Later that decade she starred in the cult science fiction series, Sapphire and Steel. Though made on a tight budget, the series made good use of staging and special effects. With its tense, sometimes slow pacing and eerie atmosphere, Sapphire and Steel often combined science fiction with the supernatural, adding an extra element of mystery to this striking and strange series. Curiously enough, despite the immense popularity of other similar science-fiction fantasies such as Dr Who, Sapphire and Steel has never been re-broadcast on terrestrial television.

Even after solidfying her image as a comedy star in the mid-nineties with Ab Fab, Joanna Lumley never abandoned the Horror and Fantasy genres. In 1997 she appeared as Morgan Le Fay in Prince Valiant, an incarnation of the Arthurian legend that starred Stephen Moyer. That same year she co-starred alongside Ben Kingsley as Mrs. Lovett in a television movie version of Sweeney Todd. Lumley has also done quite a bit of voice work, lending that gorgeous cut-glass voice to Tim Burton's 2005 animated feature The Corpse Bride, recording audio books including several of the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, and to informing users of AOL's UK service that they've got mail.

These days Lumley is likely just as well known for her activism and charity work as her acting roles. In 2008, she became the public face for the Gurkha Justice Campaign, advocating for the right of all Gurkha soldiers who had served in the British Army to be granted the same right of abode as their commonwealth counterparts. Impressed with her passionate campaigning, some called for her to run Parliament, but she dismissed the suggestion stating that she had no desire to run for election.

Despite becoming a household name as a comedy star and a celebrated charity organizer, Joanna Lumley has never tried to distance herself from her genre work. In her interviews and appearances she's just as proud of her roles as a Bond Girl and as the action icon Purdy, as she is of her acclaimed performance in the monolog series Up in Town. With several books, dozens of television and film roles and countless media appearances to her credit, this silver fox is not stopping anytime soon. Having just finished a turn on the stage as the iconic Eleanor of Aquatine in The Lion in Winter at the Theater Royal Haymarket, she's scheduled to reprise her most famous role as Patsy in a special episode of Absolutely Fabulous later this year.

-Trailer for The Satanic Rites of Dracula
-Brief documentary on Sapphire and Steel
-Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt promoting the 1994 video release of The New Avengers

The point is of no return

Tally Roses's Foxy Ladies would like to take a moment to remember the great, and sadly since Friday, late Tura Satana. The NY Times reports that her death was announced by her manager Siouxzan Perry and that Ms. Perry believes the cause of death to have been heart failure.

Thank you Tura, for being Varla, for doing your own stunts and fight scenes, for the other films you leave behind, for being a major -if not the major inspiration for this blog, and for never apologizing for being a girl.

Join us this month, as we re-watch, review and remember the films that were graced by Ms. Satana!

Rest in peace, Tura. No one will ever fill those black boots!

MIMSY FARMER

Mimsy Farmer, an actress who's probably best remembered claim to fame was playing a bunch of party-chicks in '60s biker flicks, got her start, acting in television sitcoms [My Three Sons (1962) and The Donna Reed Show (1962 & 1963) and family-fare (Spencer's Mountain (1963)]. Born in Chicago in 1945, Farmer has had quite a career; she stepped in front of the camera in the early 1960s and stayed there until the end of the 1980s. Though she's mostly retired from acting, Mimsy Farmer is still quite active in this business we call show.

Farmer's most well known well role was playing Andy in 1967's Riot on the Sunset Strip. Released by American International Pictures [the very same AIP that gave us The Wild Angels (1966) starring Peter Fonda, as well as the string of "Beach Party" movies that stared Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello] as an exploitation film that captured "the scene", "the moment", and "the happenings" of the day (see also: Mondo Mod/1966, and The Hippie Revolt/1967). Farmer's Andy is one of those proto-typical-timid-teens-turned-wrong, with her part of the story involving an alcoholic mother, an estranged cop father, a drugged soft-drink followed by a bizarre acid-trip dance. While the story never really ventures out of your typical teens-running-amok exploitation tropes, there's some great appearances by the Chocolate Watchband, and Miss Farmer works some fierce hair and hot threads during her little dance-freak-out scene.



That same year, Farmer starred as another troubled teen, Gloria, in Hot Rods to Hell. This time Farmer's blond-bombshell party girl already knows she's gone with the wrong crowd and finds herself yearning for more than just the "kicks" she gets when cruising around the desert with her boyfriend Duke. Her third role in 1967 was starring yet again in a youth-culture oriented exploitation feature Devil's Angels, produced at AIP by two of the biggest names in exploitation: Roger Corman and Samuel Z. Arkoff. In 1968, Mimsy Farmer starred in what would be her last role for AIP, as Katherine Pearson in The Wild Racers.

In addition to being remembered for playing a string of blond-bombshell party-girls in the last few years of the '60s, Farmer is also known for taking acid, moving to Italy and appearing in a bunch of arty-European films. While some of these were pretty obscure, vaguely artistic exploitation efforts like Road to Salina (1970) (for which she won a David di Donatello Award), and Body of Love (1972), her resume includes a starring role in More (1969), an Italian art film scored entirely by Pink Floyd. In 1971 Farmer's background in Exploitation and European Art-house met in the middle, when she stared in Dario Argento's Four Flies on Gray Velvet. She also starred in The Black Cat (Gatto Nero) (1981), directed by Fulci, Il Profumo Della Signora in Nero (1974) directed by Francesco Barilli, as well as Autopsy (1975) directed by Armando Crispino. Later roles were regulated to mostly appearances and include: Il quartetto Basileus (1983), the tv mini-series Arabesque (1983), action-flick Code Name: Wild Geese (1984) and the ten minute short Her Fragrant Emulsion (1987).

While Farmer is mostly retired from acting and no longer making movies, she now makes things for the movies. Several years ago Mimsy Farmer started working as a set sculptor and now her art department credits include: Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Marie Antoinette (2006), and The Golden Compass (2007).

Farmer is still keeping busy, working on set sculptures for the fourth film in the POTC franchise, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides (coming 2011). She also paints and according to IMDB.com, is the mother of Italian actress Aisha Cerami.

For more on Mimsy Farmer check out:

-The trailers for Hot Rods to Hell, Devil's Angels, and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (lo-fi).
-A rather nicely written article at Coffee coffee and More Coffee that further details her work after moving to Europe.
- Moon In The Gutter's detailed tribute to Mimsy Farmer in Four Flies on Grey Velvet, featuring some quotes from Farmer herself, in addition to a link to an earlier tribute to her entire career.

NICHELLE NICHOLS

Born Grace Nichols on December 28th near Chicago in the early 1930s, Nichelle Nichols was an accomplished singer and dancer on the stage long before she became a television icon as Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura. Touring early on in her career with such illustrious names in entertainment like Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, Nichols' resume also included roles in several big-city musical productions by the time she reached the bridge on the Enterprise.



Before Star Trek, her television acting experiences were largely confined to guest roles on series such as Peyton Place and Tarzan. However, one television role can often lead to another. In 1963 Nichelle Nichols had a part in a series called The Lieutenant. It was working on this project that she met Gene Roddenberry, who, three years later would cast Nichols in the best remembered role of her career: Lieutenant Nyota Uhura.

While by today's standards, Uhura may not look like much more than a telephone operator or office manager in space, the role was considered quite groundbreaking at the time. As the head communications officer, Uhura was just as educated and similarly accomplished as the rest of the crew on the bridge. Like them, she was an officer and many times in the series she demonstrated that she was a highly qualified, capable if under-utilized member of the USS Enterprise's crew. Despite her lines often getting cut to little more than "Hailing frequencies open" or "Incoming transmission", Nichols was always a professional, and always committed to her character. Co-star Leonard Nimoy in his book I Am Spock noted: "... Though she was often not given many lines... she nevertheless was totally present and made an emotional investment in whatever was happening in the scene".

Despite often being regulated to such a minor role in most episodes, she was given a few moments in the sun. The most famous being: first, in The Trouble with Tribbles, as the crew member to bring the furry critters aboard the Enterprise and second, as being one-half of the first interracial-kiss in a scripted television series in Plato's Stepchildren. While NBC execs initially feared controversy, the reception to her on-screen kiss with William Shatner was overwhelmingly positive.

After TOS wrapped in 1969, Nichols experienced the frustrations of being thought of as Uhura first and Nichelle second. Still, despite her understandable grievance with this type-casting, she never deserted the franchise or her fans and continued to appear regularly at Star Trek conventions over past several the years. Nichelle has also attended many NASA events and helped the organization to recruit women and minorities for the space program. According to Great Images in NASA (GRIN), some of her recruits include Sally Ride, and Guion Bluford.

Though Star Trek and outer space activity remain a part of her life, Nichols has been involved with a wide variety of projects over the past four decades. In 1974, she appeared in Truck Turner as the successful, fierce and foul-mouthed Madam, Dorinda. Dorinda may not be the most progressive role ever written for a Black woman, but the intensity and commitment with which she plays the character that is the very antithesis of the distinguished space officer she for which she is known is impressive. It would have been easy to reject the role entirely as another unflattering exploitation stereotype, but Nichols plays Gator's wicked woman with such a fire and flair that you don't question her decision to have accepted it.

More recently, Nichelle Nichols has done some voice work for several animated series. In addition to having recurring roles on Gargoyles and Spider Man, she also guest starred twice on highly acclaimed prime-time series, Futurama. Voicing herself on both occasions, she and most of the rest of the core cast of Star Trek: TOS appear in a full episode with Fry, Leela, and Bender for an adventure in outwitting the Trek-obsessed energy being Melllvar. This episode threw a shout-out to her and Shatner's historic on-screen kiss with the following dialog:

Nimoy: Hey! We've done heroic things too.

Nichols: Yeah! In the third season I kissed Shatner!

Other current activity includes: a recurring role the TV series Heroes in 2007, starring in and producing 2008's Lady Magdalene's and roasting William Shatner on Comedy Central (2006).

Suggestions for additional viewing and further reading:

Lady Magdalene's Offical Site, complete with trailer, photo gallery and videos.
A collection of some of Nichols' scenes from Truck Turner.
Nichelle Nichols at IMDB.com
GRIN's profile on Nichols further detailing her work with the space program.
Nichols, Nichelle (1995). Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. New York: Boulevard Books.

LORNA MAITLAND:

Jimmy McDonough once described the notorious, yet mysterious Lorna Maitland as being, "a trashy melon-breasted blonde, one who'd look good in the back of the a pickup in a torn dress"; one page later he described her as having "a terminally unimpressed scowl that seemed to suggest your balls were not long for this world". Given such a description, it's little wonder that Russ-"King Leer"-Meyer cast this corn-fed foxy lady in the first of his black and white Gothic films, 1964's Lorna.

Born Barbara Popejoy on 19 November, 1943 in Glendale California, she wasn't christened "Lorna Maitland" until twenty years later by her discoverer. According to some biographers, Maitland grew up in Norman Oklahoma, but by the time she answered the cattle-call for Meyer, Lorna was working as a dancer in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. Despite thousands of hits on Google for her name, few other biographical details are known. Several sources have mentioned but fail to cover Maitland's romantic involvement with Ben "Dino" Rocco, musician and one time member of an early incarnation of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, known then as Psyrcle. Reports conflict as to whether Maitland and Rocco were actually married or just "practically married", but Rocco himself stated at least once that the two spent seventeen years together.

After starring in the then ground-breakingly visceral Lorna, the twenty year-old Maitland went on to a major role in Meyer's next film Mudhoney (1965). Another black and white Southern-Gothic "roughie", Mudhoney is a Meyer classic being critically acclaimed while featuring topless, buxom blondes. Following her two major roles for Meyer, Lorna Maitland had appearances in Mondo Topless (1966), Hip, Hot and 21 (1967) and Hot Thrills and Warm Chills (1967). Given the extensive coverage she received in Fling magazine in 1967, it must have seemed that her career was poised to take off. Once rivaling the prolific and by then, already established Angie Dickinson for the same contract, it seems all stranger that Lorna Maitland's current whereabouts are completely unknown.

Though her career as a sexploitation star was brief and she never achieved mainstream acting success, Lorna certainly made her mark on 60s-cult-culture. Before finally sliding off into the unknown, Maitland used some of the money she earned during the 60s to fund the Autumn Records subsidiary Lorna Records. The label recorded "Baby Don't Do That" for the aforementioned Psyrcle. While she may be remembered by most for her bodacious bust-line, Maitland left another legacy: eternally disturbing auteur and weirdo, Russ Meyer.

Described as "intimidating" and known for sometimes terrorizing his casts during filming, Meyer couldn't have been a character that was easily shaken. Yet, over twenty years after working with her, Meyer was still telling interviewers "Lorna did a number on my head". Convinced that "she hated (his) guts", Meyer rarely had anything nice to say about his two-time leading lady. In a 1980 interview he mused to the UCLA Daily Bruin that "her tits must be down to her knees by now".

What accounts for such ire for so long? Some might chalk it up to the King of the Nudies being something of a grudge holder who was easily crossed. Others hint that perhaps Meyer unconsciously found Maitland a bit intimidating; standing at 5'9, she was one of the few truly Amazonian of his stacked-starlets. Perhaps his film's tagline was spot on and Lorna really was "too much for one man!", too much for even one Russ Meyer.

Want more Maitland?

Video and Images:

- Clip from Lorna (NSFW)
- Trailer for Mudhoney (NSFW)
- Lorna Maitland Tribute site, featuring several black and white photos (NSFW)

Further Reading:

-Throughly researched, and fast-paced read Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film; Jimmy McDonough,(2006)
-The incredibly detailed Russ Meyer-The Life and Films: ; David K. Frasier, (1990)
-The two-part article in contemporary lad-mag Fling, vol. 10 no.1/2 3-5/67, author is uncredited but it may have been Arv Miller