Born on this day: sensationally beautiful burlesque dancer turned Russ Meyer glamazon Haji (24 January 1946 - 9 August 2013). Haji graced five of Meyer’s sexploitation masterpieces (starting with Motorpsycho in 1965) and enlivened them all with her exotic, sultry presence (she is awe-inspiring in Good Morning and … Goodbye! (1967) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) - but she will forever be remembered as the vicious Latina go-go dancer Rosie in one of my all-time favourite films, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). She gives a towering performance as the sexy lesbian girlfriend of tough-as-nails villainess Varla (Tura Satana), sometimes literally spitting with rage, picking her teeth with a switchblade, and employing a thick comedic Spanglish accent. (Haji and Satana had already known each other for years, having danced together in Los Angeles strip clubs since the early 1960s). One of Haji’s best moments is when the drippy good girl Linda misguidedly offers the trio of homicidal go-go dancers a soft drink, and Rosie snarls, "Honey, we don't like nothin' soft! Everything we touch is hard!" Details of Haji’s early life are misty: of British-Filipino descent, she appears to have been born Cerlet Catton (or Barbarella Catton, depending on your source) in Quebec, Canada and began dancing at age 14. Haji’s niche in the glamour jungle is certainly secure.