If you want only one reason to watch Mesa of Lost Women, well it’s really simple: the silent presence of gorgeous actress Tandra Quinn as a Spider Woman does it for me! This movie is so bad that it becomes actually enjoyable and the music will drive you up the walls. It concerns a mad scientist trying to create a race of powerful beings having the characteristics of both human and insect. Tandra plays Tarantella who favors us with a sexy dance in a nightclub, the highlight of the whole show.

Born on March 27, 1931 as Derline Jeanette Smith, she was considered at age two to be the “Perfect Baby of America” at a Los Angeles show. Things were already looking up! As a youngster, she studied drama and dancing and actually lost the lead part in National Velvet to an equally young Elizabeth Taylor, around 1944 or so. 20th Century-Fox eventually signed her to a seven-year contract, but changed opinion rapidly, apparently ill at ease with her facial features after learning that Tandra had suffered a burning accident as a toddler (hum… what?). She still made her movie debut in Week-End at the Waldorf as a schoolgirl in 1945.

In 1953, the remaining four movies in her filmography were released. The aforementioned Mesa of Lost Women, filmed a couple of years earlier, is her main claim to fame. Hungarian director Herbert Tevos began the project, casting Tandra and wanting to become her mentor, but the production encountered many difficulties and was finished a couple of years later by Ron Ormond. You haven’t live a productive life without at least seen this project once.

Tandra also appeared in The Neanderthal Man as a mute housekeeper, and also in Problem Girls and Girls of the Night. She also claimed to have stood up to big shot Howard Hughes at some point.

In 1954, she married a guy not at all connected to show business, which resulted in two children and prioritizing family life. Tandra Quinn still resides in Denton, Texas, now a widow. It’s all in her honor that she’ll always be remembered for that lousy movie, and that is why that unique kind of performers become immortal.