Turner (1921-1995) has a fair claim as the first modern celebrity film star, and her private life was every bit as turbulent and colourful as the plot lines in her most outrageous on-screen melodramas. In the suit, Stompanato's son alleged that Turner had been responsible for his death, and that her daughter had taken the blame. Funny, Success, Hilarious. [183] Released in December 1957, Peyton Place was a major blockbuster success, which worked in Turner's favor as she had agreed to take a percentage of the film's overall earnings instead of a salary. Hollywood actress Lana Turner in a dress with bodice top and transparent sleeves. Turner on her representation in press[305], When Turner was discovered, MGM executive Mervyn LeRoy envisioned her as a replacement for the recently deceased Jean Harlow and began developing her image as a sex symbol. [55] Instead, she was assigned opposite teen idol Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in the Andy Hardy film Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). [104] She gave birth to a daughter, Cheryl, on July 25, 1943. In 1982, she accepted a much-publicized and lucrative recurring guest role in the television series Falcon Crest, which afforded the series notably high ratings. [339], Turner has been depicted and referenced in numerous works across literature, film, music and art. Lana Turner Associate | License# 526618 Languages. The project was shelved for several months, and Turner told journalists in December 1949: "Everybody agrees that the script is still a pile of junk. [311] The likeness was most evident in Peyton Place and Imitation of Life, both films in which Turner portrayed single mothers struggling to maintain relationships with their teenage daughters. Organized Crime and Hollywood Scandal Figure. [238] Turner moved in with him on his ranch in Chino, California, where the two took care of horses and other animals. $525.00 + $10.00 shipping + $10.00 shipping + $10.00 shipping. In a role that allows her the gamut from tomboy to the pangs of childbirth and from being another man's woman to remorseful wife, she seldom fails to acquit herself creditably. [300][301], Cheryl and her partner Joyce LeRoy, whom Turner said she accepted "as a second daughter",[302] inherited some of Turner's personal effects and $50,000 in Turner's will. Turner, however, proved that she was more than just a pretty face with noir films like "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Johnny Eager" (per TCM). [91] In June 1942, she embarked on a 10-week war-bond tour throughout the western United States with Gable. [154] The following year, she began filming her second musical, The Merry Widow. [191] Turner was "thoroughly intrigued" and began casually dating him. [252] One critic deemed Turner's acting in the film "strained and amateurish", and declared it "one of her poorest performances". Per the official city of Wallace website, the Turner home in Wallace was located at 217 Bank Street, immediately west of downtown Wallace. [212][213] Cheryl remained a temporary ward of the court until April 24, when a juvenile court hearing was held, during which the judge expressed concerns over her receiving "proper parental supervision". Lana was the daughter of Mildred Frances and Virgil Madison Turner. The detectives advised Stompanato to leave and escorted him out of the house and to the airport, where he boarded a plane back to the U.S.[203], On the evening of March 26, 1958, Turner attended the Academy Awards to observe her nomination for Peyton Place and present the award for Best Supporting Actor. On April 4, 1958, she was home with her 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl. She wore them often, and she wore them well. She played featured roles, often as the Ingenue in such films as "Love finds Andy Hardy . Add to Favorites Previous page Current page . [33] She stated that she had "never seen myself walking before [It was] the first time [I was] conscious of my body. [326] Turner maintained her glamorous image into her late career; a 1966 film review characterized her as "the glitter and glamour of Hollywood". [260] Despite ABC's extensive publicity campaign and the presence of other big-name stars, the program fared badly, and it was canceled halfway into the season after a 15-week run in 1970. She is the only child of actress Lana Turner.Her father was Turner's second husband, actor-turned-restaurateur Steve Crane.She was the subject of significant media attention in 1958 when, at fourteen years old, she stabbed to death her mother's lover, Johnny Stompanato, during a . [327] She has also been cited by scholars as a gay icon because of her glamorous persona and triumphs over personal struggles. At 16, she was signed to a personal contract by Warner Bros. director Mervyn LeRoy, who took her with him when he transferred to MGM in 1938. A Beverly Hills mansion built on the site of a former home of actress Lana Turner and big bandleader Artie Shaw has found a buyer. She Was Poor. [336] Jeanine Basinger has similarly championed Turner's acting, writing of her performance in The Bad and the Beautiful: "None of the sex symbols who have been touted as actressesnot Hayworth or Gardner or Taylor or Monroehave ever given such a fine performance. [54] The same year, she was loaned to United Artists for a minor role as a maid in The Adventures of Marco Polo. [224][307] However, her image in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice marked a departure from her strictly-sex symbol screen persona to that of a full-fledged femme fatale. [347], This article is about the actress. [344][345] In 2002, artist Eloy Torrez included Turner in an outdoor mural, Portrait of Hollywood, painted on the auditorium of Hollywood High School, her alma mater. Turner spent most of the 1970s in semi-retirement, making her final film appearance in 1980. [65][66] Though they had only briefly known each other, Turner recalled being "stirred by his eloquence", and after their first date the two spontaneously decided to get married. MARRIED EIGHT TIMES. The captain of the yacht has long claimed that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death. A successful woman is one who can find such a man. But it was just what I wanted to do. She had English, and some Irish and Scottish, ancestry. [155] The Merry Widow proved more commercially successful than Turner's previous musical, Mr. Imperium, despite receiving unfavorable critical reviews. Some sources claim Turner's birth name to be Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner. Her person became her persona. [316] Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen took note of the intersections between Turner's life and screen persona early in her career, writing in 1946: Lana Turner is a super-star for many reasons but chiefly because she is the same off-screen as she is on. Her hands were trembling so she could barely read the script. [97] She later claimed Topping's drinking problem and excessive gambling as her impetus for the divorce. [196], In September 1957, Stompanato visited Turner in London, where she was filming Another Time, Another Place, co-starring Sean Connery. Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Turner[6][7][b] on February 8, 1921,[c] at Providence Hospital[13] in Wallace, Idaho, a small mining community in the Idaho Panhandle region. Lana was a Realtor prior for 6 years. EstateSales.org is a leading website for advertising estate sales & hosting online estate auctions in the United States, with over 1,000,000 registered members and estate sales from over 4,000 estate sale companies and auctioneers. [101] Though she wanted multiple children, Turner had Rh-negative blood, which caused fetal anemia and made it difficult to carry a child to term. [237], In November 1960, Turner married her fifth husband, Frederick "Fred" May, a rancher and member of the May department-store family whom she had met at a beach party in Malibu shortly after filming Imitation of Life. [132] She was the studio's first choice for the role, but it was reluctant to offer her the part, considering her overbooked schedule. [47] The film earned her the nickname of the "Sweater Girl" for her form-fitting attire, which accentuated her bust. [288] In September, Turner released an autobiography entitled Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth. She enjoyed her greatest popularity in the . [258], With few film offers coming in, Turner signed on to appear in the television series Harold Robbins' The Survivors. [181] Weeks after her divorce, Turner began filming 20th Century-Fox's Peyton Place, in which she had been cast in the lead role of Constance MacKenzie, a New England mother struggling to maintain a relationship with her teenage daughter. The growth of maturity is reflected neatly in her distinguished portrayal. [99][100] Their marriage was annulled by Turner four months later upon discovering that Crane's previous divorce had not yet been finalized. [42][48] Turner always detested the nickname,[49] and upon seeing a sneak preview of the film, she recalled being profoundly embarrassed and "squirming lower and lower" into her seat. VintageousClassic. Portrait of actor Lana Turner posing on a silk sheet with large cushions in a sleeveless v-neck jumpsuit and a short-sleeved silk robe. Lana herself said in her autobiography that she was one year younger (1921) than the records showed, but then this was a time where women, especially actresses, tended to "fib" a bit about . [268] Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times wrote that the film served "as a reminder that Miss Turner was never one of our subtler actresses". [77], Following the success of Ziegfeld Girl, Turner took a supporting role as an ingnue in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), a Freudian-influenced horror film, opposite Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman. Lana Turner's autobiography is quite a juicy read, and for anyone interested in the old Hollywood days, it's irresistible. Turner played women who wanted things: money, status, a successful man. Lana Turner spoke these words as aspiring actress Lora Meredith in Imitation of Life (1959), but they could have been uttered by almost any of her characters over her 4 decades in Hollywood. But it gets worse. [223], Released in the spring of 1959, Imitation of Life was among the year's biggest successes, and the biggest of Turner's career; by opting to receive 50% of the film's earnings rather than receiving a salary, she earned more than two million dollars. It wasn't much of a play even when Julie Harris was doing it, and it all but disappears under the old-time Hollywood glamor of Miss Turner's star presence. [53] Turner left Warner Bros. and signed a contract with MGM for $100 a week ($1,885 in 2021 dollars [43]). He was later found bludgeoned to death on the corner of Minnesota and Mariposa Streets, on the edge of San Francisco's Potrero Hill and the Dogpatch District, with his left shoe and sock missing. I'll work for nothing, just give me a good story. [255] Weeks later, on May 9, 1969, she married Ronald Pellar, a nightclub hypnotist whom she had met at a Los Angeles disco. [167] Variety deemed the film "a big-scale spectacleEnd result of all this flamboyant polish, however, is only fair entertainment. [125] She discovered she was pregnant with Power's child in the fall of 1947, but chose to have an abortion. "[271] In 1975, Turner gave a single performance as Jessica Poole in The Pleasure of His Company opposite Louis Jourdan at the Arlington Park Theater in Chicago. [92], Arriving to sell bonds in her hometown of Wallace, Idaho, she was greeted with a banner that read "Welcome home, Lana", followed by a large celebration during which the mayor declared a holiday in her honor. The same year, she had what she referred to as a "religious awakening", and again began practicing her Catholic faith. [7] Shortly after completing They Won't Forget, she made an appearance in James Whale's historical comedy The Great Garrick (1937), a biographical film about British actor David Garrick, in which she had a small role portraying an actress posing as a chambermaid. Cheryl Crane struggled with addiction before developing a career in real estate and settling down with her wife, Josh Leroy. [16] Lana's parents had first met while 14-year-old Mildred, the daughter of a mine inspector, was visiting Picher, Oklahoma, with her father, who was inspecting local mines there. [179][180] According to Cheryl, Turner confronted Barker before forcing him out of their home at gunpoint. "[4] Michael Gordon, who directed Turner in Portrait in Black, remembered her as "a very talented actress whose chief reliability was what I regarded as impoverished taste Lana was not a dummy, and she would give me wonderful rationalizations why she should wear pendant earrings. [29] Following her father's death, Turner lived for a period in Modesto with a family who physically abused her and "treated her like a servant". [247], In 1966, Turner had her last major starring role in the courtroom drama film Madame X, based on the 1904 play by Alexandre Bisson, in which Turner portrayed a lower-class woman who marries into a wealthy family. In the film, she portrayed the daughter of a wealthy patriarch who pursues a relationship with a man in love with her sister. I don't think it's healthy to stay off the screen that long. The Sweater Girl. [199][200] Stompanato got wind of the plan and showed up on the set with a gun, threatening her and Connery. Turner left the majority of her estate to her maid, Carmen Lopez Cruz, who had been her companion for 45 years and caregiver during her final illness. [62] In her next film, Dancing Co-Ed (1939), Turner was given first billing portraying Patty Marlow, a professional dancer who enters a college as part of a rigged national talent contest. [239][217] The following year, she made her final film at MGM with Bob Hope in Bachelor in Paradise (1961), a romantic comedy about an investigative writer (Hope) working on a book about the wives of a lavish California community; the film received a mostly positive critical reception. Lana on vacation in South America, 1946. Unfortunately, her private life sometimes overshadowed her professional accomplishments. Mildred was four days shy of her 17th birthday when she gave birth to her only child. "[314] In addition, Basinger credits Turner as the first mainstream female star to "take the male prerogative openly for herself", publicly indulging in romances and affairs that in turn fueled the publicity surrounding her. [178] In July 1957,[97] she filed for divorce from Barker after her daughter Cheryl alleged that he had regularly molested and raped her over the course of their marriage. [42], In December 1936, Marx introduced Turner to film director Mervyn LeRoy, who signed her to a $50 weekly contract with Warner Bros. on February 22, 1937 ($942 in 2021 dollars [43]). From the moment she was born, Lana Turner was a magnet for tragedy: She had a heartbreaking childhood, slept with awful men, lost her babies, and even attempted suicide. [218] In popular music, Turner was referenced in songs recorded by Nina Simone[342] and Frank Sinatra,[343] and was the source of the stage name of singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey. "[266] In April 1975, Turner spoke at a retrospective gala in New York City examining her career, which was attended by Andy Warhol, Sylvia Miles, Rex Reed and numerous fans. Three affirmed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gary Klausner's ruling . The flesh is the same. [96], In July 1942,[97] Turner met her second husband, actor-turned-restaurateur Joseph Stephen "Steve" Crane, at a dinner party in Los Angeles. [243], In mid-1962, Turner filmed Who's Got the Action?, a comedy in which she portrayed the wife of a gambling addict opposite Dean Martin. Lana Turner (/ln trnr/; born Julia Jean Turner; February 8, 1921 - June 29, 1995) was an American actress who over the course of her nearly 50-year career achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a dramatic actress as well as for her highly publicized personal life. Turner was married eight times to seven different men. [171] After completing Diane, Turner was loaned to 20th Century-Fox to headline The Rains of Ranchipur (1955), a remake of The Rains Came (1939), playing the wife of an aristocrat in the British Raj opposite Richard Burton. [70], In 1940, Turner appeared in her first musical film, Two Girls on Broadway, in which she received top billing over established co-stars Joan Blondell and George Murphy. [341] The Stompanato murder and its aftermath were also the basis of the Harold Robbins novel Where Love Has Gone (1962). La capsule di Olympia Le-Tan e Olympia di Grecia. "[151] It earned her unfavorable reviews, with one critic from the St. Petersburg Times writing: "Without Lana Turner, Mr. Imperium would be a better picture. [139][140] Studio head Louis B. Mayer threatened to suspend her contract, but Turner managed to leverage her box-office draw with MGM to negotiate an expansion of her role in the film, as well as a salary increase amounting to $5,000 per week ($60,678 in 2021 dollars [43]). When Julia Jean was about 8 years old, her father was murdered making life for the girl and her mother tougher than it had been, and it had never . Her popularity continued through the 1950s in dramas such as The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), the latter for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. [35][36][e] One version of the story erroneously has her discovery occurring at Schwab's Pharmacy,[39] which Turner claimed was the result of a reporting error that began circulating in articles published by columnist Sidney Skolsky. Lana Turner donned the same combination in Imitation of Life, one of the first movies to make a serious attempt at the "commercial tie-in." Jeweler Laykin et Cie supplied the jewelry Turner wore in the 1959 film, hoping to cash in on her glamorous reputation and the film's box-office success. 1. [246] The two married in June of that year at his family's home in Arlington, Virginia. [102][103] Turner was urged by doctors to undergo a therapeutic abortion to avoid potentially life-threatening complications, but she managed to carry the child to term. [182] The film, directed by Mark Robson, was adapted from Grace Metalious' best-selling novel of the same name. [137][138] Turner's wedding celebrations interfered with her filming schedule for The Three Musketeers, and she arrived to the set three days late. Pleasant, Tennessee (September 11, 1894 - December 14, 1930), who was 26 years old when Turner was born, and Mildred Frances Cowan from Lamar, Arkansas (February 12, 1904 . [60] She was then cast in a supporting part as a "sympathetic bad girl" in Calling Dr. Kildare (1939), MGM's second entry in the Dr. Kildare series. There was something smoldering underneath that innocent face. [125][33] During this time, she also had romantic affairs with Frank Sinatra[126] and Howard Hughes, the latter of which lasted for 12 weeks in late 1946. These desires often lead the women to unfortunate places - mid-century Hollywood . [97] Topping proposed to her at the 21 Club in New York City by dropping a diamond ring into her martini, and they married shortly after in April 1948 at the Topping family mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. [188] While shooting the film the previous spring, she had begun receiving phone calls and flowers on the set from mobster Johnny Stompanato, using the name "John Steele". Multiple accounts have the ashes still in Cheryl's possession, while other accounts say the ashes were scattered in the ocean, but which ocean and location varies by the sources. American actress Lana Turner on skis, circa 1960. [79] While the film was financially successful,[80] Time magazine panned it, calling it "a pretentious resurrection of Robert Louis Stevenson's ghoulish classic As for Lana Turner, fully clad for a change, and the rest of the cast they are as wooden as their roles. [29], While baptized a Protestant at birth,[32] Turner attended Mass with the Hislops, a Catholic family with whom her mother had temporarily boarded her in Stockton, California. Specialties. [282][283] On October 25, 1981, the National Film Society presented Turner with an Artistry in Cinema award. "[250] The role earned Turner a David di Donatello Golden Plaque Award for Best Foreign Actress that year. Turner was a regular drinker[270] and cigarette smoker for most of her life. In 2001's wacko fantasy-drama Donnie Darko, Jena Malone, distraught over events in her personal life but elated at meeting up with her love interest -- the film . "Bob" Topping Jr., a millionaire socialite and brother of New York Yankees owner Dan Topping, and a grandson of tin-plate magnate Daniel G. "[89], At the advent of US involvement in World War II, Turner's increasing prominence in Hollywood led to her becoming a popular pin-up girl,[90] and her image appeared painted on the noses of U.S. fighter planes, bearing the nickname "Tempest Turner". [11] She was an admirer of Bette Davis, whom she cited as her favorite actress. Career slump notwithstanding, she was still an A-list sex symbol who drew attentive gazes from Hollywood's leading men. It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them. American - Actress February 8, 1921 - June 29, 1995. As Lana Turner's daughter was warming to Stompanato, however, Turner was cooling off. Moving to Hawaii, LeRoy and Cheryl Crane prospered in real estate, and they later returned to California. He was replaced by Ricardo Montalbn. Actress: Imitation of Life. [111] A lifelong Democrat, she spent the remainder of the year campaigning for Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1944 presidential election. [273][274] Critic Elaine Matas noted of a 1977 performance that Turner was "brilliant" and "the bright spot in an otherwise mediocre play". [129] Production of Cass Timberlane was exhausting for Turner, because it was shot in between retakes of Green Dolphin Street. The clothes she wears are just like the clothes you pay to see her in on Saturday night at the Bijou. Children of stars do the best imitations. [57] The film was a box-office success,[58] and her appearance in it as a flirtatious high school student convinced studio head Louis B. Mayer that Turner could be the next Jean Harlow, a sex symbol who had died six months before Turner's arrival at MGM. Nevertheless, she insisted she would not give up her glamorous image. [194][195] Turner would also claim that on one occasion he drugged her and took nude photographs of her while unconscious, potentially to use as blackmail. Faced with the challenge of drawing potential buyers to a 19th-century townhouse offered for sale for $1.685 million on a lovely yet little-known street in Harlem after a lethargic summer in the . Crane, now 74, married female model Jocelyn "Josh" LeRoy in 2014 and works as a real estate agent. [117] The classic film noir marked a turning point in Turner's career as her first femme fatale role. [235][236] Ray Duncan of the Independent Star-News wrote that Turner "suffers prettily through it all, like a fashion model with a tight-fitting shoe". [72][73] Ziegfeld Girl marked a personal and professional shift for Turner; she claimed it as the first role that got her "interested in acting",[74] and the studio, impressed by her performance, marketed the film as featuring her in "the best role of the biggest picture to be released by the industry's biggest company". A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. [275] In the fall of 1978, she appeared in a Chicago production of Divorce Me, Darling, an original play in which she portrayed a San Francisco divorce attorney. In the mid-1950s, he began an abusive relationship with actress Lana Turner. [270] A review in The Philadelphia Inquirer noted: "Miss Turner always could wear clothes well, and her Forty Carats is a fashion show in the guise of a frothy, little comedy. [23] On December 14, 1930,[24] her father won some money at a traveling craps game, stuffed his winnings in his left sock, and headed for home.