He was 59. [121], The Postman Always Rings Twice became a major box office success, which prompted the studio to take more risks on Turner, casting her outside of the glamorous sex-symbol roles for which she had come to be known. [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]). [174] Though an elaborate marketing campaign was crafted to promote the film, it was a box-office flop,[175] and MGM announced in February 1956 that it was opting not to renew Turner's contract. Turner, Lana (September 28, 1982). [132] She was the studio's first choice for the role, but it was reluctant to offer her the part, considering her overbooked schedule. On the evening of April 4, 1958, 14-year-old Cheryl Crane stabbed 32-year-old Johnny Stompanato, the boyfriend of her mother, actress Lana Turner, at Turner's rented home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California. [86] "I adored Mr. Gable, but we were [just] friends," she later recalled. In 1936, when Turner was 15, she was discovered while purchasing a soda at the Top Hat Malt Shop in Hollywood. After a trial in 2009, he was sentenced to 19 years to life. 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. [121][122] The film was produced by Carey Wilson, who insisted on casting Turner based on her performance in The Postman Always Rings Twice. "[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. Cheryl, who is Lana's daughter with second husband Steve Crane, was tried and acquitted for Stampanato's death. "[227] Critics and audiences could not help noticing that the plots of Peyton Place and Imitation of Life both seemed to mirror certain parts of Turner's private life, resulting in comparisons she found painful. However, she doesn't look like a vamp. [26] "I know that my father's sweetness and gaiety, his warmth and his tragedy, have never been far from me," she later said. She is the most glamorous actress since Jean Harlow. The Tragic Life Of Lana Turner's Daughter, Cheryl Crane - Grunge.com "[69] By the mid-1940s, Turner had been married and divorced three times, had given birth to her daughter Cheryl and had numerous publicized affairs. [33] She stated that she had "never seen myself walking before [It was] the first time [I was] conscious of my body. Lex was most well known for playing Tarzan in a 5 Tarzan films between 1949 - 1953 . She died in Los Angeles and buried in California . [251], In late 1968, she began filming the low-budget thriller The Big Cube, in which she portrayed a glamorous heiress being dosed with LSD by her stepdaughter in hopes of driving her insane and receiving the family estate. [34] She soon became a protge of LeRoy, who suggested that she take the stage name Lana Turner, a name she would come to legally adopt several years later. [238] Turner moved in with him on his ranch in Chino, California, where the two took care of horses and other animals. 13 Drop Dead Gorgeous Photos of - Best Movies by Farr [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". In the mid-1940s, she was one of the highest-paid actresses in the United States, and one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's (MGM) biggest stars, with her films earning more than $50 million for the studio during her 18-year contract with them. Contents. Mervyn LeRoy on Turner during her first audition, December 1936[34], Turner's discovery is considered a show-business legend and part of Hollywood mythology among film and popular cultural historians. 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. Tuesday, July 07, 2015 Lana Turner (1921-1995) Birth name: Julia Jean Turner Birthdate: Tuesday, February 8th, 1921 Location: Wallace, Idaho, USA Died: Thursday, June 29th, 1995 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA Cause of death: Throat cancer Lana Turner was married to seven men, including bandleader Artie Shaw. [213] She was ultimately released to the care of her grandmother, and was ordered to regularly visit a psychiatrist alongside her parents. [186] Though grateful for the nomination, Turner would later state that she felt it was not "one of my better roles". [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. The Final Years of Lana Turner: The Amazing True Story [22] At age three, she performed an impromptu dance routine at a charity fashion show in which her mother was modeling. [154] She was saved by her business manager, Benton Cole, who broke down the bathroom door and called emergency medical services. She is far more deadly because she lets her audience relax. [260] Meanwhile, after six months of marriage, Turner discovered Pellar had stolen $35,000 she had given him for an investment. [92], Throughout the war, Turner continued to make regular appearances at U.S. troop events and area bases, though she confided to friends that she found visiting the hospital wards of injured soldiers emotionally difficult. [174] Meanwhile, Diane was given a test screening in late December 1955, and was met with poor response from audiences. [122] Turner later recalled she was surprised about replacing Hepburn, saying: "I'm about the most un-Hepburnish actress on the lot. [307] Film historian Jeanine Basinger notes that she "represented the girl who'd rather sit on the diving board to show off her figure than get wet in the water the girl who'd rather kiss than kibbitz". 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. [33] In 1965, she met Hollywood producer and businessman Robert Eaton, who was ten years her junior, through business associates. . [145], In 1949, Turner was to star in A Life of Her Own (1950), a George Cukor-directed drama about a woman who aspires to be a model in New York City. Lana Turner's most memorable film is 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (1946) , which marked the first time she was cast as a femme fatale, opposite John Garfield. Johnny Stompanato Is Killed By Lana Turner's Daughter. [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. [114][134], In late 1947, Turner was cast as Lady de Winter in The Three Musketeers, her first Technicolor film. Nevertheless, she insisted she would not give up her glamorous image. [323] Turner often purchased her favorite styles of shoes in every available color, at one time accumulating 698 pairs. [153] Suffering from depression over her career and financial problems, she attempted suicide in September 1951 by slitting her wrists in a locked bathroom. [87][88] James Agee of Time magazine was critical of co-star Robert Taylor's performance and noted: "Turner is similarly handicapped: Metro has swathed her best assets in a toga, swears that she shall become an actress, or else. The 1958 stabbing death of Johnny Stompanato, a reputed mobster, was definitely a homicide, but what may never be known is whether it was committed by film star, Lana Turner, who had been his girlfriend, or Turner's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane. "She'd completed. [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. "Bob" Topping Jr., a millionaire socialite and brother of New York Yankees owner Dan Topping, and a grandson of tin-plate magnate Daniel G. According to Closer Weekly, Turner was married eight times, including twice to the same man. [170], MGM then gave Turner the titular role of Diane de Poitiers in the period drama Diane (1956), which had originally been optioned by the studio in the 1930s for Greta Garbo. [98] The two eloped to Las Vegas a week after they began dating. Lana Turner Age: 74 (age at death) years Birthday: 8th February, 1921 Birthplace: Wallace, Idaho, USA Died: 29th June, 1995 Place of Death: Century City, California, USA Cause of Death: Throat cancer Height: 5' 3" (160 cm) Weight . "[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. "[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. [64] A remake of The Broadway Melody, the film was marketed as featuring Turner's "hottest, most daring role". Her hair was dark, messy, uncombed. [27] Her mother worked 80 hours per week as a beautician to support herself and her daughter,[30][31] and Turner recalled sometimes "living on crackers and milk for half a week". Turner, Lana (September 29, 1982). Dark Details We Ignored About Lana Turner - Facts Verse [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. Lana Turnerborn Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner on February 8, 1921 in Wallace, Idahohad one of the most dramatic off-screen. [35] Wilkerson was attracted by her beauty and physique, and asked her if she was interested in appearing in films, to which she responded: "I'll have to ask my mother first. [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". [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. [269], In the early 1970s, Turner transitioned to theater, beginning with a production of Forty Carats, which toured various East Coast cities in 1971. [211] After four hours of testimony and approximately 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury deemed the killing a justifiable homicide. [224][230] Worried she was still suffering from the trauma of Stompanato's death, Turner sent Cheryl to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. The growth of maturity is reflected neatly in her distinguished portrayal. [14][15] She was the only child of John Virgil Turner, a miner from Montgomery, Alabama, of Dutch descent, and Mildred Frances Cowan from Lamar, Arkansas, who had English, Scottish and Irish ancestry. "[131], In August 1947, immediately upon completion of Cass Timberlane, Turner agreed to appear as the female lead in the World War II-set romantic drama Homecoming (1948), in which she was again paired with Clark Gable, portraying a female army lieutenant who falls in love with an American surgeon (Gable). [61] Turner's onscreen sex appeal in the film was reflected by a review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in which she was characterized as "the answer to 'oomph'". [101] Turner's blood condition resulted in Cheryl being born with near-fatal erythroblastosis fetalis. Indeed, there is cause for suspicion that they didn't even bother to think. LANA TURNER - Music Finder [167] Variety deemed the film "a big-scale spectacleEnd result of all this flamboyant polish, however, is only fair entertainment.