Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  When Betty Grable posed for the most famous pinup picture of World War II, the photographer asked her to pose for a rear view since she was secretly pregnant at the time.

  Before that, she and her husband, actor Jackie Coogan, often went nightclubbing with Artie Shaw. He claimed that, “Betty kept rubbing her knee against mine under the table at restaurants and clubs.”

  One night, a drunken Coogan came home and urinated all over Grable as she slept. In a rage, and in tears, she fled into the night and arrived at Artie Shaw’s home. Their affair began, Grable hoping that it would lead to marriage.

  That was before Lana impulsively decided that Shaw was “husband material.”

  Inside, she was grieving, as she confessed to her fellow cast members when she showed up for work on Broadway. At the time, she was playing the second female lead in DuBarry Was a Lady, starring Ethel Merman and Bert Lahr.

  Three days before he’d eloped with Lana, Shaw had written—not phoned—Grable in Manhattan, asking her to marry him. For some reason, she chose not to call him, but sent him a “snail mail” letter instead: “Darling, this is what I’ve been waiting for. I’ve just handed in my notice to the show. Let’s get married tomorrow. Fly to New York!”

  Disappointed and enraged, Grable phoned Phil Silvers in Hollywood. “Married to that little blonde slut, is he?” she shouted, referring to Shaw’s marriage to Lana. “Just who in hell does he think he is?”

  “Betty, I’m so sorry,” Silvers said. “I took your letter out of his mailbox and put it on his desk. He’s probably not even read it yet.”

  “Go fuck yourself!” she yelled, slamming down the receiver.

  What Grable didn’t tell Silvers, and what she had not confided to Shaw, was that she was pregnant with his baby.

  That night, before going onstage, she asked Merman, “You know everything on Broadway. Surely you must know who’s the best abortion doctor in town.”

  “Leave it to me, child,” Merman said. “I’ll phone my friend, J. Edgar Hoover. He can set you up with the best abortion doctor in the country—and not some quack.”

  While making The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland fell in love with Artie Shaw. When he collapsed on stage at the Palomar on February 10, 1939, he was rushed to the hospital. He was suffering from a rare blood disease, granulocytosis, comparable to leukemia. He fell into a coma.

  His first memory when he woke up was of Judy hovering over him. “That absolutely marvelous little face, with freckles, the brown eyes, the reddish hair, looking at me with consummate tenderness—myth-like, dreamlike, not real.”

  “You’re going to be all right, Artie,” she assured him.

  “I couldn’t help it that she’d fallen in love with me.”

  [Betty Grable and Lana Turner were destined to be rivals. And because they didn’t work for the same studios, they didn’t have to compete with each other for roles. They did vie, however, more or less ferociously, for the title of “Pinup Girl of World War II.”

  ***

  Betty Grable wasn’t the only star in Hollywood whose heart had been broken (or was eventually broken) by Shaw. Judy Garland’s mother, Ethel Gumm Gilmore, woke up her daughter to show her the morning’s headline—ARTIE SHAW ELOPES WITH LANA TURNER.

  Judy screamed before bursting into tears. “But Artie’s in love with ME! He was with me only two nights before. He told me then that he loved me—and only me! The son of a bitch has betrayed me!”

  Two days later, when an enraged Ethel finally succeeded in getting Shaw on the phone, the bandleader denied that he’d ever had sex with a teenaged Garland. Because of Garland’s age, he had a good reason to deny that their relationship had turned sexual.

  But to her friends, including Mickey Rooney, Garland admitted that she and Shaw were having sex. “First, me, then Lana. I think our clarinet player likes teenage gals,” she said.

  Shaw and Garland indulged in long talks together. She remembered that one day he had told her, “You’re little Francis Gumm of Grand Rapids, and I’m little Arthur Arshawsky from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Just look at where we are now!”

  One afternoon, in her despair, Garland indiscreetly phoned columnist Hedda Hopper. “After Artie left me, I felt at times I couldn’t make it through another day. I’d have my driver circle around MGM because I felt I didn’t have the stamina to go inside and perform, much less dancing down that Yellow Brick Road in ruby-red slippers. I’m a wreck, and I fear I’m taking too many prescription drugs.”

  Fortunately, one of Shaw’s best friends, the musician, David Rose, came along just in time to heal Garland’s broken heart. She soon fell in love with him, and married him. “It all began one day when he brought me a piece of chocolate cake baked by his mother,” she said, years later.

  ***

  Three days after their hasty wedding in Las Vegas, from their now-shared home in Los Angeles, Shaw demanded that Lana accompany him on the 20th Century Limited for a honeymoon in New York City, where he had to meet and make deals with some of his fellow musicians.

  Acquiescing to this sudden demand, and fearful of its implications at the studio, Lana phoned a furious Louis B. Mayer, who was already angered at her elopement and the ways in which it had delayed production on Two Girls on Broadway. He demanded that she report to work at once—or else face suspension. But after pleading with him, he relented. “Three days…that’s it. Or else.” Then the studio boss slammed down the phone.

  Arriving at Grand Central in Manhattan, the couple was mobbed by fans, photographers, and reporters. Shaw fought to clear a pathway for them, herding her into a taxi and ordering the driver to take them to the exclusive Sherry-Netherland Hotel, where he’d booked a suite for them on the 21st floor.

  Dinner that night was at Reubens, where they sat at table with the popular gossip columnist Leonard Lyons and his wife, Sylvia. As Lana and Shaw left the restaurant, more fans awaited them, both his and hers, beseeching them for their autographs. As flashbulbs popped, he cleared a way for her and pushed her into a taxi. “Hell, we’ll be here all night,” he was heard shouting at her.

  The next day, he told her that he had some business with a recording studio, but gave her no further details, not even an idea of when he’d be coming back.

  She already knew that he was estranged from his mother, Sarah Arshawsky. Anxious to meet her, Lana searched for her telephone number in his address book and, without his permission or approval, called her.

  A woman with a thick Jewish accent picked up the phone and seemed delighted to be speaking to her new daughter-in-law. She told Lana, “I’ve seen two of your movies. You’re a beautiful girl. So young.”

  Sarah seemed very disappointed that her son hadn’t phoned her himself, but she was glad to receive Lana. Dressing herself chicly and applying perhaps too much makeup, Lana got into a chauffeur-driven limousine and headed for her mother-in-law’s modest apartment.

  Inside, Sarah welcomed Lana warmly and served her tea. Then, she wanted to know if she could invite some of her women friends over “to get a look at how beautiful you are.” Lana declined.

  Since she knew so very little about the man she’d impulsively married, she pumped Sarah for information. Her son had been born in the Bronx, but grew up in New Haven. Coming from a Russian Jewish background, he faced anti-Semitism. His (deceased) father Harry Arshawsky, had been a dressmaker and photographer.

  Shaw’s relationship with his mother had been stressful and difficult almost from birth. She told Lana that one day, she’d threatened to jump out the window to her death. “You know what my boy did? He ran down the stairs and stood on the sidewalk to watch me jump.”

  As if that weren’t shocking enough, it was followed by yet another revelation: Lana was the third Mrs. Shaw. In 1932, he’d married a very young girl, Jane Cairns, but her family had had the marriage annulled because of her age. Then, from 1934 to 1937, he’d been married to Margaret Allen.

  While married to her, and while at the woodpile, he had almo
st chopped off his left forefinger. A nurse, she had been able to sew it back together.

  “Artie told me he feared he might not play the clarinet ever again,” Sarah said.

  Overwhelmed with all this new and in some ways unwelcome information, Lana had heard enough. As she prepared to leave, Sarah begged her “to bring Artie to dinner.”

  Lana kissed the woman on her cheeks and left, never to see her again.

  Years later, looking back at her first marriage, and with the added perspective of six subsequent (and also ill-fated) unions, Lana said, “That was not the way I planned my life. I wanted to have one husband and seven babies. It worked out just the opposite.”

  ***

  Before leaving New York, Shaw introduced her to many of his musician friends, some of whom were performing on the nights they met. Together, Shaw and Lana hung out at lots of late-night jazz clubs. Following her divorce from Shaw, Lana would continue the pattern she’d previously established of late-night club-going. Her daughter, Cheryl Crane, called the post-Artie Shaw period as “Lana’s Boys in the Band” era.

  “Mother was a bit infatuated with all of the incredible musicians whose talent thrilled her,” Cheryl said. “She loved being in on their late-night jam sessions, and they loved having her present. There were a number of big band names whom she dated…all young and talented. Whatever was in town and not on the road might become number one in her date book.”

  She met, and would later date, Tommy Dorsey, one of the most famous band-leaders of the Big Band era. She also met Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. In her immediate future would appear such figures as Desi Arnaz, Tony Martin, and Frank Sinatra, each of whom would be a future lover.

  “While I was married to Artie, I had to put these boys on hold, at least for the moment,” she told Joan Blondell when she returned to complete Two Girls on Broadway. “Every one of them flirted with me, I mean a little more than flirted, and I liked them all. But I had to bide my time.”

  ***

  Back at MGM, Lana met with her mentor, Mervyn LeRoy, who advised her that she needed a new agent. “That Henry Willson spends all his time seducing his male clients, and doesn’t pay enough attention to you and your career. I’d recommend that you sign with Johnny Hyde, a VP at the William Morris Agency.”

  She followed his advice and arranged a meeting with Hyde, whom she found grotesquely ugly but possibly effective as an agent, since he represented some of the biggest names in the business. She later told LeRoy, “I call him The Dwarf, and he seemed to have the hots for me.”

  Born in Russia in 1895, he’d moved with his parents to America when he was only five.

  He took her to dinner at Ciro’s. Later, in her description of the evening to LeRoy, she said, “He drooled over me, but made good points about my career.”

  “You’ve served your time in ‘B’ pictures,” he told her. “Now it’s time to move up to the classy ones, as soon as you get your present crapper out of the way.”

  No doubt, he was referring to the 1940 melodrama, We Who Are Young, that she was shooting at the time.

  Young Marilyn Monroe with her adoring agent, Johnny Hyde.

  First, he had been Lana’s agent.

  “To capture the throne as Queen of MGM, you’ve got to appear with really big male stars,” Hyde told her.

  “I’m dreaming of Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Errol Flynn, and Tyrone Power,” she said.

  “Forget Ty and Errol,” he answered. “Those faggots belong to either Fox or Jack Warner. Stick to MGM stars.”

  From the beginning, Hyde earned her respect, renegotiating her contract with MGM, increasing her pay to $250 a week, with yearly escalations.

  “That was a huge sum in those days,” she later wrote. I could buy clothes I’d always dreamed of wearing. I also bought a new Chrysler coupé.”

  Two months after she signed with Hyde, he called with good news. “In your next two pictures, you’re going to appear with two of the biggest male stars at Metro.”

  “You mean, Clark Gable and Robert Taylor?” she asked.

  “No, later for those guys. Right now, I’m talking about James Stewart and Spencer Tracy. Not bad, huh? You’ll owe me.”

  After screening two pictures she’d recently made, he took her to Ciro’s to show her off. She’d dressed in up-to-the-minute designer clothes.

  “On film, you come off as a beautiful mannequin,” he told her. “To be a star, you’ve got to have more expression on your face. I want you to watch some silent films. Those stars, like a young Garbo in the late 1920s or Chaplin, had great expressions on their faces, and they also acted with their bodies, too. To be a big star, you’ve got to do that. Being beautiful is one thing, being an actress is another. Your face has got to express what you’re feeling inside.”

  “I will do that because I want to succeed,” she said. “Before I married Artie, I thought I wanted to be a wife and mother. But when I see how awful marriage can be, I think I prefer stardom to being a hausfrau.”

  Lana with John Shelton in We Who Are Young. Off screen, Shelton struck out.

  During the next few weeks, she learned that she was slated to co-star in two big MGM pictures, Ziegfeld Girl (1941), with James Stewart, Judy Garland, and Hedy Lamarr; and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (also 1941) with the seasoned actor, Spencer Tracy, and with the new discovery from Sweden, In-grid Bergman.

  Also in the coming weeks, Hyde would come to her rescue on a personal level when she faced crisis after crisis, beginning with a divorce and subsequently, an abortion.

  ***

  When Tommy Dorsey dropped in to visit Shaw during one of his trips to Hollywood, Shaw complained to him, “Lana doesn’t know Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.”

  “Neither do I,” Dorsey answered. “But Lana has other assets. Oh, what a lucky guy you are. You’re complaining?”

  Her new agent often functioned as the recipient of her complaints about her marriage to Shaw. “I never mastered the art of cooking, house cleaning, and washing dishes. But that’s the kind of wife he wants, even though he can afford a maid, since he makes a big salary.”

  He demanded that she be home every evening before 6PM, which was the hour he usually returned from work. When she was held up, he accused her of sleeping around—“Maybe with a studio grip.”

  “I don’t know what his IQ was, but he was very smart,” Lana said. “One night, I asked how such and intelligent man would marry a dumb gal like me. He had an answer for that:”

  “You’ve got great knockers. My intellect isn’t linked to my pelvis.”

  “My husband likes to dominate, and he’s always putting me down, especially in front of his friends,” she said.

  ***

  Mildred called every morning, beseeching her daughter to leave Shaw and suggesting that Greg Bautzer might know how to get the marriage annulled. “He doesn’t love you. He loves the idea of screwing Lana Turner—that’s all your marriage is about, nothing else. I predict it’ll be over in ten minutes, if that.”

  Mildred and her son-in-law barely concealed their contempt for each other. Privately, he referred to her as “a hard-assed man-eater.”

  He decided to cure her of her annoying habit of dropping in at any time of the day or evening, always unannounced, and usually at an inappropriate time. One morning, he decided to do something about that.

  After Lana had left for the studio at 5AM, he sat in their kitchen, wearing only a silk robe, reading his newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. Then he heard Mildred’s car pull into the driveway. “I’d recognize that bad muffler anywhere.”

  He walked to the door. Before opening it, he pulled off his robe and fluffed himself as a means of inducing an erection. Then he threw open the door. “Sorry,” he said to his mother-in-law. “I was expecting Judy Garland.”

  Mildred let out a scream and raced back to her car.

  In spite of the horror stories Lana spread about their marriage, there were moments of tenderness. He told her that she had been the in
spiration for one of his signature compositions, “Summit Ridge Drive,” a reference to their hilltop home.

  Occasionally, as a couple, she and Shaw entertained friends and acquaintances at home, usually visiting with musicians or with boys in his band, all of whom seemed to dote on Lana. Other women visitors were rare, with the noteworthy exception of Judy Garland.

  Partly because she had become romantically involved with one of his best friends, David Rose, Garland had forgiven Shaw for running off and marrying Lana. Their relationship was a bit stiff for a while, but Garland seemed to possess a warm and forgiving heart.

  One night, when Garland and Lana were chatting in the kitchen, the singer told Lana, “I’m glad you took Artie off my hands. If I’d married him, it would rank as one of my bigger mistakes—and I’ve made a few. I see how he treats you—that’s not for me.”

  One Sunday night, Garland had been most affectionate, kissing and hugging both Shaw and Lana. When she left, Shaw turned to Lana. “I know Judy very well. You may not know this, but she’s a bisexual, and she probably wants to have a three-way with us.”

  “I don’t believe you—not Judy!” Lana said. “You’re making this up. What a terrible thing to say about a sweet girl like Judy!”

  During a talk with Hyde the next day, he suggested that her husband was the one who wanted a three-way. Since he was hip to the latest Hollywood gossip, she asked if he’d heard that Garland was bisexual.

  “Everybody knows that, including Louis B. Mayer,” Hyde answered. “Howard Strickling, keeper of the secrets, wants that to stay under wraps. Imagine if the public ever found out that Dorothy from Kansas was a lesbian.”

  Another night, when Garland was a guest, Shaw told Lana to go to their bedroom and fetch his slippers. At the top of the stairs, slippers in hand, Lana heard Garland and Shaw talking about her.