Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  McQueen made himself available as a player in this scenario, acquiring his first tuxedo as a necessary accessory for his act.

  After McQueen proved he was a hit with women, Wilson arranged for him to go out on “your date of dates.” In need of an escort, Marlene Dietrich had arrived in Manhattan with the intention of attending an event at the Plaza Hotel.

  At a gathering there, in 1955, McQueen met Joseph and Rose Kennedy and Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

  Before the evening ended, McQueen got to chat with the future president of the United States.

  [A few years later, in 1963, McQueen, by then a bigtime movie star, wanted to portray Kennedy as a World War II naval hero in the film adaptation of Robert Donovan’s 1961 overview of JFK’s wartime exploits, PT-109. His friend and rival, Paul Newman, also wanted the Kennedy role, but was rejected by the President “as looking too Jewish.” The part was eventually assigned to Cliff Robertson.]

  As a rule, Lana did not want to go out and be photographed with dates who had blonde hair. “I want to be the only blonde in the picture,” she told Steve McQueen, who—a struggling actor at the time—was working as an escort for an agency in New York.

  He was surprised by what unfolded on his one night with Lana.

  Because McQueen’s date with the great Dietrich had gone so well, she phoned Wilson, giving him an A-plus.

  That led, a few weeks later, to another escort job with another legendary Hollywood blonde, Lana Turner. McQueen, as a paid escort, agreed to pick her up at her suite at the Plaza Hotel and escort her downstairs to a “Rat Pack” party hosted by Frank Sinatra for a few choice friends.

  In a form-fitting white satin gown and a ruby necklace, Lana looked to him as good as when he saw her on the screen in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Either she was incredibly skilled at makeup, or age had been kind to her.

  “So you’re a blonde,” she said, appraising him after he was ushered into the living room of her hotel suite. “Usually, I don’t date blondes. The agent, Henry Willson, always told me I should date men with raven black hair to offset my own blondeness. That’s why he fixed me up with Rory Calhoun.”

  “If I’d known, I would have kept my hair black,” McQueen said. “That’s what I did when I appeared in the play, A Hatful of Rain. I was playing an Italian, and I thought black hair would make me look the part.”

  Actually, I like blonde-haired men,” Lana continued. “You’re adorable looking in an offbeat kind of way. Of all my movies, which of them did you like the best?”

  “The Merry Widow,” he answered. “As for Fernando Lamas, he can stick a dildo up his ass.”

  Arriving at Sinatra’s party, Lana, with Steve, made a grand entrance. Sinatra’s guests included Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Marilyn Maxwell, and Judy Garland.

  At the time, it seemed beyond McQueen’s wildest dreams that one day soon, he would be co-starring with Sinatra in a movie, Never So Few (1958).

  McQueen was intrigued by Sammy Davis, Jr. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  At his party, Sinatra sang for his pals, and on the dance floor, McQueen danced with Lana until Garland, claiming a privilege usually reserved for men, cut in.

  At the end of the party, McQueen’s biggest surprise came when Davis grabbed him and lip-locked him with a sloppy wet kiss. He did the same to Lana, too. McQueen discovered Davis’ fondness for French kissing without discrimination for gender.

  At the Carlyle Hotel, Steve McQueen was shocked when Senator John F. Kennedy opened the door in his underwear. Lana was in the next room putting back on her clothing.

  On their way out, McQueen turned to Lana. “I hope Sammy doesn’t think I’m a fucking faggot.”

  “Oh, darling, don’t be so judgmental,” Lana said. “Without so-called faggots, there would BE no Hollywood.”

  McQueen fully expected her to invite him back to her suite, where he hoped to spend the night. Instead, she asked for her sable and headed outside, where the doorman hailed them a taxi.

  “Come with me,” she said. “I have an errand for you. We’re going to the Carlyle.”

  Once inside that swanky nearby hotel, she directed him to the bar. “I have to meet a special friend upstairs: He never takes very long, so I’ll be back down here within the hour. I want you to wait for me.”

  About thirty minutes later, a waiter tapped him on the shoulder. “You’re wanted on the house phone.” It was Lana calling from a suite upstairs.

  “He says he knows you,” she said. “He met you one night with Dietrich. Come on up.”

  When McQueen arrived at the suite whose number Lana had indicated, Senator John F. Kennedy opened the door clad in his underwear. Presumably, Lana was inside, repairing her makeup after the sexual encounter they’d just concluded.

  Kennedy invited him in, and suggested that during his next visit to Hollywood, each of them should join in a race, as to which man could bed the most movie stars. “I must say, you’re dating from the top of the A-list. Lana Turner and Marlene Dietrich. My dad had Dietrich before I got my chance on the French Riviera.”

  McQueen and Kennedy indulged in what men used to call “locker room talk” before Lana emerged from one of the suite’s other rooms. She did not look like she’d been ravished at all. McQueen’s duties as an escort weren’t over yet. It was back to the Plaza, where that long-awaited invitation to Lana’s suite did eventually emerge.

  As he told his friend and fellow actor, Rod Steiger, the next day, “Guess what? I woke up this morning in the bed of Lana Turner.”

  “Cut the bullshit, McQueen,” Steiger said, obviously not believing him. “I’ve got an even better tale to tell. Queen Elizabeth is my mistress.” Then he put down the phone.

  ***

  During a consultation in the office of producer Jerry Wald, Lana was defiant. “There is no way in hell I’m going to play the mother of a grown-up teenager. Forget it” Then she stormed out of the office.

  Wald had reminded her that she only recently co-starred in a “string of clunkers in your dying days at MGM. You need a big box office attraction to put you on top again.”

  He also reminded her that in 1945, he’d convinced Joan Crawford to play the title role in Mildred Pierce, as the mother of an ungrateful daughter (Ann Blyth). Based on her portrayal of a mother, it had brought Crawford her first and only Oscar, and radically revitalized her career.

  The role being offered to Lana was that of Constance MacKenzie, the romantic lead in a script based on the 1956 novel, Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious, a bawdy, rebellious housewife in New Hampshire. At the age of thirty, she was described as “broke, smelly, thirsty, exhausted, and desperate,” feeding her three children an ongoing diet of lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches.

  It took some doing, but Lee Philips, Lana’s leading man, finally melted the secretive character she was playing, “the ice queen of Peyton Place.”

  The studio associated with the production, 20th-Century Fox, had originally recommended Rita Hay-worth as Constance. Susan Hayward was also a strong contender, and in many ways, the part seemed tailor-made for her.

  As part of a prolonged casting drama, Fox had already sent Wald a number of actresses that its executives deemed suitable—Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Joan Fontaine, Ann Sheridan, Dorothy McGuire, Audrey Meadows, Deborah Kerr, Virginia Mayo, even Betty Hutton. None had survived the scrutiny.

  The plot of the novel—denounced as “literary sewage”—had outraged critics, The New York Times calling it a “small town peep show.” It had nonetheless swept the nation, many readers devouring it in secret, not wanting their neighbors, who were also reading it, to catch them “in the act.”

  Despite these howling protests, the novel remained on the bestseller list for fifty-nine weeks, selling 60,000 copies in just ten days in 1956, when most novels sold 3,000 copies or less. When it became clear that the book was a runaway bestseller, Wald paid Metalious $250,000 for the film ri
ghts.

  Unusually forthright for a film during the Eisenhower years, its plot involved rape, incest, murder, abortion, and multiple seductions. Fox feared that it would run into censorship issues with the Production Code.

  Most of Lana’s friends warned her not to take the role, reminding her that at the age of thirty-six, she was “as glamorous as ever.” It was also noted that her rival love goddesses of the 1940s, including Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth, had not yet been reduced to portraying mothers.

  In the end, it was money—not the role—that persuaded Lana to play Connie. Wald offered her a contract for $125,000. She desperately needed it, as she was nearly broke.

  In an interview with the press, Lana asserted that the mother of a teenage daughter did not have to look matronly. Reporters noted sardonically that Lana would be portraying, as Metalious’ novel had revealed, an inhibited and sexually frustrated woman.

  “Sexually frustrated?” said columnist James Bacon. “Lana Turner You’ve got to be kidding. She’s going to have to do a lot of acting to pull that one off.”

  Lloyd Nolan as high-integrity Dr. Swain, “morally forced to perform an abortion.”

  The novel centered on the moral hypocrisy of a small, seemingly tranquil community, a fictional mill town in New England, in the years just before World War II.

  Lana did not in any way resemble a drab housewife, not in wardrobe designer Charles LeMaire’s dresses and gowns. The script had established her as the owner of the best dress shop in town, a device that allowed her character to appear in chic apparel throughout the run of the film. Her platinum blonde hair was darkened to a honey blonde. Makeup was by Ben Nye and hair styles by Helen Turpin. In CinemaScope and color by DeLuxe, Lana was prepped, primped, and coiffed, ready and set to appear on camera, looking much younger than her years.

  Lorne Green interrogates Lana: Art imitating life?

  As the film’s prosecuting attorney, the Canada-born actor would go on to become a household name when he starred as the patriarchal Ben Cartwright in the long-running TV series, Bonanza (1959-73).

  Lana played Constance as a widow with a dark secret: She was hiding the true origins of her daughter’s father. Allison had been born out of wedlock to a married man.

  Allison’s best friend is Selene Cross, who lives on the wrong side of the tracks with an abusive stepfather, Lucas Cross, who rapes and impregnates her.

  The town doctor, Matthew Swain, forces the rapist to leave town after he signs a confession. Based on the circumstances of Selene’s pregnancy, the doctor performs an illegal abortion.

  When Selene’s stepfather returns from the war effort many months later, he assaults her again. This time, she kills him and buries his body in a deserted sheep pen.

  In the background are lots of tangled romances and lesser dramas. Selena’s secret is eventually discovered, and she stands trial for murder.

  At the trial, Lana is summoned as a witness, performing her most dramatic scene in the movie. [Ironically, in real life, in the months ahead, she would be summoned as a witness in the investigation of the murder, within her home, of her gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato.]

  When Peyton Place was released, moviegoers drew parallels between the on-screen Lana on Peyton Place’s witness stand and their favorite star testifying in a real life courthouse in Beverly Hills. Both of them were testifying about a murder.

  At the beginning of the film, Lana, as Connie, is a frigid ice queen, shunning the possibility of any romantic involvement. That changes when the handsome new principal of the local high school arrives in town. Michael Rossi (Lee Philips) slowly begins to thaw her out.

  ***

  The goal of scriptwriter John Michael Hayes was to tone down the more blatant sexual scenes in the Metalious novel. He was better known for “doctoring” scripts for director Alfred Hitchcock, including Rear Window (1934). He also showed that he had a talent for big budget melodramas such as Torch Song (1953) with Joan Crawford, or BUtterfield 8 (1960), a role for which Elizabeth Taylor won the Oscar.

  [Hayes would later incur Lana’s animosity when he wrote the screenplay for Where Love Has Gone (1964), starring Susan Hayward and Bette Davis. The plot was clearly based on the Johnny Stompanato murder and her involvement in it.]

  Russ Tamblyn was viewed as an odd choice to play the role of Norman Page, who eventually captures the heart of Allison (Diane Varsi).

  He was mostly known as a dancer, having performed brilliantly, even acrobatically, in the incredible dance number in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). After Peyton Place, his next job involved designing the choreography for Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock (1957).

  Lana worked smoothly with Mark Robson, her Canada-born director, who had earned a reputation as a brilliant film editor. He’d previously helmed, or would eventually helm, such films as The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955), starring William Holden and Grace Kelly, and Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958).

  When it came to casting, Lana, as always, wanted to know who her leading man would be.

  For a while, Errol Flynn was the choice, before it was decided that the role would be better performed by Robert Mitchum, with whom Lana had also had a fling.

  When an involvement by Mitchum didn’t work out, it was decided that Richard Burton, Lana’s co-star from The Rains of Ranchipur, should be offered the role.

  But when that fell through, Gregory Peck was accepted as an ideal candidate for her leading man. Lana, perhaps remembering her secret sexual tryst with him, agreed, until that didn’t work out, either.

  When James Stewart’s name was suggested, Lana asked Robson, “What in hell are you doing? Rounding up all my lovers from yesterday?”

  Far down on the list was Van Heflin, another of Lana’s former co-stars. “I just can’t see him as a leading man. I never could.”

  Then Robert Ryan was suggested. “I saw something there when he made Clash by Night (1952) with Barbara Stanwyck, but he just doesn’t ring my bell,” Lana said.

  Four of Lana’s future co-stars were also considered, any of whom, in Lana’s words, “could send me ring-a-dinging.”

  Cast as a rape victim, Selene Cross (Hope Lange) lives on the wrong side of the tracks with her abusive stepfather, Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy), who impregnates her.

  They included Sean Connery, who would be cast as her co-star in her upcoming Another Time, Another Place. Another suggestion was John Gavin, her future co-star in Imitation of Life. “He’s just too beautiful for words,” Lana said. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., her future co-star in By Love Possessed, and Cliff Robertson, a future co-star in Love Has Many Faces, were—at least temporarily—also considered, fruitlessly, as Lana’s onscreen lover and co-star.

  After each of those big-name actors, Lana was rather disappointed to learn that the role of her lover, Michael Rossi, had been assigned to Lee Philips. Although he’d started out on Broadway, this handsome but relatively unknown New York-born actor was not familiar to movie audiences.

  “He’s handsome enough,” Lana said, “although he seems to lack the charisma needed for a matinee idol. Fortunately, our love scenes are sort of vanilla, so no great sexual chemistry is required from me. It just wouldn’t be there.”

  Lana played the mother of newcomer Diane Varsi, who starred as her daughter Allison. Lana is a concerned and chic matron with a scandalous past she hopes to conceal from her daughter.

  When Robson introduced Lana to Lee Philips, he later asked her opinion of him. “Nice guy. But a movie star? No way!”

  Maybe she was right. By the 1960s, Philips had shifted mostly to directing. Ironically, when Peyton Place was adapted into a TV series, Philips was named as its director.

  Cast as Nellie Cross, the downtrodden wife of the man who raped her daughter, was Betty Field (right).

  As the drab, bitter, plain-Jane housekeeper for Constance, she had a colorless, depressive role. During the course of the film, she commits suicide by hanging herself in a closet.

&n
bsp; He was one leading man who Lana didn’t seduce. Within the year, he would be married to Barbara Shrader.

  When Lana sat through the film’s final cut, she said, “My love scenes with Philips were those performed by respectable middle-class American couples.”

  One of the film’s most pivotal roles was that of the much-victimized Selena Cross. At first, Debbie Reynolds, who’d had a minor role with her in Mr. Imperium, was suggested until it was determined that “she is just too sweet.”

  Then, briefly, ice blonde Carroll Baker was considered. Robson had been impressed with her role in Giant (1956), with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor.

  Barry Coe, in the role of Rodney Harrington, was the best-looking man in the cast. He’d appeared with Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender (1956). Lana thought he might have a chance to join the ranks of the pretty boys on movie screens of the 50s, but that didn’t happen.

  In Peyton Place, he conducts a torrid romance with the town slut, Betty Anderson (as played by Terry Moore). Moore had had a far better role in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), opposite Burt Lancaster. She’d been nominated that year as Best Supporting Actress.

  Moore was the longtime partner, on and off again, of Howard Hughes, and may indeed have married him.

  Finally, Robson decided to hire newcomer Hope Lange, who had recently made her film debut in William Inge’s Bus Stop (1956), starring Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray. In the movie, although Marilyn made off with Murray, in real life, Lange married him.