Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  “Now I’ve got you,” he said.

  She didn’t even speak to him, as he took her arm and directed her into the terminal. There, she found a bevy of photographers and reporters waiting to interview her.

  She felt awkward and nervous throughout the conference, as she was peppered with the usual questions, such as, “What’s your next picture?” She bluffed that, as she didn’t know what her agent, Paul Kohner, might come up with. Throughout the press conference, Johnny hawkeyed her.

  Finally, they left and she was alone with him. “It’s time to board our plane. I’m going to Acapulco with you.”

  “The hell you are!” Those were her first words to him since arriving in Denmark.

  He took her arm again, and almost blindly, she followed along with him. “I’ll never let you go.” It turned out that he had a ticket on her plane. Not only that, but he had the seat next to hers. She was amazed by how much information he’d gathered about her.

  It isn’t known what she said or did en route to Mexico. When they arrived at Teddy Stauffer’s Villa Vera, Stauffer immediately noticed how chilly Lana was toward Johnny.

  He was at the height of his season, but he had reserved for her a one-bedroom suite overlooking the bay, with a private swimming pool for nude sunbathing. When she saw the double bed, she turned to him. “Johnny here needs to be booked in separate quarters. I must keep up appearances, you know.”

  But almost every accommodation was booked. As he protested, Johnny was led to what looked like a broom closet with a cot. It had a sink but no toilet.

  “I’ll take it, but I plan to spend my nights in bed with Lana,” he told Stauffer.

  Somehow, word reached Louella Parsons back in Hollywood. On February 22,1958, she wrote in her column: “I sincerely hope it isn’t true that Lana Turner, who is now in Acapulco, is not going to marry Johnny Stampanat (sic).”

  During their second day in Acapulco, Johnny, with her money, rented a small yacht captained by Juan García, a salty old skipper who had been born in Galicia in northwestern Spain and spoke passable English. He owned the Rosa Maria, which he claimed he’d won by gambling in Venezuela. He later told a reporter, “Lana Turner and that Italian guy spent 20 of their 49 days in Mexico on my boat.”

  García said, “I couldn’t understand why a movie queen would have to keep chasing after this man, no matter what he was doing on board. She was always at his side, even following him into the shower. He would be sitting nude in a deck chair, and she would come over and plop down on him, causing a natural reaction as she wiggled her shapely butt across his genitals. Then he’d pick her up, his raging hard-on at full staff, and carry her below to their cabin. To judge from her squeals, he was a treat for any woman. She didn’t bother to muffle her screams of delight.”

  ***

  From Hollywood, film producer Jerry Wald placed some urgent phone calls to Lana’s suite in Acapulco. He was casting William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury for a 1959 release. The script followed the lives and passions of the Compsons, a degenerate once-proud Southern family now just scraping by.

  The leads had already been cast with Yul Brynner and Joanne Woodward. Lana was offered the role of Caddy Compson, a fading Southern belle.

  Critics had hailed the Faulkner novel as one of the hundred greatest of the 20th Century.

  Wald outlined her role as the third lead. She turned him down, even though she needed the money. “There’s no way I’m going to play a fading Southern belle. I’ve not reached the point in my career where I’m reduced to that.”

  Having failed to convince her, Wald cast Margaret Leighton the next day.

  ***

  It wasn’t all love-making in Mexico. Stauffer had room service deliver bottle after bottle of vodka to Lana’s suite. Johnny wanted her to go with him to fancy restaurants and night clubs; he wanted her to back film projects with him as the star, and he wanted to marry her. She rejected every proposal.

  When she’d heard too much from him, she shouted “You’re not the kind of man a woman marries, Johnny boy, especially to a world class movie star.”

  He struck her, and she fell on the floor, where he kicked her before storming out. During their “vacation,” she got knocked around a lot. Once, he pointed a revolver at her head when she refused to have sex with him.

  In her own memoirs, Lana contradicted the report of the skipper. “I had no intimacies with Johnny in Mexico until he forced his lovemaking on me at gunpoint.”

  One night when she refused his invitation to go to a nightclub with him, he plowed his fist into her stomach, knocking her down. “I hate you!” she sobbed. Finally, he won her over, and she began to appear again in public with him.

  One Friday afternoon, when she was sailing aboard the Rosa Maria with him, her agent, Paul Kohner, placed several urgent calls to her suite from Hollywood.

  She had tried a number of agents before settling on this Austrian-American who managed top stars, at one point directing the careers of Greta Garbo and Maurice Chevalier. He signed big names, both movie stars and directors, including Marlene Dietrich, Billy Wilder, John Huston, even Ingmar Bergman.

  Among other prestigious clients that Kohner had gathered were Liv Ullman, Henry Fonda, David Niven, Dolores Del Rio, and Erich von Stroheim. Many of his clients had fled from Nazi-occupied Europe for relocation in Hollywood.

  Kohner was married to the Mexican actress, Lupita Tovar, who had starred in the Spanish-language version of Dracula (1931). He was also the brother of screen-writer Frederick Kohner. Paul’s daughter was Susan Kohner, who would be Lana’s co-star in the upcoming Imitation of Life.

  The phone was ringing when a sunburned Lana returned with Johnny from yet another day trip aboard the Rosa Maria.

  “Lana! Lana! Kohner shouted into the phone. You’ve been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for your performance in Peyton Place!”

  She couldn’t believe the news. She’d always felt she’d deserved Oscars for The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Bad and the Beautiful. But Peyton Place!

  “But Paul, I didn’t have all that much to do in that film.”

  “Obviously, the Academy disagreed with you. Aren’t you delighted?”

  “Of course I am,” she said. “But can I win? Who are the other bitches I’m up against?”

  He informed her, beginning with Joanne Woodward in Three Faces of Eve.

  “Oh shit,” Lana said. “Newman’s bitch has got it.”

  “We’ll see. She’s got to beat out, first, Lana Turner. Then Deborah Kerr in Heaven Knows, Mr. Alison; Anna Magnani in Wild Is the Wind; and Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County.”

  ***

  On her last night of her holiday in Mexico, Lana woke from a deep, vodka-induced sleep. It took a long moment for her to come to, until she realized that Johnny was sitting in an armchair near the foot of her bed, his features outlined in the moonlight streaming in. She became aware that he was pointing a gun at her head.

  She sat up in bed and screamed.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled at her. “This gun is just a reminder that you’re mine. I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to let me escort you to Oscar night, including the ball to follow.”

  “And if I don’t? she asked.

  “Then I’ll shoot you, even if I have to go to the chair for it. Better yet, after shooting you, I’ll fall down on top of you and put a bullet to my own head.”

  “You’d take your own life just for me?” She was astonished. The suspicion that he might be insane swept over her.

  “You see, Miss Turner, if I don’t have you, I have nothing. You make me somebody.”

  The picture of Cheryl greeting Lana and Johnny on the occasion of their return from Acapulco was carried in dozens of newspapers, often on the frontpage. One of the headlines read: LANA TURNER RETURNS WITH MOB FIGURE.

  On her home turf, Lana was filled with excitement about attending the 1958 Academy Awards presentation. Even Johnny behaved himself, thinking that he wa
s going to be her escort to Hollywood’s biggest night of the year.

  Back in California, Johnny was on his best behavior for a while, and she even took him out in public. They were seen dancing together at the Mocambo, dining at Chasens.

  Her rented home was not yet available, so she’d checked into a suite at the Bel Air Hotel. For appearances, Johnny stayed at his apartment on Wilshire Boulevard, although he was at Lana’s every night. “He remained glued to me,” she said.

  Finally summoning her courage, she told him he wasn’t going to be her escort. Instead, she’d invited Cheryl and Mildred to attend the Oscar presentations with her.

  For once, he controlled his fury. Instead of becoming violent, he acted like a little boy who had been deeply wounded. He sulked around her hotel suite with his hurt feelings on display. Once, in anger, he said, “I’m good enough to fuck you, to make love to you, to hold you in my arms all night, but I’m not good enough to be photographed with you walking the red carpet.”

  “It’s your own fault,” she said. “If you hadn’t been publicly linked to Mickey Cohen, it would be different.”

  On the afternoon of the premiere, she began working on her makeup and her outfit. Her designer had created a gown for her “to evoke the image of a mermaid.” It was a clinging, strapless, white lace sheath. At the knees, it flared into three tiers of lace stiffened with tulle. She also wore dazzling diamonds: Rings on her fingers, a necklace around her shapely neck, a diamond bracelet, and diamond earrings like big raindrops.

  Lana made several attempts to dump Johnny Stompanato because of his increasing violence toward her. At one point, he threatened to shoot her.

  But in public, they concealed what was going on behind the scenes.

  The big event was staged at the Art Deco Pantages Theater, the last time the ceremony would be presented there.

  She dazzled the waving, cheering fans as she walked along the red carpet. Everyone commented on her appearance and her deep Mexican suntan.

  She had been selected to present the Best Supporting Actor Award, the Oscar going to Red Buttons for his role in Sayonara (1957). He impulsively gave her a big kiss. Some observers noted that she seemed nervous and jittery. After all, this was the first time she had appeared before a live audience of fifty million people without a script.

  There was entertainment, highlighted by Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas singing, “It’s Great Not to Be Nominated” followed by that show stopping number “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” sung by “the odd couple,” Rock Hudson and Mae West.

  As she’d predicted, the Best Actress Oscar went to a Georgia-born blonde, Joanne Woodward, who had once been dubbed “Plain Jane.” In addition to her Oscar, she also had another Hollywood prize: Paul Newman.

  Peyton Place was nominated for Best Picture of the year, Mark Robson for Best Director. The movie received several other nominations, too, all of which the stars or the production crew would lose. A Best Screenplay nomination from an adapted work went to John Michael Hayes.

  In a surprise twist, both Arthur Kennedy and Russ Tamblyn were nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and both Hope Lange and Diane Varsi competed for Best Supporting Actress.

  William Mellor was nominated for Best Cinematography for his brilliant depiction of a New England rural setting, at autumn, when the leaves turn.

  After the ceremony, Lana attended a ball at the Beverly Hilton, where Sean Connery, flown in from England, sat at her table and later danced with her, holding her intimately, causing some gossip.

  Before the night ended, she also danced with men with whom she’d had flings: James Stewart, Gregory Peck, and Clark Gable, even Cary Grant, whom she’d never seduced.

  When Lana returned to her suite at the Bel Air, she put Cheryl to bed in the adjoining room. Mildred had left for her own apartment. Shutting the door to her daughter’s room, Lana walked into her darkened living room where she saw that the only light came from the glow of a cigarette being inhaled.

  She switched on the light to discover Johnny sitting in an armchair. Apparently, he’d bribed someone on the staff to admit him. He seemed anxious to have a fight with her for not taking him as her escort to the Oscar presentations.

  Biographer Jane Ellen Wayne described what happened next. “He slapped her so hard, she hit the floor. He picked her up and hit her in the face. As she was still wearing those diamond earrings, the stones cut into her cheeks. He punched her body, knocked her to the floor, picked her up, and socked her once more. He threw her on the bed as she pleaded with him to stop.”

  “I want you to promise not to go anywhere without me again.”

  “In the bathroom, she rinsed her mouth, which was full of blood. Her cheeks were bruised, and her jaw was turning purple,” Wayne wrote.

  After a sleepless night, she rose from her bed, battered and bruised. He’d left her suite after the beating, but she expected him to pop in on her at any minute. She knew of no way she could get rid of him without inviting a scandal. By now, she was convinced that he was insane, as visions of herself being beaten and mutilated crossed her mind. She also feared attacks on Cheryl and Mildred, as he had threatened.

  ***

  April 4, 1958 would live in infamy in the annals of Hollywood murders. In the case of Lana Turner, there would be sensational stories of sex, mystery, suspense, shocking revelations, and courtroom drama.

  It all began on Good Friday. The setting was 730 North Bedford Drive on Beverly Hills in a large, fully furnished, colonial-style house that had been occupied by Lana and Cheryl for only four days. It had been built by Laura Hope Crews with money she’d earned as Aunt Pittypat in Gone With the Wind.

  Dripping in diamonds, a suntanned Lana made a dazzling appearance in her “Mermaid Dress” at the 1958 Academy Awards ceremony, where she’d been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

  She not only lost the award, but faced a severe beating when she returned to her hotel suite.

  Her gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, unleashed his fury on her for not letting him escort her to the presentations. She feared he was going to disfigure her, perhaps even kill her.

  The afternoon had begun innocently enough when Lana invited her friend, Del Armstrong, over for a drink. He arrived with a newly minted friend, Bill Brooks, whom he and Lana met on the set of The Sea Chase with John Wayne.

  Their trio sat amicably together in the living room, talking. Then Johnny entered through the front door with some purchases he’d made. At the sight of Brooks, he hastily retreated into the kitchen before Lana could introduce him.

  After he was out of hearing, Brooks turned to Lana. “Who is that man? I think I know him. We went to military school together.”

  “Johnny Stompanato,” she said.

  “That’s the guy!” Brooks said. “At Kemper Military School, we were in the class of ’43.”

  “I think Johnny would have been too old to be in that class, that year. He’s forty-three.”

  “I was two years ahead of him, and I’m thirty-five. That would make him thirty-two.”

  She was shocked, as it was suddenly obvious to her that Johnny had lied about his age.

  The subject was dropped, and she spent another half-hour talking and drinking with her friends. As a parting gesture, Brooks said, “Give my regards to John. I sorry we didn’t have a chance to catch up.”

  By now, Johnny had retreated to the upstairs bedroom. When he heard the two men leave, he came downstairs, where Lana was alone with a stiff drink of vodka. She immediately turned to him, accusing him of lying to her about his age.

  He tried to defend himself. “I heard you say you never wanted to be seen going out with a younger man like a lot of dames in Hollywood. You once told me you didn’t want to be Norma Desmond supporting a gigolo, Joe Gillis.” [He was referring to the 1950 movie, Sunset Blvd., in which Gloria Swanson, as a brittle, aging, egomaniacal, and ultimately demented silent screen vamp, supports her lover, William Holden.]

  From that point on, the
events of the approaching night went downhill. He was in one of his darkest moods, seemingly ready to pick a fight. He needed $4,000, but she refused to write him a check. He stormed out of the house in anger.

  But he called at around 8PM, announcing that he was coming over to take her to see Tennessee Williams’ Baby Doll (1957), a film that Lana had missed because she was out of the country.

  She told him that she had a lot of unpacking to do, and refused the invitation. He arrived within the hour and, as she remembered it, he seemed to be “itching for a fight.” One argument led to another. She told him that she planned to dine the following night with Armstrong and Brooks. That set him off in a rage, as he obviously feared what Brooks would tell her about his days in military school.

  Lana and Stompanato on holiday in Acapulco.

  Upon their return, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Tanned of face and bleached of hair, Lana Turner flew in from Acapulco, her favorite vacation retreat. She’d been to England and Mexico with Johnny Stompanato, one-time bodyguard to gangster Mickey Cohen.”

  “You were going to go off with those guys without me?” he accused her. At this point, he was shouting, and she asked him to keep his voice down. Cheryl was in her bedroom upstairs, watching television.

  She headed upstairs to her own bedroom, and he followed close behind her, still haranguing her. Her own rage had been building for months, and now she was on the verge of exploding. Any love or a longing for intimacy with him had faded.

  When he announced that in the future, she was to make no more plans without him, she, too, was ready for a fight. He was still shouting, even demanding, that she drop Armstrong, never to see him again.

  Finally, she could take him no more. Nor could she tolerate his demands.

  “You’ve become a god damn lush!” he shouted. “You do nothing but break promises to me!”

  Her face was contorted as he’d never seen it before, as she turned all her fury onto him. “I want you right this minute to get the fuck out of my house—never come back! I don’t want to ever see you again as long as I live.”