Lana Turner Mysteries & Scandals Documentary
Lana Turner Mysteries & Scandals Documentary
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00:00Lana Turner. She was one of the most glamorous stars of the 40s and 50s, and her performances
00:09in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Imitation of Life, and The Bad and the Beautiful have
00:14forever guaranteed her a place in film history. But like so many others celebrated on this
00:19walk of fame, Lana watched her Hollywood dream turn into a personal nightmare of scandal
00:24and tragedy. On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll take a look back to that
00:28shocking night in 1958 when Lana, her real-life mobster boyfriend, and her frightened daughter
00:34all made headlines with one of Hollywood's most notorious crimes of passion. We'll talk
00:39with an eyewitness to the crime. They're on the floor with Stampanato, dead, with a hole
00:45in them and you could see daylight through it. And we'll also hear from the scandal's
00:48major player, Lana's daughter, Cheryl Crane. It's been a part of my life ever since it
00:54We'll relive the events from news footage.
00:56I still never saw a blade. Mr. Stampanato grabbed himself, here.
01:05As well as never-before-seen photographs and reenactments.
01:15I'm A.J. Benza. Join me now for a stroll down the flip side of the walk of fame.
01:24MGM star Lana Turner died here in her 12-room Los Angeles condominium on June 30, 1995,
01:53after a four-year bout with throat cancer. She was 75. According to her wishes, the memorial
01:59for Lana Turner was very private and very quiet, exactly the opposite of how she lived
02:04her life. The press coverage following Turner's death spoke of her as show-business royalty
02:10and noted that her passing brought an end to Hollywood's golden age. And like so many
02:15stars of that era, Turner's life had more scandal, melodrama, passion, and tragedy than
02:23any character she ever played in her 50-plus films. It began in her childhood and continued
02:29up until she was front-page news for the murder of the 50s. The star herself described her
02:35life as a series of emergencies. And Turner biographer Edward Epstein agrees.
02:40Lana led the kind of life that the writers of Melrose Place struggled to create. Lana
02:47lived her life the way she wanted to. She dated who she wanted to. She called a lot
02:52of the shots. Lana Turner's life was most certainly a series of emergencies, beginning
02:58with the death of her father when she was only nine years old. Her father was a very
03:02dramatic guy. He had been a gambler. He met a violent death. Lana was old enough to understand
03:09that she was nine or ten years old. People liked to write that she was searching for
03:13her father for the rest of her life. She vehemently denied it.
03:18Legendary Hollywood journalist Jim Bacon has a different take on Lana's early childhood.
03:22I think the death of her father had a very traumatic effect on her. And I think it affected
03:28her all her life and probably caused her drinking. I hate to use the word boozer, but that's
03:35what she was. She could really knock it down. I remember once she and I were going to a
03:40party, a cocktail party, and in the back seat of the limousine, she took out a flask
03:48and had a few shots. I says, Lana, we're going to a cocktail party. We'll be there in ten
03:53minutes. She says, yeah, but it's ten minutes. So she could really put it away.
03:59Imagine that, a gorgeous star with a possible drinking problem. I'll be damned. You know,
04:05whatever effect the death of Lana's father had on her, no one can deny that she did have
04:09a knack for picking the wrong men, especially a thug named John Stampanato. But let's not
04:14get ahead of ourselves. Before there was scandal, there was the real-life Cinderella story in
04:18which Turner had the starring role. One day, she was a great-looking student at Hollywood
04:26High School, and the next, she was the stuff that dreams are made of. Writer Willie Wilkerson
04:32explains. The fact that Lana Turner was discovered in a little soda fountain is absolutely true.
04:38The myth, though, that she was discovered at Schwab's is absolutely incorrect. Let me
04:43tell you the true story. My father was Billy Wilkerson, the publisher of The Hollywood
04:46Reporter. And on a very hot January day in 1937, he walked down to the corner to a little
04:54place called the Top Hat Cafe. He sat down at the counter, was sipping a Coke, and noticed
04:59this incredibly beautiful young lady. And he called the proprietor of the Top Hat over
05:07and said that he would like to meet this young lady. And the proprietor said, sure,
05:12I'll effect an introduction. That's exactly what happened. My father introduced himself
05:17to the young lady and said, how would you like to be in motion pictures? And her reply
05:23was, after a pause, gee, I don't know. I'd have to ask my mother. And the rest, as they
05:28say, is history. And that history included a headline-grabbing scandal that rocked Hollywood
05:34at the peak of Lana's career. But for many, the question still remains, who really was
05:38holding the knife that killed Lana's underworld Adonis on the night of April 4, 1958? Was
05:44it the star herself or her frightened 14-year-old daughter? And why were there no fingerprints
05:50on the knife? More on the bloodbath on Bedford Drive when Mysteries and Scandals returns.
06:04If there's one image of Lana Turner that remains, it's her star-making performance
06:19in the 1946 film noir classic, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Turner perfectly captured
06:26the qualities of the icy-cool, hot-blooded seductress capable of cold-blooded murder.
06:32In 1958, that screen image would spill into Lana's real life following the stabbing death
06:36of her lover. For years, Lana had laughed off press reports of her scandalous behavior
06:41with men. And then she learned you can't laugh off murder. His name was John Stompanato,
06:48a name that became famous only in death.
06:52Johnny Stompanato I first knew when he was in Mickey Cohen's gang. Mickey Cohen was the
06:58head mobster in California. And Johnny Stompanato, who had been a combat marine in World War
07:05II, when a gambler didn't pay his debt, Stompanato went out and beat him up. And he did it quite
07:12often. And then he kind of retired from Mickey Cohen's mob and he became a, what you might
07:21say, a resident stud in Beverly Hills. In other words, preying on wealthy widows and
07:28divorcees. Lana, of course, was between marriages. And Stompanato was a handsome guy and a very,
07:37very virile guy. And she was attracted to him.
07:41But there was another side to Virile Johnny, the dangerous side. Lana's longtime makeup
07:46artist, Del Armstrong, was an eyewitness.
07:49We didn't know at that time that she was his assignment from the Mafia to romance Lana
07:59Turner, marry her, and she could make him a producer. He became violent with Lana Turner
08:06when she tried to... See, her attention span with men was very short. That's why she had
08:11seven husbands and 70 boyfriends or something like that. Because once she had him, that's
08:17yesterday's mashed potato, you can wrap a fish in it. That's what happened with Johnny.
08:22And one night she said, well, thank you very much, but we're through, go home. Well, he
08:31realized he couldn't go home and face his bosses. And he got very violent. He really
08:40worked her over pretty good, smacked her around, knocked her down, put a pillow over her face.
08:46He was going to smother her.
08:48That particular incident happened early in 1958 when Lana was in England co-starring
08:52with a then unknown actor named Sean Connery in Another Time, Another Place.
08:58Stompanato beat her up in a hotel room and Connery threatened to wipe out Stompanato
09:07and he probably could have done it. And the London police, believe it or not, expelled
09:15Stompanato from the country, made him go back to Hollywood.
09:19Took about three months to finish the picture. She goes to Acapulco after every vector. She
09:27goes down to the beach and the sun warms up. She flies to Copenhagen, changes planes, and
09:35she's walking down to the first class section, of course. There's two seats. Who's sitting
09:43in the seat with Johnny Stompanato? Now, you talk about gangsters and people like that
09:51knowing and finding out. How did they know that she was going to take that flight?
09:59To the press, they looked like lovebirds on vacation. But in her autobiography, Lana,
10:04she painted a much different picture of their time in Mexico. Lana wrote that Stompanato
10:09often pointed a gun at her saying, just to remind you that it's loaded and it's aimed
10:14at you. It's on vacation.
10:18Lana's stay in Mexico ended when her agent, Paul Conner, phoned with news that Lana had
10:22received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Lana and Johnny returned to Los Angeles
10:28so she could prepare for the ceremonies. It was to be Stompanato's final flight. They
10:34were greeted at the airport by the third and final character in Hollywood's great scandal,
10:39Lana's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl. From the very day Cheryl Christine Crane was born
10:44on July 25, 1943, Lana and her only child had a troubled relationship.
10:49She did have a tough time with Cheryl. To give birth, she labored for 16 to 17 hours
10:57I think she loved her daughter. I think that there had been nothing in her life to prepare
11:03her for being what outsiders would consider a great mother. I think she did the best she
11:08could.
11:10Like so many other children of the rich and famous, Cheryl was raised by nannies and educated
11:14at boarding schools. But she was frequently trotted out for photo ops to enhance Lana's
11:19image.
11:20We found there were many misconceptions we had about each other, misunderstandings. We
11:25had never talked out. As I started doing the book, I started talking to her for the
11:32first time in my life.
11:33That book was Cheryl's 1988 biography, Detour, A Hollywood Story. During promotional interviews,
11:40Crane talked about the most difficult part of writing about her infamous childhood.
11:45When you're writing a book, you can't just say, well, this happened and that happened.
11:51You have to paint the picture for the reader, so that meant I had to remember details of
12:00very, very painful things that I really didn't want to remember.
12:06And the most painful incident occurred in April of 1958 in a scandal that would inspire
12:10headlines of murder, jealousy, revenge, and passion that have forever become part of Hollywood's
12:16darkest legacy and made the movie star's daughter a household name.
12:21But what really happened on that stormy Good Friday night in Turner's bedroom? Did a frightened,
12:26abused star take matters into her own hands, or did a terrified daughter commit a desperate
12:31act to save her mother?
12:33The truth from the people who were there when Mysteries and Scandals continues.
12:38So I went up and she said, close the door. And she apparently saw in me the one person
12:46that she could talk to.
13:07That was then. This is now. You're watching Mysteries and Scandals. I'm A.J. Benzo.
13:12The Academy Awards ceremony in March of 1958 here at the Pantages Theater marked the high
13:17point of Lana Turner's career. It also set the stage for the murder of Johnny Stampanato.
13:23Reporter Jim Bacon explains.
13:25She just couldn't be seen with Stampanato in public. She took her press agent, a fellow
13:30by the name of Glenn Rose. She was wise enough to realize that it would be a big public relations
13:38mistake on her part to take Johnny Stampanato to the Academy Awards. And she asked if I
13:47would take her. And obviously he was very infuriated over that. He told her, he said,
13:54I'm okay in the bedroom, but I'm not okay at the Oscars. And Lana told me at the time
14:02that she'd been in a rage for a week ever since that snubbing.
14:08In the bedroom of Lana Turner's newly rented home, Stampanato's rage reached a violent
14:12pitch on a rainy April night.
14:15I had a photographer who had a police radio in his car. And he called me up and he said,
14:22there's been a murder at such and such an address in Beverly Hills. This was, I'll never
14:28forget, it was Good Friday in 1958. And as soon as he gave me the address, I knew right
14:35away Stampanato and Lana were shacked up there.
14:39She said she came upstairs and he was still hanging up his clothes. And she said, out.
14:49Yeah, rude. She was kicking him out again. And this time it was final.
14:55She said Stampanato had threatened to cut her face up. He says, if you were a man, I
15:02would cut your hands off, but you make your living by your face. So I'm going to cut your
15:07face up so you won't be able to work again.
15:10Now Cheryl was in a bedroom just down the hall, in her own bedroom. So she was afraid
15:17for Lana's safety.
15:18Cheryl went out the kitchen, got a butcher knife. Just when Stampanato was going to maybe
15:23cut up Lana or beat her up badly, Cheryl come out with his knife and Stampanato was in a
15:29rage and he turned around and he ran right into the knife. The butcher knife went right
15:34through him. You could almost see the carpet through him. There was very, very little blood,
15:46if any. But he was dead, boy, he was really dead.
15:51The story of what happened immediately after the stabbing of Stampanato goes like this.
15:56Cheryl called her father Stephen Crane. Lana called her mother and she called a doctor.
16:01The doctor, unable to revive Stampanato, suggested Lana call herself a really good lawyer. They
16:07were all there before anybody called the police. And still the rumors spread quicker than a
16:12brush fire in the Santa Ana winds. Was it really possible that a 14-year-old girl could
16:17kill the macho mobster? When Mysteries and Scandals returns, answers to the questions
16:22that won't go away.
16:33A movie star, a murdered mobster, and a knife-wielding teenager. The perfect cast for a scandal,
16:39Hollywood style. Welcome back to Mysteries and Scandals. I'm A.J. Benza. Where were we?
16:44Oh, that's right. A dead body in the boudoir of glamorous film star Lana Turner. The police
16:50arrived and arrested Lana's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane. She was charged with the murder
16:55of Johnny Stampanato. The weapon, an eight-inch knife, was found in Turner's bathroom, but
17:01there were no fingerprints. After a week in juvenile hall, a hearing was held. Because
17:06of her age, Cheryl never testified, but her mother did. And everyone agreed it was the
17:12key role of Lana Turner's lifetime.
17:27The jury bought Turner's Oscar-worthy performance, and after just 25 minutes, they ruled that
17:31the murder of Johnny Stampanato was justifiable homicide. And those who were there that night
17:37agreed with the jury.
17:39It's one of the real reasons why I frankly agreed to do this interview, was to try to
17:43straighten out that story. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it was Cheryl that
17:50did it. And I know the rumor's been rampant for years that Cheryl was taking the rap for
17:59Lana. And that's not true. Lana did not do it. That I know.
18:06But I believe the story, because it was too soon to make up a story and tell it in such
18:13detail to me, of exactly how it all happened and what happened.
18:20Even to this day, people believe that Lana killed him, not Cheryl. But I was there that
18:27night with Lana, and the truth was that Cheryl had done it, just exactly as I described it.
18:34A happy ending to an unhappy story? Not exactly. Cheryl had been cleared of criminal charges,
18:40but her fate remained in the hands of a juvenile court judge. He awarded custody of Cheryl
18:45to her grandmother.
18:47Lana's mother, Millie, was given physical custody of Cheryl for a point. But Lana had
18:53full visitation rights, and Cheryl was never taken away from Lana.
18:58The road for Cheryl was a rough one. The bumps included reform school, drugs, alcohol, arrests,
19:04and finally a year-long stay in an institution. And every shrink or counselor who talked with
19:09Cheryl agreed that her problems stemmed from that bloody night in April.
19:14For years, I thought of it as my only identity. You know, it was like you would say my name,
19:20Cheryl Crane, and immediately everybody would go, oh yes, who in 1958? It's been a part
19:26of my life ever since it happened. But I've also, let's say, grown up over the years,
19:35made a life of my own, had business successes, formed my own identity, learned who I was,
19:42that that wasn't my only claim to fame.
19:46And Lana got on with her life as well. There were more movies, more men, and more melodrama.
19:51But hey, isn't that what we all want from our icons? So sure, maybe she wasn't the best
19:56mother or the most considerate friend or even the most faithful wife, but she was a
20:01great film star.
20:03Well in her prime, I've always maintained that Lana Turner was the star.