IconFidential: Hollywood Hearts and Deadly Obsessions - The Lana Turner Story

Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Turner on 8 February 1921, to Mildred and John Virgil Turner, often called Virgil. Lana’s mother met Virgil when she was 14 and he was 24. When Mildred was 15, Virgil asked her to marry him. Her parents objected, so Virgil and Mildred eloped and moved to Idaho where few questions would be asked about her age. Mildred Turner was 16 years old, just four days shy of her 17th birthday, when she gave birth to Lana.

Lana Turner endured a childhood shaped by severe financial instability and sudden tragedy. When Lana was 6, she and her family moved to San Francisco, California, as her father searched for steady work. During this time, her parents separated.

Due to financial strain, Mildred would send Lana to live with different families and pay them, while she worked as a beautician and attempted to save money. She would visit her daughter weekly. Virgil visited Lana as well, but not as frequently, but he did provide for his daughter. During one visit, he asked Lana what she wanted him to bring her for his next visit. She told him a bicycle. Bicycles were expensive back in the day and during the time of her request, the country was at the beginning of the great depression. Virgil was an avid gambler; in fact, it is said that this is most likely what contributed to the break up of his marriage. Virgil vowed to buy Lana the bike. On 14 December 1930, he went to a San Francisco gambling shack, where he won a significant amount of money. After collecting his winnings, he placed the money in his sock. It was said with the money he won; he could have bought the bike and had a lot of money left over. However, when he was leaving the gambling shack, he was attacked and bludgeoned to death. He was found in an alley, with one sock missing and his shoe was found next to his body. His murder was never solved. Lana was 9 years old.

Around the time of Virgil’s death, Lana lived with the Hislop family in Stockton, California. There, she was treated as a household servant and physically abused, with hints that she may have suffered other forms of abuse as well. I know that y’all know what I am talking about. One day, the family matriarch, Julia Hislop, beat Lana with kindling wood over an unfinished chore. During one of Mildred’s visits, she took Lana to a clothing store, where she discovered black and blue bruises all over Lana’s body, including her behind. Lana tried to hide the bruising, due to fear and threats from Julia.  Mildred immediately removed her daughter from that house and kept her daughter in her custody from then on.

By 1936, Lana and her mother had relocated to Los Angeles, where she was enrolled as a student at Hollywood High School. Her life changed forever in early 1937 at age 16, when she skipped a typing class to grab a soda at the Top Hat Malt Shop across the street from her school. While sitting at the counter, she was spotted by William Wilkerson, the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, who was struck by her striking visual presence and charm. Wilkerson handed her his card and connected her with top talent agents, setting off the whirlwind studio deal that transformed an ordinary high schooler into an iconic Hollywood star.

In 1937, Lana made her film debut in a film Turner  "They Won't Forget," which was a crime drama in which she played a teenage unalived victim. Though Turner only appeared on screen for a few minutes, Wilkerson wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that her performance was "worthy of more than a passing note" The film earned her the nickname of the "Sweater Girl" because of the form-fitting sweater she wore in the movie and her bouncy walk. Turner always resented the moniker, and upon seeing a sneak preview of the film, she recalled being profoundly embarrassed. 

By the end of 1940, 19-year-old Lana Turner had appeared in 14 films, rapidly building momentum after her breakout role in They Won't Forget. Her private life quickly matched the drama of her on-screen roles when on February 13, 1940, she famously eloped to Las Vegas with 28-year-old big-band leader Artie Shaw—her co-star from the previous year's Dancing Co-Ed—after just a single date. Though the tumultuous marriage lasted only seven months before ending in divorce, it marked the beginning of a colorful romantic life that would eventually include eight marriages to seven different husbands and supposedly tens of lovers. Her career reached its peak in 1946 when she starred as the lethal femme fatale Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The iconic performance cemented her status as MGM's premier dramatic lead and one of Hollywood's most bankable stars; over the course of her lifetime, her films generated more than $50 million at the box office—the equivalent of well over 1 billion dollars today.

By the end of 1940, 19-year-old Lana Turner had appeared in 14 films, rapidly building momentum after her breakout role in They Won't Forget. Her private life quickly matched the drama of her on-screen roles when on February 13, 1940, she famously eloped to Las Vegas with 28-year-old big-band leader Artie Shaw—her co-star from the previous year's Dancing Co-Ed—after just a single date. Though the tumultuous marriage lasted only seven months before ending in divorce, it marked the beginning of a colorful romantic life that would eventually include eight marriages to seven different husbands and supposedly tens of lovers. Her career reached its peak in 1946 when she starred as the lethal femme fatale Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The iconic performance cemented her status as MGM's premier dramatic lead and one of Hollywood's most bankable stars; over the course of her lifetime, her films generated more than $50 million at the box office—the equivalent of well over 1 billion dollars today.

It is said that money doesn’t buy happiness and Lana Turner’s real life was far darker and more tragic than her Hollywood image. Studios like MGM strictly enforced "morality clauses," forcing starlets into pregnancy terminations to protect box-office appeal. While under contract at MGM, she was forced to undergo two studio-mandated pregnancy terminations to preserve her bankable image as a young starlet. Combined with severe Rh-factor blood complications that led to multiple angel losses, and pregnancy loss.

The immense public pressure, abusive relationships, and personal loss took a severe toll on her mental health, leading her to attempts to unalive herself on at least two occasions. Strikingly, this pattern of deep despair extended to her immediate family: her second husband, Stephen Crane, survived a self unaliving during their volatile marriage in 1944, and their daughter, Cheryl Crane, also endured severe mental health crises and attempted self-harm following years of childhood trauma and intense media scrutiny after Stompanato’s unaliving.