[194] Fearing that her mother's life was in danger, Cheryl who had been watching television in an adjacent room grabbed a kitchen knife and ran to Turner's defense. [127], Turner's next film was the romantic drama Cass Timberlane, in which she played a young woman in love with an older judge, a role for which Jennifer Jones, Vivien Leigh and Virginia Grey had also been considered. [219] She portrayed a struggling stage actress who makes personal sacrifices to further her career. There is some discrepancy as to whether her birthdate was February 8, 1920 or 1921. [273][274] Critic Elaine Matas noted of a 1977 performance that Turner was "brilliant" and "the bright spot in an otherwise mediocre play". [238] Turner moved in with him on his ranch in Chino, California, where the two took care of horses and other animals. When Frank Sinatra saw the film The Postman Always Rings Twice, his eyes were on stalks. [281] In 1980, Turner made her final feature-film appearance alongside Teri Garr in the comedy horror film Witches' Brew. Turner suffered through many personal tragedies and failed marriages in her quest to find happiness. She was married a staggering eight times though it was only to seven different men. [307] Film historian Jeanine Basinger notes that she "represented the girl who'd rather sit on the diving board to show off her figure than get wet in the water the girl who'd rather kiss than kibbitz". She is far more deadly because she lets her audience relax. "[4] Critic Leonard Maltin noted in 2005 that Turner "came to crystallize the opulent heights to which show business could usher a small-town girl, as well as its darkest, most tragic and narcissistic depths". Real estate agents rarely appear in the fashion pages of glossy magazines, but Lana Turner has never been much interested in doing what's expected of her. [87][88] James Agee of Time magazine was critical of co-star Robert Taylor's performance and noted: "Turner is similarly handicapped: Metro has swathed her best assets in a toga, swears that she shall become an actress, or else. Lana Turner. [214] The scandal also coincided with the release of Another Time, Another Place, and the film was met with poor box-office receipts and a lackluster critical response. I'll work for nothing, just give me a good story. [28] They also frequently moved, for a time living in Sacramento and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Under these adverse circumstances, stars Taylor and Turner are working under wraps. [268] Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times wrote that the film served "as a reminder that Miss Turner was never one of our subtler actresses". [83] In January 1942, she began shooting her second picture with Gable, titled Somewhere I'll Find You;[84] however, the production was halted for several weeks after the death of Gable's wife, Carole Lombard, in a plane crash. [256] According to Turner, Pellar (also known as Ronald Dante or Dr. Dante)[257] falsely claimed to have been raised in Singapore and to have a Ph.D. in psychology. [162] In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote of Betrayed: "By the time this picture gets around to figuring out whether the betrayer is Miss Turner or Mr. "[102], Turner returned to feature films with a lead role in the 1974 British horror film Persecution, in which she played a disturbed wealthy woman tormenting her son. [20] As a child, Turner was known to family and friends as Judy. [265] Variety noted of her performance: "Under the circumstances, Turner's performance as Carrie, the perverted dame of the English manor, has reasonable poise. "[249] Kaspar Monahan of the Pittsburgh Press lauded her performance, writing: "Her performance, I think, is far and away her very best, even rating Oscar consideration in next year's Academy Award race, unless the culture snobs gang up against her. [147] On May 24, 1950, Turner left her handprints and footprints in cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. And Cheryl Crane can do her mother Lana Turner . [54] The same year, she was loaned to United Artists for a minor role as a maid in The Adventures of Marco Polo. [307], By the 1950s, both critics and audiences began noting parallels between Turner's rocky personal life and the roles she played. Some of her notable movies are Johnny Eager, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Postman Always Rings Twice. In the mid-1940s, she was one of the highest-paid actresses in the United States, and one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . [167] Variety deemed the film "a big-scale spectacleEnd result of all this flamboyant polish, however, is only fair entertainment. Some sources claim Turner's birth name to be Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner. [137][138] Turner's wedding celebrations interfered with her filming schedule for The Three Musketeers, and she arrived to the set three days late. VintageousClassic. Turner on her representation in press[305], When Turner was discovered, MGM executive Mervyn LeRoy envisioned her as a replacement for the recently deceased Jean Harlow and began developing her image as a sex symbol. [113] She was then cast as the female lead in Week-End at the Waldorf, a loose remake of Grand Hotel (1932) in which she portrayed a stenographer (a role originated by Joan Crawford). [14][15] She was the only child of John Virgil Turner, a miner from Montgomery, Alabama, of Dutch descent, and Mildred Frances Cowan from Lamar, Arkansas, who had English, Scottish and Irish ancestry. Specialties. "Joan Rivers interviews Lana Turner". [198] To avoid further confrontation, Turner and her makeup artist, Del Armstrong, called Scotland Yard in order to have Stompanato deported. Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM/Metro-Golden-Mayer at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in "They wont forget" (1937). [212] Despite this, Cheryl ran away from home multiple times and the press wrote about her rebelliousness. Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Turner on February 8, 1921, at Providence Hospital in the small mining town of Wallace, Idaho, in the Idaho Panhandle region. [92] During the tour, she began promising kisses to the highest war bond buyers; while selling bonds at the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, she sold a $5,000 bond to a man for two kisses,[93] and another to an elderly man for $50,000. Her hands were trembling so she could barely read the script. In an interview, Turner said: "I even go running around in the jungles of New Zealand in a dress that's filthy and ragged. [35][36][e] One version of the story erroneously has her discovery occurring at Schwab's Pharmacy,[39] which Turner claimed was the result of a reporting error that began circulating in articles published by columnist Sidney Skolsky. [132] Homecoming was well received by audiences, and Turner and Gable were nicknamed "the team that generates steam". [240] Upon completing filming, Turner collected the remaining $92,000 from her pension fund with MGM. He was a United States Marine who became a bodyguard and enforcer for gangster Mickey Cohen and the Cohen crime family. She really loved being a moviestar. [75] The film's high box-office returns elevated Turner's profitability, and MGM gave her a weekly salary raise to $1,500 as well as a personal makeup artist and trailer ($29,013 in 2021 dollars [43]). Lana Turner donned the same combination in Imitation of Life, one of the first movies to make a serious attempt at the "commercial tie-in." Jeweler Laykin et Cie supplied the jewelry Turner wore in the 1959 film, hoping to cash in on her glamorous reputation and the film's box-office success. [133] By this period, Turner was at the zenith of her film career, and was not only MGM's most popular star, but also one of the ten highest-paid women in the United States, with annual earnings of $226,000. [135][136] Around this time, she began dating Henry J. Just click the links for more info, photos and videos. $525.00 + $10.00 shipping + $10.00 shipping + $10.00 shipping. So what happened? Lana has always acted hastily and been guided more by her own ideas than by any advance any studio gave her. She was the only child of John Virgil Turner, a miner from Mt. [204] Stompanato, angered that he did not attend with her, awaited her return home that evening, whereupon he physically assaulted her. [144] After the release of The Three Musketeers, Turner discovered she was pregnant; in early 1949, she went into premature labor and gave birth to a stillborn baby boy in New York City. [78] MGM had initially cast Turner in the lead, but Tracy specifically requested Bergman for the part. [300][301], Cheryl and her partner Joyce LeRoy, whom Turner said she accepted "as a second daughter",[302] inherited some of Turner's personal effects and $50,000 in Turner's will. [234] Instead, Turner took a lead role as a disturbed socialite in the film noir Portrait in Black (1960) opposite Anthony Quinn and Sandra Dee, which was a box-office success despite bad reviews. . [148], In response to the poor reception for A Life of Her Own, MGM attempted to rebrand Turner by casting her in musicals. [255] Weeks later, on May 9, 1969, she married Ronald Pellar, a nightclub hypnotist whom she had met at a Los Angeles disco. She is remembered as an American calendar pin-up model and film actress with a 50-year career. [105][106], Meanwhile, publicity over Turner's remarriage to Crane led MGM to play up her image as a sex symbol in Slightly Dangerous (1943), with Robert Young, Walter Brennan and Dame May Whitty, in which she portrayed a woman who moves to New York City and poses as the long-lost daughter of a millionaire. [119] Life magazine named the film its "Movie of the Week" in April 1946, and noted that both Turner and Garfield were "aptly cast" and "take over the screen, [creating] more fireworks than the Fourth of July". [72][73] Ziegfeld Girl marked a personal and professional shift for Turner; she claimed it as the first role that got her "interested in acting",[74] and the studio, impressed by her performance, marketed the film as featuring her in "the best role of the biggest picture to be released by the industry's biggest company". [223], Released in the spring of 1959, Imitation of Life was among the year's biggest successes, and the biggest of Turner's career; by opting to receive 50% of the film's earnings rather than receiving a salary, she earned more than two million dollars. Hollywood actress Lana Turner in a dress with bodice top and transparent sleeves. [258], With few film offers coming in, Turner signed on to appear in the television series Harold Robbins' The Survivors. This, Lana Turner later recalled, was how her career began. [282][283] On October 25, 1981, the National Film Society presented Turner with an Artistry in Cinema award. There was something smoldering underneath that innocent face. [125][33] During this time, she also had romantic affairs with Frank Sinatra[126] and Howard Hughes, the latter of which lasted for 12 weeks in late 1946. She is the most glamorous actress since Jean Harlow. Not so Lana. [55] Instead, she was assigned opposite teen idol Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in the Andy Hardy film Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). She also struggled for a long period with alcoholism and smoking, both of which led to the throat cancer that would take her life. [154] She was saved by her business manager, Benton Cole, who broke down the bathroom door and called emergency medical services. [77], Following the success of Ziegfeld Girl, Turner took a supporting role as an ingnue in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), a Freudian-influenced horror film, opposite Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman. "[89], At the advent of US involvement in World War II, Turner's increasing prominence in Hollywood led to her becoming a popular pin-up girl,[90] and her image appeared painted on the noses of U.S. fighter planes, bearing the nickname "Tempest Turner". [165][166] She was reluctant to appear in the film because of the character's scanty, "atrocious" costumes and "stupid" lines, and during the shoot struggled to get along with co-star Edmund Purdom, whom she later described as "a young man with a remarkably high opinion of himself". [183] Released in December 1957, Peyton Place was a major blockbuster success, which worked in Turner's favor as she had agreed to take a percentage of the film's overall earnings instead of a salary. "That, and a sense of loss and of growing up too fast. [170], MGM then gave Turner the titular role of Diane de Poitiers in the period drama Diane (1956), which had originally been optioned by the studio in the 1930s for Greta Garbo. 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