Lana Turner   1921 – 1995…                     ….little girl lost

Arabella's Notes

They Won’t Forget  (1937)      Directed by Mervyn LeRoy MGM                   B/W

"The Sweater Girl"

This was Lana’s first important role. She wore a form-fitting sweater over a silk lined bra for “the natural look” and a tight skirt and when she walked down the street of that little Southern town, wolf whistles filled the theaters. In fact, Lana and her mother were so embarrassed when they watched it, they couldn’t wait to get out of the building.

But the cast was stellar and the script thrilling enough that the film holds up even today. Lana plays Mary Clay, a teenage murder victim. Claude Rains was the ambitious DA looking to score on a big case and Edward Norris was the “damn Yankee” teacher indicted for Mary’s murder. Of course, I won’t let the cat out of the bag and reveal the ending.

This was one of the series best with Andy involved with two girls, neither of them Polly. Judy Garland is Betsy Booth and Lana plays Cynthia, a schoolgirl who is dynamite in a bathing suit but never gets her hair wet. When she kissed Andy....well! He had to go to his father and ask dear dad how to keep cool under fire!

This was the perfect movie to show off an up-and-coming starlet. Mickey was the star but audiences loved to see his latest crush.

Two Girls on Broadway  (1940)   Directed by S. Sylvan Simon MGM                B/W

Lana with Joan Blondell

This was a remake of the first musical to ever get a Best Picture Oscar…”The Broadway Melody” in 1929.  Lana and Joan Blondell are stage-struck gals looking for luck on the Great White Way. This seemed to be a pattern for musicals in that era. Hoofer George Murphy and Kent Taylor are among those who also lend their talents.

Lana is now blonde and already starting to raise eyebrows. She had her hair bleached for a film she never appeared in…..”Idiot’s Delight” with Clark Gable.. The studio claims she was dropped out of the picture for minor surgery to “repair a botched appendectomy when she was 14”. But was it? Some say she was the chorus girl fired from the film because Carole Lombard suspected her of coming on to Gable. True or not, Lana was on Carole’s blacklist.

Ziegfeld Girl  (1941) Directed by Robert Z. Leonard MGM            B/W

The Ziegfeld Girl

When Lana understood a role she was great in it…and she really understood “Flatbush” the girl from the other side of the tracks unable to handle sudden fame. This is a film studded with stars….Jimmy Stewart as the guy who loved her, Judy Garland, sexy Hedy Lamarr, Jackie Cooper, Tony Martin, Eve Arden and Charles Winninger. And all of them are at the mercy of Edward Everett Horton. But it was Lana who stole the show.

The New York Times said “It is the perilously lovely Miss Turner who gets this department’s bouquet for a surprisingly solid performance as the little girl from Brooklyn”

Honky Tonk  (1941)  Directed by Jack Conway MGM           B/W

Lana and Gable for the first time

This was the first time Lana had a really big star as her leading man. Clark Gable fought for the role of “Candy” Johnson but that was nothing compared to the fight Carole Lombard put up trying to keep Lana off the film. They had to set up a red alert every time Carole was spotted entering the gates. She literally gave Lana the shakes! But Clark and Lana were so hot on the screen it was a wonder nothing caught fire.

Claire Trevor, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills and irascible Frank Morgan also blessed this film with their talents. But the tagline read….”A Romantic Dream Come True. Gable! Turner! Together they give life a new lease on love!” Now does that sound like a Western to you?

Johnny Eager (1942)    Directed by Mervyn LeRoy MGM                 B/W

Lana and Robert Taylor

Sociology student meets tall, dark and slick crook….a melodrama with guts. Lana and Robert Taylor played the leads but Van Heflin stole the picture as Johnny’s alcoholic pal. He was rewarded with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. But Taylor and Turner were no slouches either.

On the home front things sizzled, too. Lana had suddenly become  such an obsession with Taylor that he asked wife Barbara Stanwyck for a divorce. They separated but Babs pulled the
attempted suicide ploy and Robert went running back. Barbara never spoke to Lana again. However, the rumors about Lana’s strange hold over men was making the rounds and the wives of Tinseltown began to circle the wagons.

Audiences were clamoring for more of Clark Gable and Lana Turner so the studio paired them up again. However, critics panned this casting because they felt the duo didn’t come across as war correspondents. However, the box office didn’t reflect their views.

Off the set there were tragic consequences when Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash. She had left for a bond tour by train but rumors persist that she took the faster route back because she didn’t trust Lana around Clark. Her brothers never forgave Gable. MGM wanted to scratch the film but Gable returned to the set and work went on as usual. He had Lana over for dinner once but never discussed the tragedy.

Marriage is a Private Affair  (1944)  Directed by Robert Z. Leonard MGM  B/W

Going over the script with John Hodiak

Lana played Theo Scofield West who wanted to play while hubby was away. Critics called the movie a “disaster” but the New York Times wrote that it proved once again that “Lana Turner was a lovely, appealing little thing and that mankind was fashioned primarily to make her happy and supreme”. They must have been all men!

Just before starting this film, Lana broke up with Stephen Crane. The lady found out hubby wasn’t really a tobacco heir with a plantation mansion. His family lived in a two-story house sadly in need of repair and the only tobacco industry in the family was a poolroom-cigar store. Lana may have been gorgeous….but she was also very gullible.

James Cain wrote the best-selling novel, Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch did the screenplay…..but it was Garfield and Turner that set it on fire. This was possibly Lana’s most memorable film.

Lana plays Cora, alluring, sensual….and married. Garfield plays the dark, moody drifter who fall in love with her. Hubby is played by Cecil Kellaway. Director Garnett said the chemistry between his stars fairly sizzled. Lana wore white through most of the film with the exception of one all-black number. With her platinum hair, the contrast was awesome.

Green Dolphin Street  (1947)  Directed by Victor Saville MGM                B/W

Lana with Richard Hart

Two sisters in love with the same man and a bit of a mix-up in the mail creates the story for this period piece complete with an earthquake and tidal wave in New Zealand. The film won an Oscar that year for Special Effects.

Lana was having a very intense romance with Tyrone Power at the time and he was on the set frequently. To make her home a more intimate place for them, she called her attorney Greg Bautzer to sell her house and buy two separate houses for her and her mother while she was on vacation. Mildred was settled in an apartment not too close to where Lana would now reside. The relationship between Lana and Tyrone lasted two years.

The Merry Widow (1952)  Directed by Curtis Reinhardt MGM             Color

"Lana" and Fernando Lamas get steamy

This was not Lana’s finest hour. Her last film “Mr. Imperium” with Ezio Pinza was a colossal flop and she had just announced her coming divorce action against Bob Topping. The studio cast her opposite their new Latin lover, handsome Fernando Lamas in this remake of Franz Lehar’s operetta even though Lana couldn’t sing a note (her voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin). However, her co-star had a fine baritone voice and did all his own vocals.

Lana was forced to wear gloves and wide bracelets or carry furs to hide her bandaged wrists from a recent suicide attempt. But she was soon in good spirits again because her Latin lover on screen had actually become her lover off the set. Her problem with this romance was Fernando’s jealousy and fiery temper.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1953)  Directed by Vincente Minnelli  MGM                          B/W

Lana and Kirk Douglas

Most critics believe this was Lana’s best performance. It was the story of a ruthless producer (Kirk Douglas) and the three people he made famous and then betrayed. Lana played one of the three, an alcoholic actress saved from herself, transformed into a star by the arrogant Kirk and then cast aside for another woman. Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan and Gloria Grahame (who won a Best Supporting Oscar for this role) are others in the fine cast.

Minnelli later said of Lana “She could do things I had no idea she could do. That famous hysterical scene in the car was shot in one take….She is a marvelous person as well as an actress.”

Rumor has it that Kirk Douglas was entranced by Lana, too, but Fernando never let her out of his sight.

Peyton Place  (1957)  Directed by Mark Robson 20th Century Fox       Color

Lana with Lee Philips and Diane Varsi

Her best friends advised Lana not to play the mother of a teenage daughter (even though she was the mother of a teenage daughter at the time). But Lana somehow knew it was the way to go at this time in her career.

Grace Metalious wrote this steamy expose of the people in a New England town and their sordid secret lives as a first novel but it had to be toned down a bit for the screen. Producer Jerry Wald thought the role of Constance MacKenzie was just what was needed to pep up Lana’s career and he was so right. Diane Varsi was cast as her daughter, Allison. The rest of the strong cast included Hope Lange,   Lee Philips and Arthur Kennedy. 

Lana was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for this one and it was a blockbuster at the box office.

Another Time, Another Place (1958)  Directed by Lewis Allen Paramount/Lanturn    B/W

Lana with Barry Sullivan

Filmed on location in England, this movie would have gone nowhere without the subsequent scandal over the death of Johnny Stompanato before its release.

Lana portrayed a woman in a wartime affair with a married man (Sean Connery). She has a mental breakdown when he is killed in action and when she recovers, goes to England to comfort his family. Barry Sullivan co-stars.

But gossip brewing about a possible romance between Sean and Lana brought Stompanato racing to London town. He confronted Sean with a gun but the future James Bond was faster. When Johnny picked himself up off the floor, he was escorted out of the studio. But the louse took it out on Lana almost choking her to death before the maid heard her screams. The bruising to her larynx and vocal cords held up production for days.

Imitation of Life  (1959)  Directed by Douglas Sirk U-I       Color

Lana with Dan O'Herlihy

This was a remake of the Fannie Hurst novel done in 1934 with Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers. Lana plays a career-driven actress with a young daughter, who shares her home with a homeless black widow ( Juanita Moore) and her bi-racial daughter. Sandra Dee and Susan Kohner play the daughters, while John Gavin, Robert Alda and Dan O’Herlihy round out the cast.

At this time Lana’s career was thriving thanks to the success of Peyton Place and the notoriety that kept her in the public forum. She was also on the way to another marriage with a man who resembled Tyrone Power. He was Fred May, a real-estate tycoon.
They married the next year and while it only lasted two, Fred would remain a good friend to both Lana and her daughter.

The Gina Lollobrigida Rose