The Bad & the Beautiful

Monday, Apr. 21, 1958
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Can a simple girl from a mining town in Idaho find happiness as a glamorous movie queen? To popeyed newspaper readers sated vicariously with this tired story line, the answer struck last week with the finality of a chord of doom: no —in the case of one queen in particular. The chord rumbled for Lana Turner, the Sweater Girl whose feckless pursuit of happiness became men's-room talk from Sunset Boulevard to Fleet Street, and for her shaken, 14-year-old daughter Cheryl, who stabbed Lana's paramour, Johnny Stompanato (TIME. April 14). Last week a coroner's inquest declared Cheryl's act justifiable homicide, but this decision hardly lessened the sociological impact of a news story that began 22 years ago.

The Star. Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner was a pressagent's dream ready-made for stardom by Hollywood standards. Her father was killed in a gambling scrape when she was ten; her mother struggled to keep her alive. In Hollywood one day, when she was a well-stacked 16, she was "discovered" as she sat at a drugstore fountain. Hollywood gave her the big buildup. Renamed Lana, she made movies with the biggest of the box-office giants—Gable, Taylor, Cooper—and nobody, least of all the customers, cared if she was not a second Sarah Bernhardt.

As a high-priced commodity, Lana found herself surrounded by people whose paychecks depended on how sincerely they could convince her that she was talented, beautiful and successful. Her enormous salary seemed to be ample proof. Lana scarcely needed to make a decision of her own; the studio did it for her.

The Crowd. Like many other show folk in Hollywood, Lana liked to run with the hoodlum crowd that sprouted into semi-respectability in moviedom after World War II. High up in the crowd was a runty gambler named Mickey Cohen. To the movie folk, gum-chomping Mick typified a real-life heavy out of their own films; for the Mick to invite a star to his table in a swank joint seemed as thrilling for the guest as it would be if a rubberneck tourist were asked to drink with Lana Turner. The Mick and his crowd just loved it.

And wanton Lana just loved one of the Mick's boys, olive-skinned, handsome Johnny Stompanato. A small-town boy with big ideas, Johnny was a preening gigolo, brushed his black hair thick and wavy, wore his shiny silk shirts open all the way down to his navel. He was also the fast-buck type, who, police well knew, built his bankroll by making time with thrill-seeking wealthy women, borrowed their money, rarely paid it back. Lana took Johnny in tow, paid his bills, flashed around the town on his muscular arm. When she flew to London last September to make a new picture, she and Johnny exchanged impassioned love letters.

My beloved love (she wrote), just this morning your precious exciting letter arrived. Every line warms me and makes me ache and miss you each tiny moment. It's beautiful—yet terrible . . . I'm your woman and I need you, my man! To love and be loved by—don't ever, ever doubt or forget that! My romance, hah! It's a hell of a lot more than that! That's for sure. I need to touch you, feel your tenderness and your strength. To hold you in my arms, so, so close—to cuddle you sweetly—and then to be completely smothered in your arms, and kisses, oh, so many kisses!