Vintage Scandal Monday: Did Lana Turner kill her mobster boyfriend?

Lana Turner was once one of the most famous stars in Hollywood. She was known for her platinum blonde hair and her bitchy, catty allure. My favorite films of Lana’s were the “women’s films” she did with Douglas Sirk, Imitation of Life and Madame X being the most classic. But she was also in some big, big films, like Peyton Place and The Three Musketeers. She was the kind of woman who always attracted the worst kind of men. What’s worse is that Lana often married them – she was married eight times to seven different men. In addition to her husbands, she also gathered an impressive list of lovers including Tyrone Power (who I LOVE) and Howard Hughes. Perhaps attracting bad boys was all she knew – after all, her father was a gambling ne’er-do-well who was murdered when Lana was just a child.

In any case, when Lana met an LA mobster named Johnny Stompanato, it was love at first… something. Johnny was one of famed mobster Mickey Cohen’s right-hand-men. Johnny and Lana met in 1957, but the following year their relationship began going off the rails.

At 9.20 p.m. on April 4, 1958 Cheryl Crane, Lana Turner’s fourteen-year-old daughter, stabbed her mother’s lover in the stomach. Johnny Stompanato was a suave, well-known gangster who had escorted other stars around town and had once been Mickey Cohen’s bodyguard.

Two weeks earlier, Stompanato and Lana had had a violent fight because she refused to take him with her to the Oscars (she had been nominated for the first time, for her role in Peyton Place). The Oscar on the night of March 26, 1958 went to Joanne Woodward for “The Three Faces of Eve.” Stompanato watched the ceremony from Turner’s home, festering anger. When Turner arrived home, Stompanato let loose his rage and began slapping Turner.

On numerous occasions he had threatened to disfigure her or harm her family if she left him—he had visited her in London on the set of her most recent movie and reportedly had such a clash with her young co-star, Sean Connery, that Scotland Yard had him deported.

April 4, 1958, Good Friday wasn’t so good at the Turner mansion. Turner had decided to end the relationship with Stompanato. But Stompanato was determined not to leave.

As the fight escalated in Turner’s bedroom, fourteen year old Cheryl Crane heard everything from her bedroom next door. Crane heard Stompanato’s threats to cut Turner’s face and kill Turner’s mother and daughter. Outside Turner’s door, Crane begged to be let in but Turner refused.

Crane took a carving knife from a kitchen drawer and went upstairs to her mother’s closed door. As the fight tapered off, Crane once again requested her mother to open the door. Turner finally relented. Crane thought she saw Stompanato coming at her with what she thought was some sort of weapon and she thrust out her arm. In her hand was the carving knife with which she stabbed Stompanato.

Turner gave Stompanato mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the doctor arrived. Stompanato was given a shot of adrenalin to the heart. But Stompanato was dead.

[From Lycos/Granta and Suite 101]

Or did Lana really kill Johnny, and she simply let her daughter take the fall? The conspiracy about what really happened that night has never really died, and I found sites devoted to the theory that Lana did it – like this one. Still, there was a trial and Cheryl was found not guilty, given that she was simply trying to protect her mother (justifiable homicide). Cheryl was sent to a school for wayward teenage girls (thanks Mom!).

After that, Cheryl went to live with her grandmother, and she and Lana were estranged. Lana reportedly claimed to friends in later years that she had been the one to stab Stompanato. You can read more about Lana and the case at TCM’s extensive archives.

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