Did Hollywood sex symbol Lana Turner kill her lover?
SHE was a Hollywood sex symbol and the ultimate on-screen femme fatale.
But Lana Turner’s acting roles, which included a murderous adulteress, may not have been so far from her real life.
According to one film historian the star, who died in 1995 aged 74, could have murdered her violent lover and let her daughter take the blame.
Ms Turner achieved fame as an actress in films such as Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, and Peyton Place, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
She also played a wife who plots to kill her husband in 1946’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.
But Ms Turner was just as well-known for her tumultuous personal life, marrying eight times and dating stars such as
‘The evidence is overwhelming’
Clark Gable, Rex Harrison and – reportedly – Frank Sinatra.
Now historian Darwin Porter says he has evidence which makes her the prime suspect in the fatal stabbing of Johnny Stompanato, a Mafia mobster, after she found him in bed with her 14-year-old daughter at her home in Beverly Hills.
An inquest accepted that Stompanato was killed in April 1958 by Ms Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, after he ‘ran into’ a kitchen knife that she had grabbed to defend her mother.
Cheryl, who remained in juvenile detention during the inquest and did not testify, was made a ward of court and transferred to the custody of Ms Turner’s mother.
Ms Turner told the coroner’s jury she had been arguing with Stompanato and that he had threatened to ‘cripple’ her and kill her daughter. The jury found that the teenager committed justifiable homicide, meaning she acted in defence of her mother.
But in his upcoming book, Lana Turner: Hearts And Diamonds Take All, Mr Porter reveals interviews with some of the case’s key figures, including detective Fred Otash, which tell a different story.
Before his death in 1992, Mr Otash apparently admitted rearranging the crime scene with Ms Turner’s lawyer, Jerry Giesler. He also said Mr Giesler – whom Ms Turner called before police – urged his client to let her daughter take the blame because, as a minor, she would not face a trial.
The book claims Mr Otash said:
‘I was the one who wiped the fingerprints off the knife in Lana’s bathroom sink. I was a naughty boy doing what I’m not supposed to do.’
Some of Ms Turner’s close friends also confided to Mr Porter that she had confessed privately to the murder. ‘The evidence is overwhelming,’ he said.
Mr Otash recalled that he had received a desperate call for help from Mr Giesler. ‘Giesler told me what had happened ... “Get ... right over here. Stompanato’s on Lana’s bed, which looks like a hog was butchered”,’ he said.
‘From what I gathered, Lana had walked in on Johnny in bed with Cheryl. Both of them were in a post-coital sleep. Lana confessed to kitchen Giesler knife that the she’dday before boughtto protect the herself against Johnny, who was threatening her. ‘When she’d assumed he’d seduced her daughter, she went for the knife in a drawer in her night- stand, and plunged it into his stomach.’ Stories were reportedly rehearsed, and Cheryl was crying that she ‘didn’t mean to kill him’ when police chief Clinton Anderson arrived – but he was suspicious about the absence of blood and fingerprints.
Mr Otash and Mr Giesler were eventually rumbled for trying to cover up the crime, Mr Porter claims, but the case against them was closed after they told the police chief they had a dossier on him which could ‘end his career’.
Ms Turner’s affair with Stompanato began in 1957, after he had bombarded her with flowers and a diamond bracelet.
He was linked to LA mob boss Mickey Cohen and reportedly made money from scams, including blackmailing Hollywood stars. He was violent towards the actress, allegedly raping her and holding a gun to her head as a ‘reminder that you’re mine’.
She had repeatedly tried to end the relationship. On the night of the killing, he is said to have threatened to ‘carve up’ Ms Turner’s face, or worse.
Another of her lovers, Rat Pack star Peter Lawford, claimed she called Sinatra to the murder house, but that he ‘slipped out’ before the police arrived.
Mr Porter said: ‘The Rat Packers knew that Lana did it.’
His book, co-written with Danforth Prince, will be released by US publishers Blood Moon Productions next month.
Mr Porter said: ‘Lana seduced more Hollywood legends than any movie star who ever lived.’
Cheryl, now 73, currently lives in California with her partner of almost 50 years, Joyce ‘Josh’ LeRoy.