Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  The strikingly handsome Guy Madison had appeared in sailor whites, chatting with Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, during a three-minute segment of Since You Went Away (1944).

  When the David O. Selznick film was released, his appearance created a sensation. Selznick’s office was flooded with fan mail from bobbysoxers across America.

  “I loved my time in New Orleans with those guys,” Lana said. “If I have one regret, it’s that Errol got Ty Power, that living doll, before I do.”

  ***

  During the shooting of David O. Selznick’s Since You Went Away (1944), Lana visited the set. That film was slated to become one of the most popular of the “Home-front Movies” of World War II.

  Ostensibly, she was there to see her friend, actor Robert Walker, who had had bit parts in two of her previous films, Dancing Co-Ed and These Glamour Girls.

  Directed by John Cromwell, Since You Went Away starred Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, and Hattie McDaniel.

  Lana’s former agent, Henry Willson, invited Lana to go with him to the studio. He had persuaded Selznick to cast Robert Moseley (later known as Guy Madison) into a brief role as a sailor.

  Willson also introduced Lana to “Dare Harris,” his latest discovery. Later, as John Derek, he, like Madison, would become a matinee idol and the future husband of such beauties as Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo Derek.

  Willson maintained, and Lana agreed, that Harris and Madison “would become celebrated as the most striking of the pretty boys of the 1940s…and beyond.” This time, his prophecy came true.

  The future John Derek seemed very impressed with Lana, telling her, “You’re like a goddess to me. My favorite movie star. I have your picture hanging on my bedroom wall. The first thing I see in the morning, and the last thing I see at night.”

  Lana realized that Willson was already “dating” (some said “molesting”) each of these handsome actors, but she wanted to continue her affair with Madison and to get to know Derek better. She was worried about Derek’s age since, “He looks seventeen,” she told Willson.

  “He’s only four years younger than you, my dear. He looks gorgeous with his clothes on and heavenly bare-assed.”

  “You should know,” she said. “I always trust your judgment in these matters.”

  Originally, Willson had renamed Madison “Guy Dunhill,” but later reconsidered his choice. Across from Selznick’s studio was the Dolly Madison Bakery, named after the former First Lady. [Serving in that capacity from 1809-1817, she actually spelled her name “Dolley.”]

  Since [Guy] Madison was getting off work that day at 4PM, Lana invited him to drop in at her home, the interior of which he already knew well, with the understanding that later that evening, he’d be her escort at a party Willson was hosting.

  He arrived with a passionate kiss. “Let’s get re-acquainted. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  Later that night, he took her to Willson’s mostly male party. At around midnight, Madison told her he wouldn’t be able to escort her home because Willson was demanding a “sleepover.”

  The next day, Willson phoned Lana: “YOU BITCH!” he said. “Guy told me you drained him dry before I got a chance at him. Thankfully, Frank [Frank McCowan, later renamed “Rory Calhoun,”] was in working order, so my night wasn’t a complete waste. Frank is going to be a big star. I’ll have to change his name, of course. He’ll need some publicity, so I want him to date you and take you to all the places where photographers are waiting. Alan Ladd…how shall I put this?...has already discovered this handsome hunk of male flesh.”

  Willson eventually flew Madison to the New York premiere of Since You Went Away. He later told Lana, “He was a sensation. The bobbysoxers went after him like he was Frank Sinatra. Crowds followed us everywhere.”

  “I tipped off the press that we’d be arriving on Broadway by limousine to see Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). Screaming fans were waiting en masse for Guy. Before exiting from the limo, my hand, concealed with a blanket, made a grab for Guy’s crotch. ‘You’re a star, baby, you’re a star!’ I told him.”

  Lana later said, “Henry took all the credit for making Guy a star, but I was the one who really discovered that incredible beauty at the Hollywood Canteen. If God had made me a boy instead of a girl, I would want to look like Guy.”

  ***

  During one of her visits to the set of Since You Went Away, Lana renewed her friendship with Robert Walker.

  The director of the picture, Tay Garnett, joined them for lunch. He would later helm her in what is arguably her most famous picture, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

  That afternoon, as she was preparing to leave, she encountered David O. Selznick, who had, years before, rejected her screen test during try-outs for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939). “Too bad, kid,” he had said at the time. “You’re just not the Southern belle type, growing magnolias out of your butt. But you’d be great as a femme fatale blonde in a film noir.”

  Thanks for your advice, Mr. Selznick,” she said, passing on. Her revenge would eventually be exacted from Selznick, but not until years in her future.

  Before exiting from the film set that day, she had invited Walker for a drink. A few days later, he’d been seated in her living room for less than thirty minutes when he confided to her what had been going on in his life:

  His marriage to Jennifer Jones had come unglued. Selznick was pursuing her, and Walker suspected that the film mogul and his wife were already deep into an affair.

  As Robert Wagner’s marriage to Jennifer Jones was crumbling, he formed a bond with Lana, a relationship that would last until his untimely death.

  Both of them found sympathy and comfort in their shared anxieties over the failure of their respective marriages. Unlike many of Walker’s friends, Lana accepted his love affair with Peter Lawford and didn’t judge him.

  “Thank god for Peter Lawford,” Walker said. “He’s become my best friend. In fact, he told me the other night, he’d like to meet you. You’re his favorite actress.”

  She would later report to Willson the mental anguish that Walker was enduring.

  Walker had told her, “Everyone has problems, but I can’t live with mine. God knows I can’t compete with Selznick. He’s one of the biggest producers in Hollywood, and Jennifer is very ambitious. She talks about him all the time. Considers him a genius. Is always bragging about the great things he’s going to do for her career. For her, the sun rises and sets on David O. Selznick.”

  “What can I do? He has this obsession for my wife. He’s a powerful man. He could cut me to pieces in a minute. I’d be finished in this town. Actually, I hate Hollywood. I’ve never felt comfortable here.”

  “What you can do,” Lana advised, “is to fall in love with someone else. You’re a good-looking boy. Many women could go for you.”

  “Is that an offer?” he asked, provocatively.

  “Perhaps it’s a proposal for an affair, but nothing really serious,” she answered. “I’m getting rid of my second husband, and I don’t want to be tied down anytime soon. After my last pregnancy, I’m also determined not to go through that kind of hell ever again.”

  Walker spend the night in Lana’s bed. She would never rank him among the greatest of her lovers, but she agreed with Garnett when she later worked with him. The director told her, “Bob is a talented, sensitive guy who has a little boy lost quality about him that some find appealing—at least those who aren’t attracted to the John Wayne type.”

  In the weeks and months ahead, Walker and Lana did not see much of each other, but they often talked on the phone. He shared frustrations from the set of Since You Went Away. One of them involved the fact that Selznick insisted that he shoot his love scenes with Jones over and over again, even though they were estranged, and on some days, belligerent with each other.

  Lana felt that Walker was sinking deeper and deeper into alcoholism and me
ntal illness, and she feared that he might be contemplating suicide.

  Their lovemaking had ceased almost as soon as it had begun, yet she still maintained a friendship with him. Later, she learned that he was seducing Judy Garland on the set of a film in which both of them were co-starring, The Clock (1945).

  ***

  Johnny Meyer phoned one night to extend to Lana an invitation from Howard Hughes, who had disappeared for almost a year. No one seemed to know where he was or where he’d been. Apparently, he had “resurfaced” in Idaho and wanted her to fly there for a few days of R&R.

  Smokin’ Joe Petrali, the “King of Dirt,” was a demon on his motorcycle and a demon in bed. Just ask Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and Joan Crawford.

  She was tempted by his offer for her to return to the state of her birth, and she accepted. She was under a severe strain from her unraveling marriage, and wanted to escape from Hollywood.

  After her big hits with Robert Taylor and Clark Gable, she had wanted to star in bigger and better films, but the scripts for the remainder of the war years seemed lack-luster to her.

  At 7AM the next morning, Meyer arrived at her house, finding her ready with suitcases fully packed with resort clothes. He drove her to the Burbank airport, where he introduced her to Hughes’ favorite pilot, Joe Petrali, known to his friends as “Smokin’ Joe.” He did not have a pretty face, but was ruggedly masculine. Errol Flynn had defined his appearance as a “dime-store version of Humphrey Bogart.”

  Lana had never heard of him, but she would later learn that he was a legend among motorcycle racers. Between 1925 and 1937, he’d consistently been a champion, eventually establishing the world’s motorcycle speed record, clocking one of them at a speed of 136.183MPH at Daytona Beach, Florida. You name the motorcycle venue—board track racing, hill climbs, speed records, dirt track—Petrali had been his era’s champ, sometimes nicknamed (affectionately) as “The King of Dirt.” Although his birth certificate had been lost in the 1906 earthquake, his contemporaries usually concluded that he was a year older than Hughes.

  After Petrali’s retirement from motorcycle racing, he became an airplane engineer. In 1947, he became a footnote in aviation history when he rode aboard Hughes’ first and only takeoff of the legendary “Spruce Goose,” with the entire world looking on.

  [The H-4 Hercules, developed at staggering expense by Howard Hughes, was a prototype for a transatlantic “flying boat,” conceived for military use during World War II. It was not completed in time to be used for heavy transport during the war.]

  ***

  A few minutes after her arrival in Sun Valley, in an airplane piloted by Joe Petrali, Lana and her luggage were hauled by limousine to an elegant chalet, either rented or owned by Hughes. She expected that he would be there to greet her, but found that he had not yet arrived.

  When she asked about it, Petrali told her, “I never ask questions about where Howard is or where he goes. Frankly, he seems to be showing more and more signs of paranoia. But how do I know—I’m not a psychologist.”

  She later told her girlfriends that Petrali, for such a rough, macho guy, was actually a spiffy dresser, and spent great amounts of time getting dressed. “As much as I do,” she claimed.

  For dinner at a local restaurant, at a table positioned near a blazing fireplace, he appeared in spit-shined dress shoes, an immaculate black and white sweater, and a hand-tailored shirt emblazoned with his initials, a gift from Hughes.

  As she later claimed, “I think there was a lot more going on between Howard and Joe than I was aware of. In other words, I think he was more than Howard’s pilot. After all, let’s face it: The Aviator flies both ways.”

  Although she enjoyed the companionship of Petrali, who was devoted to outdoor activities, she was tempted to leave by the third day, as Hughes had still not arrived.

  Then, one night, Petrali, who occupied the suite of rooms next to hers, entered her quarters fresh from his shower, clad only in a bath towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Like the Walls of Jericho, that towel fell to the ground,” she recalled. ‘What can I say? Seeing is believing. I have known better-looking men, but never a powerhouse like Joe. He braced his hands on his thighs and stood before me for inspection. Without touching himself, his most prized possessions began to rise and rise, then rise some more.”

  “My stay in Sun Valley stretched out for more than a week. God made men and was pleased with his creation. He then decided to create his masterpiece. The end result was Smokin’ Joe.”

  Years later, a rather drunken Lana, sitting with Merv Griffin in the bar of the Beverly Hills Hotel, spoke of Petrali when he was quizzing her about Hughes.

  “After a while, I passed Smokin’ Joe on to Ava Gardner, who was dating Howard at the time. She got to see a lot of Joe…I mean, all of him. When Ava moved on to her next dozen men, Joan Crawford heard about him and went after him. Usually, Joan beats me and Ava to the prize, but this time, she got sloppy seconds, or, in his case, fourth or fifths. Ava and I beat her to him, and I’m sure Howard beat all of us to Joe. After Crawford, or so I heard, Joe made the rounds of Hollywood beauties. I never knew if he were married or not. Why would I care about a thing like that?”

  ***

  Director Henry Levin was an eyewitness to the sexual chemistry between Stephen Crane and Nina Foch.

  “I think part of Nina’s reason for seduction is that she wanted to see what ‘ladykiller’ Steve Crane was like in bed. An added inducement was that he was Lana Turner’s husband. I think Nina wanted to be Lana Turner.”

  Almost as a parting gift before divorcing Crane, Lana used her connections to the movie industry to get film work for her husband. He kept pressing her to do something to get his career as an actor launched, even though he admitted that he had little talent. “As you, of all people know, I’m God’s gift to women. I think I can project some of that male magic onto the screen.”

  Finally, a minor contract from Columbia came through. Lana told Ann Rutherford, “I almost had to promise to sleep with Harry Cohn to get Stephen work at Columbia.”

  Crane’s first movie for the studio was the 1944 Cry of the Werewolf, alongside the Dutch-born Nina Foch cast as the lead. Sometimes released as Daughter of the Werewolf, the film cast Foch in the unlikely role of a Gypsy cursed by lycanthropy. She didn’t look like a female Werewolf. When photographed from a certain angle, she resembled Marlene Dietrich.

  Crane was cast as a scientist who discovered that his father has been killed by a werewolf.

  Arriving from the Netherlands, Foch epitomized the cool, aloof, blonde sophisticate. She would not marry until 1954. At the time she met Crane, she had launched her film career in Hollywood with horror films such as The Return of the Vampire (1943).

  Foch told Levin, “Lana is very cruel to Steve, marrying him, divorcing him, threatening not to remarry him—even after she got pregnant. She practically drove him to suicide after it was discovered that he was a bigamist. And as it was widely known, she sleeps with other beaux. He is a wonderful lover and smells so clean. Even on a hot day, it’s like he just emerged from the shower. Frankly, I will marry Steve if his divorce comes through and he proposes.”

  The Crane/Foch romance lasted only until the end of the filming of Werewolf. As a Hollywood Romeo, “Steve went on to bigger game, namely Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth,” Levin said.

  For his next film, a 1945 mystery, The Crime Doctor’s Courage, Crane was reduced to seventh billing. Its star was Warner Baxter, an old-time actor born in Ohio in 1891. He was usually cast as a scowling leading man with a pencil-thin mustache. In 1926, he been assigned the title role in Hollywood’s first attempt to bring the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby, to the screen. That movie is now lost to history.

  Baxter also played the hard-as-nails director in the 42nd Street (1933), in which he delivers that immortal line to dancer Ruby Keeler, “You’re going out there as a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”

 
; Crane met Baxter as he was recovering from a nervous breakdown. He’d fallen on bad days as he’d aged, and was now reduced to roles in B pictures at Columbia. He’d go on to make nine Crime Doctor films.

  Director George Sherman was not impressed with Crane’s acting, and, although Baxter liked him, Crane wasn’t offered a role in any of the other films within the series.

  ***

  The most support for Crane’s movie career derived from Mildred, not from Lana herself.

  In her memoirs, Crane’s daughter, Cheryl, wrote, “My grandmother had grown fretfully supportive of her son-in-law. She found his courtly manners irresistible, and she believed that he still offered some hope for stability in her daughter’s madcap life. Gran was appalled that before mother’s second marriage had been dissolved, she was always out at night with other men.”

  Some of those men over the course of the next few years were famous: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Robert Hutton, John Derek, Guy Madison, Victor Mature, Errol Flynn, John Hodiak, James Craig, Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Turhan Bey, Rory Calhoun, and Tyrone Power.

  Lana referred to some of the “regular guys” (i.e., non-movie stars) she dated, most often through encounters at the Hollywood Canteen, as “the nameless ones, the guys who went home after the war and settled down, often with their high school sweetheart. They sold insurance or else joined the baby boomer construction industry as plumbers or carpenters.”

  ***

  Eventually, Crane got cast in a small part at Columbia, in a film starring Rita Hayworth, Tonight and Every Night, released in 1944.

  Victor Saville cast the musical which was set in wartime London, and loosely modeled on the Windmill Theatre in Soho (UK), which became legendary for not missing a single performance during the Nazi blitzkrieg of London.

  Hayworth looked glamorous in Technicolor, playing an American showgirl who falls in love with an RAF pilot (Lee Bowman). Crane had a few lines as Leslie Wiggins, Bowman’s best buddy in the RAF.