Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  After news of the breakup appeared in the newspapers, Sinatra and Lana were seen together at a resort in Palm Springs.

  Back in Hollywood, when Lana read the horrible press she had generated, shephoned Louella Parsons. “I am not in love with Frank Sinatra. Nor is he in love with me. We’re just good friends. I have never broken up a home and I don’t intend to.”

  Lana had known Frank Sinatra since 1940, but didn’t have an affair with him until right after she’d filmed The Postman Always Rings Twice.

  When she’d first met him, she told Ava Gardner that she thought, “He’s all skin and bones.”

  But Gardner later revealed his allure: “There may be only ten pounds on the guy, but there are 110 pounds of cock.”

  Within a span of about two weeks, Sinatra had obviously changed his mind about marrying Lana. He had purchased an expensive diamond bracelet for her, but decided not to give it to her. He told Phil Silvers, “I’ve had a change of heart. I will not marry Lana. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up fucking her. She really gets off being plugged by my whopper.”

  That diamond bracelet was eventually presented to another blonde actress, Marilyn Maxwell, instead, but not before Nancy had discovered it (and presumably registered its value), after finding it concealed in a drawer at home with his underwear.

  Later, at a party hosted by Nancy and Frank at the Sinatra home, Maxwell in-discreetly showed up wearing that bracelet. After the party had been rocking along for two hours, Nancy approached her and demanded that she relinquish the bracelet and give it to her. At first, Maxwell resisted, but, fearing a fight and horrendously embarrassed, she reluctantly surrendered it.

  Later, at a New Year’s Eve party in Hollywood, Lana was introduced to Nancy. The other guests backed away, warily expecting fireworks, but the two women gossiped and seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

  In a corner of the party, a very handsome actor, under contract to MGM, was holding forth, surrounded by three starlettes. “Boy, the gal he selects tonight is in for a big disappointment,” Lana said. “That’s the only thing big about him. He must need a pair of tweezers to jerk off.”

  Nancy laughed. “That’s hardly Frank’s problem.”

  To Nancy, Lana expressed her disdain for Hollywood. After defining it as “a boiler factory,” she said, “The men here are either fairies or hounds. Women out here like to slit each other’s throats. Take Joan Crawford and me, for example.”

  Weeks later, both Lana and Nancy were in New York at the same time, each of them for, among other reasons, Sinatra’s opening at the Waldorf Astoria.

  Whereas Nancy attended the 10PM show and then retreated to her suite, Lanashowed up for the midnight show and wildly applauded Sinatra. At the end of his concert, he rushed over to her table. Embracing her, he whispered in her ear. “I’ve missed you, baby. Can’t live without you.”

  When this photo of Sinatra feeding Lana a popsickle appeared in the newspapers, gossips quipped: “That’s not the only popsickle Frankie’s feeding Lana.”

  She told him she’d rented a suite at the nearby Plaza, a few blocks from the Waldorf. Within the hour, he was there, knocking on her door.

  A bellhop saw him leaving the Plaza at 7AM the next morning, on his way back to his suite at the Waldorf…and Nancy.

  Perhaps caught up in the sexual excitement of a reunion with Lana, Sinatra proposed marriage to her once again. This time, she accepted.

  “I’m making wedding plans,” Lana told Linda Darnell after her return to Hollywood. “Frank has again promised to marry me, and I’ve accepted. He’s definitely going to leave Nancy this time. There can be no turning back. He said the spark is gone between Nancy and him.”

  Yet after his own return to Los Angeles, he changed his mind again. Phil Silvers was performing at Slapsie Maxie’s Club, and Sinatra showed up. Although Nancy was in the audience that night at a table with friends, Sinatra did not acknowledge her. Silvers invited Sinatra up onto the stage, and he sang a beautiful rendition of “Going Home.” At the end of the song, he received wild applause when he walked over to Nancy’s table and took her in his arms and kissed her. Reunited, the couple left the club together. The next day, Variety announced: FRANK SINATRA BACK WITH WIFE.

  Lana’s maid delivered her the morning paper. When she read the headline, she shouted at her maid and hurled her breakfast tray against a mirror. “How dare that son of a bitch! That fucker!! How could he do this to me?”

  Storming out of her bedroom, she ordered her maid to “clean up this god damn mess.”

  Years later, that maid spoke to a reporter. “I never understood why Miss Turner got so upset about Sinatra. Only the night before, she told me that she’d fallen in love with Tyrone Power.”

  After Sinatra’s reconciliation with Nancy, their marriage would struggle along for four more unhappy, turbulent, scandal-soaked years.

  Even though he’d returned to hearth, home, and Nancy, Sinatra confessed something to Peter Lawford, with whom he had co-starred in It Happened in Brooklyn (1947).

  “Because of my involvement with Lana, I now have great expectations from a woman, one that Nancy can’t fulfill. I need variety in love-making, not the sameold missionary position night after night. I fear I’ll never find another Lana Turner…that is, unless I start banging Ava Gardner.”

  Sinatra told Dean Martin, “I like brunettes. Ava Gardner proves that. But when a blonde like Marilyn Maxwell, Lana Turner, or Marilyn Monroe comes along, I get as erect as the Empire State Building.”

  Although Lana and Sinatra maintained their sexual involvement during many years of his marriage to Nancy, Lana ended their affair when he married Gardner. She said. “I’m not going to have sex with my best friend’s husband.” But Lana’s vows didn’t mean a lot.

  In a memoir, Cheryl admitted that Lana and Sinatra were romantically involved on and off for many years. She recalled seeing them dancing together in 1970 at the Candy Store on Rodeo Drive. She also claimed that over the years, Sinatra presented her mother with many gifts, including diamonds.

  “Keep Betty Grable, Lamour, and Turner,” Sinatra sang in his first recording of “Nancy,” that reference having been inspired by his daughter, Nancy, and not to his wife.

  In her memoirs, Lana denied ever having had an affair with Sinatra. Her book editor later revealed, however, that the original manuscript contained a “blow-by-blow” description of their romance. By the time of its publication, Lana and Sinatra, both now aging, had had a row. In its aftermath, Lana demanded that her romantic passages about the singer be removed. “I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

  Ava Gardner’s autobiography contained the passage, “Lana had a very serious affair with Frank. We once met in the ladies’ room during a Hollywood party many moons ago. She told me her story, that she was deeply in love with Frank, and so, she thought, he was with her.”

  ***

  In Argentina, a small-time actress, call girl, and radio announcer, Eva Duarte (later known, worldwide, as Evita Perón), had forged the most fascinating and frightening political partnership in South America. Hooking up with a military commander, Juan Perón, whom she was romancing at the time, she had worked behind the scenes to win for him, in 1946, the presidency of Argentina. From the power base she helped him establish and reinforce, they would rule together with an iron, anti-colonial fist.

  She and Perón were ruthless power grabbers, even working behind the scenes with the Nazis, to secure financing for various development and military projects in Argentina. As history revealed, they picked the wrong side during World War II, and—after the war—were severely ostracized by many of the Allies, especially since their country had become a post-war haven for Nazi refugees in hiding.

  From dire poverty, Eva in time became one of the most powerful women in the world, a blonde goddess like Lana, swathed in furs and draped with diamonds. Most of her politidal support derived from her Los Descamisados [aka “the shirtless ones”], legions of impoverished
blue collar laborers.

  What was not widely known at the time was her obsession with the image projected by Lana Turner. Eva’s lover and Lana’s future lover, the Argentine actor, Fernando Lamas, said, “Eva Perón wanted to be Lana Turner. She modeled her wardrobe, her makeup, even her hair styles to emulate Lana. As such, she became one of the most fashionable women in the world and the first to appear in public in Argentina wearing pants.”

  ***

  In 1946, as part of a publicity tour and in need of a long vacation, Lana flew to Buenos Aires with her paid companion, Sara Hamilton, paying her expenses and lending her money. Hamilton was a magazine writer who had befriended Lana. According to Lana, “I trusted Sara, but she betrayed me. When she got back home, she fed unflattering gossip about me to the fan magazines, for which she was paid.”

  Before flying out of L.A., Lana met with Greg Bautzer, having long ago forgiven him for breaking what she viewed as an engagement. She had a problem she asked him to solve: She wanted Mildred out of her house, complaining that she had become a nuisance. Instead of living in her quarters, she had “expanded her turf” and commandeered Lana’s living room, remaining there, often half the night, for her daughter’s return. Invariably, Lana came home with a young man, and Mildred was very vocal with her disapproval of her daughter’s stream of pickups. She often complained, “Where did I go wrong? I wanted you to grow up to be a good girl, not the whore of Babylon!”

  Lana had a solution. She instructed Bautzer to sell her large house and to move her into a smaller one, with just enough room for Cheryl and herself. “I was a twice-divorced woman in my mid-twenties, and I didn’t need parental guidance for myself.”

  The attorney promised Lana that he’d take care of her real estate problems and that he’d move Mildred into a separate apartment.

  When she arrived in Buenos Aires, Lana was greeted at the airport by hundreds of fans who turned out to welcome her. An MGM publicist helped her fight her way through the crowds. “Latins love blonde movie stars,” she later proclaimed.

  Outside the airport’s terminal, a near-riot ensued. People were pushing and shoving. “They wanted a piece of me,” she said. At one point, a woman grabbed for her pearl necklace, but Lana fought her off.

  In the rear of a limousine, she complained to the publicist, “Make sure I get all of my jewelry back.” She had made it a special point to accessorize herself in Argentina with her beloved diamonds, along with sapphires and emeralds. Much to her distress, Argentine Customs had confiscated her jewel case with a promise to return it to her.

  “Those shitheads went over every piece of my lingerie, paying particular attention to my silk panties.”

  Lana’s jewels were safely returned to her, delivered to her hotel under armed guard two nights later. It was months before she learned that Eva Perón had ordered that the jewels be temporarily confiscated so that her jeweler could copy the designs in advance of preparing absolute duplicates of Lana’s adornments.

  The next day, Lana spoke to the press about the near-riot at Buenos Aires’ airport. Commenting on the hysterical reaction to her arrival, she said, “People will risk a broken arm or leg, even serious injury, to get a closeup look at a big Hollywood star.”

  As they toured the Argentine capital, their maroon-colored sedan was followed by a car filled with four dark-suited men. Lana later referred to them “as the Argentine version of Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, George Raft, and Paul Muni.”

  She had a friend in Buenos Aires, Betty Dodaro, who hosted a lavish haute society party for her, inviting Eva Perón, who had expressed a desire to meet her.

  Eva sat in a far corner of the room in a gold chair, looking like royalty. Dodaro brought Lana over for introductions.

  In a memoir, Lana recalled that she was shocked to discover that the dictator had dyed her hair as pale as hers. Even her gown was the same as the one Lana had worn for an MGM publicity still. Eva had on long, ruby-colored gloves, and a strapless gown, the same ensemble Lana had worn to pose for pictures advertising Lux Toilet Soap before the release of The Postman Always Rings Twice. “I felt I was looking at my twin sister…sort of. Madame Perón did not really have my beauty, in spite of copying my makeup.”

  Before flying south, Lana had posed for photos. Her presentation had included an elaborate hairdo into which flowers and a diamond necklace had been interwoven. She was shocked to see Eva with that same coiffure.

  When Lana went to the powder room, Eva got up and followed her in. She ordered everybody else out and posted a security guard at the door.

  “Welcome to Argentina,” she said. “You are even lovelier than in your pictures.”

  As the two women chatted, and as her English-speaking Argentine bodyguard remained posted attentively nearby, Eva asked Lana for some beauty tips.

  Eva Perón, a Lana Turner impersonator.

  Lana freely shared some of her secrets, suggesting that she remove all makeup before going to bed. “Never sleep with it on.” She also advised that before leaving her house, she should check her image in a full-length mirror to see how she looked from the rear. “Remember, more people will see you leave than see you arrive.”

  She also suggested a diet that included hot chili peppers to cleanse her body of toxins. “I don’t need to tell you never to wear anything off the rack. When in doubt about wardrobe, ermine and silk brocade will do. Since we’re both world famous, it’s important never to step out the door unless you’re camera ready.”

  The night that Lana talked to Eva, “Madame Perón,” in the words of her biographer, Mary Main, “had reached the most opulently ostentatious period of her career. In appearance, she was the apotheosis of the demimondaine: There was a voluptuousness about her that did not come from the prodigal display of ornament alone, but from a lushness of the flesh itself. She displayed a softness and womanliness in her face. To the discriminating, her appearance was vulgar. Beautiful as her clothes were, they might have been chosen for the star of some super-colossal Hollywood production.”

  Eva thanked Lana for her beauty tips, and offered to do anything she could to make her sojourn in Argentina pleasant. Before departing from the powder room, she grabbed Lana and kissed her passionately on the lips.

  Lana later said, “I was stunned…absolutely stunned. Was Madame Perón a closeted lesbian? Or just an effusive Argentine woman showing her thanks?”

  At the end of her trip, Lana was relieved to be flying away from Argentina. There had been political rallies and protests, some of them violent. Perónista guards had appeared with drawn sabers. The night before she left Buenos Aires, a bomb had been thrown into the lobby of her hotel. Shaking and terrified, she and Hamilton had sat up all night. Their itinerary called for her to make an appearance next in Brazil.

  ***

  Landing in Rio de Janeiro, Lana and Sara Hamilton were met by the same tumultuous crowds that had greeted them in Argentina. They had arrived in time to join in the annual Carnival festivities. The whole city seemed to be celebrating. As just-arrived VIPs, the two women were invited to lavish parties where the hosts never seemed to spare any expense. Wherever Lana went, she was mobbed by adoring crowds. She danced the night away with what she called “the world’s most beautiful men. All of them propositioned me. Did I respond? That’s for me to know and for you to try to find out…maybe.”

  Somewhere in Rio, a spectacular party was hosted in Lana’s honor, and, as she admitted herself, “I never looked more seductive.” She’d made a grand entrance in a black satin halter dress, set off with diamonds and flowers in her hair.

  At the end of the party, back at her hotel suite, she hung up that satin dress in her closet. The next morning, her entire wardrobe smelled of ether.

  [According to Lana, the party that night was punctuated by the consumption of diethyl ether as a recreational drug, either through inhalation or through drinking. Brazilians would soak their handkerchiefs, inhaling it through the fabric to induce a head-spinning and hallucin
ogenic high.]

  Night after night of partying and casual seductions “of only the handsomest and most well-built of Brazilian men” left her exhausted. When it became clear that she was coming down with a ferocious cold, her doctor, fearing that she was developing pneumonia, sent her for a ten-day rest at the mountain resort of Quinadita, where she languished until she recovered.

  ***

  Saying goodbye to South America, Lana and Hamilton flew from Rio to Miami, where she stayed in a suite at the Roney Plaza on Miami Beach.

  While in Florida, she was rumored to have had an affair with John Alden Talbot, a rich socialite who had a lavish villa in Palm Beach and was known to Joseph and Rose Kennedy.

  The first time she met Talbot, she told him, “You’re so handsome, you should be in pictures.” Palm Beach society had dubbed him as one of America’s “top ten playboy-bachelors. At the time she dated him, he had recently married, the previous April, Nancy Rheem Talbot.

  Then Lana flew from Miami to New York for a stay that lasted for two weeks. She lodged within the same accommodation at the Sherry-Netherland where Howard Hughes had made love to her. This time, another former suitor with the initials “HH” was seen coming and going from her suite at all hours of the day and night. She’d resumed dating Huntington Hartford, the A&P heir. When reporters asked her about him, she (rather grandly) quipped, “If only those A&Ps sold champagne and caviar.”

  Talbot followed her to New York City, where they were seen dancing cheek-to-cheek at the Stork Club. To complicate matters, his wife apparently found out and allegedly threw a jealous fit, flying to Washington, D.C. to be with her mother.

  After Lana’s return to California, after learning that the Talbots had agreed to a trial separation, she had a reunion with her daughter after an absence of many weeks.

  Immediately after her return, she learned that Bautzer had arranged for her to live in a smaller house on Crown Drive in Brentwood, a move that had been deliberately orchestrated as a means of “evicting” Mildred, who was transferred into a small apartment nearby.