Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  Lana would never live with her mother again.

  On December 5, Talbot and Lana, with daughter Cheryl, were seen aboard the 20th Century Limited, as it pulled into Manhattan’s Grand Central Station. Headlines announced: LANA AND YALE MAN ARRIVE. One columnist wrote, “Her escort was handsome as a collar ad and just as inarticulate.”

  “Is he your new flame?” one reporter yelled out at her.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said before disappearing into a limousine.

  Once again in Los Angeles, gossip mongers painted her as a heartless femme fatale who had broken up yet another home. To counter the rumors, she wisecracked with reporters who gathered around her on the MGM lot: “I have dinner with a fellow a couple of times. Suddenly, I’m a home wrecker. Great big lecherous Lana, that’s me.”

  ***

  During the second week of August of 1946, Tyrone Power, “the man of my dreams” in Lana’s words, also flew to Buenos Aires as part of a Good Will Tour of South America sponsored by 20th Century Fox. Along with a pilot-navigator and a Fox publicist, he was accompanied by César Romero, a fellow actor long billed as “the Latin from Manhattan.” Romero’s long homosexual attachment to Power was well known by insiders in Hollywood.

  In a twin-engine Beechcraft named Saludos Amigos, the two stars arrived together at the airport in Buenos Aires to discover that hundreds of Argentines had turned out to welcome them. Something resembling a riot broke out, discord that evoked the tumultuous reception that Lana had received.

  Both Eva and Juan Perón, who ruled Argentina, were their hosts at a lavish banquet they gave for the two stars at their palace. Both Power and Romero were awed by the extent of their reception, as no head of state had ever been received as tumultuously.

  Eva’s obsession with Lana—her clothes, her style, and her looks—was an “open secret” among the extended members of her enormous entourage. What wasn’t known, except to her direct confidants, was that she had developed a powerful crush on Power. Whenever she spoke of him, she called him “the most beautiful man on earth.”

  On his third night in Buenos Aires, she made a secret visit to his suite after he’d booted Romero out of it. After their assignation, at 4AM, she’d slipped out of the hotel through a rear exit, hurrying into a curtained limousine driven by a member of her security team.

  As Power confessed at breakfast to a jealous Romero, “Eva and I made love all night. She couldn’t get enough of me. I felt I was being devoured instead of devouring her. I’d heard that she got her start working as a puta in a bordello. That’s probably where she picked up some of those sexual tricks in the art of how to satisfy a man. Lucky Juan.”

  As Romero later revealed, years after Power’s death, “Eva Perón paid three more visits to our suite for trysts with my handsome roommate. In every instance, she adopted the hairstyle, clothing, and makeup styles of her favorite movie star, prompting Power to exclaim, ‘I felt I was fucking Lana Turner.’”

  Romero feared that if the dictator Juan ever found out, he might order that Power be killed.

  “Frankly, I don’t think he cares all that much,” Power responded. “I heard some gossip that he has two underaged mistresses on the side, and about two nights a week, he pays a visit to a secret hideaway where keeps a pretty, twelve-year-old boy.”

  ***

  Lana had known Power since 1940, often encountering him at lavish parties or premieres. But after his return from Argentina, she was invited to a party at the home of Edie and Keenan Wynn. At the time, Power was still married to the French actress who billed herself only as “Annabella.” He had married her in 1939, when they co-starred together in Suez. Although the couple had, by this point, legally separated, they were still married.

  At the Wynn party, Power spent most of the evening talking to Lana and avoiding the other guests. She, too, according to Keenan, “Had eyes only for Ty. And who in her right mind wouldn’t? The guy is gorgeous!”

  Before Power left the party, he invited Lana to his home the following evening for a drink. She eagerly accepted.

  He followed her out to her car. Opening the door for her, he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. She later wrote about that moment, claiming, “I went weak in the knees.”

  [Columnist Hedda Hopper later disputed Edie Wynn’s claim that it had been she who brought Lana and Power together. Hopper printed her own version of their meeting: “Lana Turner was sitting alone in a booth at Romanoff’s when Tyrone Power walked into the restaurant. She smiled at him and patted the empty seat beside her. He sat next to her as a sexual combustion set in.”]

  A matinee idol in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Power was known for his striking good looks, appearing in a series of romantic leads or as a swashbuckler in the style of Errol Flynn. He had played a bullfighter in Blood and Sand (1941), when he was sustaining affairs with both of his beautiful co-stars, Rita Hayworth and Linda Darnell.

  He was the son of the English-born stage and screen actor, Tyrone Power, Sr. In Hollywood, Darryl F. Zanuck had helped Power, Jr., launch his film career at Fox, casting him in hit after hit, including In Old Chicago (1938) with Alice Faye; and The Rains Came (1939) with Myrna Loy. Zanuck, however, refused to lend him to MGM for the role of Ashley Wilkes opposite Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind (1939). Zanuck also turned down Warners, which wanted to cast Power opposite Ronald Reagan in his most prestigious film ever, Kings Row (1942).

  Almost from the first year of his arrival in Hollywood, insiders at Fox learned of his bisexuality. Howard Hughes wanted to take advantage of it, and invited him to fly to Miami for a lavish vacation. The Ohio-born actor at the time was living up the reputation of the character he’d developed for his latest movie, Ladies in Love (1936), and as such, was having affairs with both of his co-stars, Janet Gaynor and Loretta Young. His on-and-off affair with Young would continue after his return to Hollywood when he made three more pictures with her: Love Is News (1937); Safe Metropole (1937); and Second Honeymoon (also 1937).

  Throughout his career, Tyrone Power had almost as many lovers as Lana did (well, not quite that many). They ranged from Joan Crawford to Noël Coward, from Betty Grable to Doris Day, from Rita Hayworth to Loretta Young and Sonja Henie.

  He once said, “For anyone truly interested in the theater, like me, it’s a tragedy to be born handsome and such a sex object to both women and guys.”

  Hughes told gay actor William Haines, “This sun-bronzed god got off the plane in Miami, where I was waiting for him at the airport. He was just too good-looking to be real.”

  A fan magazine at the time expressed it differently: “Tyrone Power is actually as good-looking as Robert Taylor is supposed to be.”

  According to one of Power’s closest friends, actor Monty Woolley, “Howard and Ty became lovers on Miami Beach, and their affair on and off continued for many years. At the time, the press was comparing him to Robert Taylor and Errol Flynn. He later confessed to me that he had sexual liaisons with both actors, justifying it with: ‘I wanted to size up the competition.’”

  As proof of Hughes’ attraction to Power, Johnny Meyer said that his boss often supplied Power with extra cash. For years, even though he was a star at Fox, he drew a relatively meager salary, based on the terms of his original contract.

  Woolley claimed that Hughes was not just a lover “but a kind of father figure to Ty.”

  As for Power’s true sexual preference, his longtime “trick,” Scotty Hanson, said, “Ty was basically gay, but liked a girl from time to time, marrying three of them, but jilting Lana Turner.”

  When Power joined the military in 1943, it was not Annabella who said farewell to him, but Judy Garland, who was in love with him at the time. She was also pregnant, and he advised her to have an abortion because he was a married man. He later told Cesar Romero, “I loved Judy very much, and wanted her to have my baby, but it was impossible.”

  Garland was heartbroken when he was ordered to Saipan. [The second largest island in the So
uth Pacific’s Mariana Islands archipelago, after Guam, it was defined, strategically, as the last defense against the U.S. invasion of the Japanese homeland, and as such, fiercely contested during one of World War II’s longest and costliest battles there in June and July of 1944.]

  Louis B. Mayer told her to get over it. “You’re not in love with Power. Only with his picture on the cover of Photoplay.”

  When Power was discharged at the end of the war, he returned to Hollywood, where he found Garland married to the first of her gay husbands, Vincente Minnelli.

  For Lana, what began as a cocktail in Power’s living room on the first night she was ever alone with him, developed into a sleepover. She left the following morning, but returned again that same night and the night thereafter.

  At the time that Henry King was getting ready to helm Power in Captain from Castile, the director recalled seeing Lana and Power together on the beach at Malibu.

  “It was near sunset, and both of them wore white bathing suits, each of them looking glorious, almost like a mirage in the fading reddish glow. They were holding hands and laughing as they ran along the sands. It was one of the most memorable sights of love I’ve ever seen.”

  She christened her affair with Power as “richer and more mature” than what she’d had with her two previous husbands, or with any of her fleeting romances, most of which she’d called “fly by night” or “ships which pass in the night.”

  Power’s biographer, Fred Lawrence Guiles, wrote, “Lana and Ty were both sensualists. Touch and proximity were as important to them as sex. After their first date, which ended in bed, he became a regular at her home in Brentwood, spending night after night there, although he felt awkward being around her three-year-old daughter, Cheryl.”

  Actually, Lana praised the warm, fatherly relationship Power had with the little girl. “Real husband material,” she told friends. “And I bet he’d make a great daddy for Cheryl.”

  Mistakenly, she thought she could overwhelm Power with the fruits of the $5,000 she’d spent on clothing, or with the $1,000 worth of expensive hats she’d acquired from the collection of the haute milliner, John Frederics, in New York. That kind of money could buy a lot of wardrobe in 1946.

  Power would actually have preferred her in a simpler array of outfits.

  In many other ways, they were not compatible, except that he had painted all his rooms as white as the wardrobe she wore in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In almost every room of his house were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and whereas he’d read dozens of books, it had been difficult for her to wade through Gone With the Wind.

  She told Linda Darnell, Power’s former lover, “He is the first man who makes me really happy.” In spite of that, she often succumbed to bouts of deep depression, worrying about the direction of her career, her affair with Power (who kept stalling his divorce from Annabella), and the understandable fear that her beauty would eventually fade.

  In Beverly Hills, she found her own “Dr. Feelgood,” who got her addicted to amphetamines. She was so hyped up from his dosages that she could party all night, even when Power wanted to go home. But, as Guiles revealed in his biography, “There were times when she (Lana) was clearly out of control, her laughter too shrill, and her moods irrational.” Her chain smoking also increased.

  The more she urged Power to divorce Annabella, the more he stalled, making up excuses. They lived apart, but occasionally got together, ostensibly to discuss their career choices and even the terms that a divorce might entail. The more he put off marriage, the more Lana’s chances of marrying him diminished.

  During the white heat of her affair with him, she was shooting Green Dolphin Street, where he became a frequent visitor to the set.

  On the MGM lot, in a dressing room adjoining Lana’s, Esther Williams said, “From the sound of things, Ty and Lana must be setting fire to those pink satin sheets of hers.”

  Victor Saville, directing Green Dolphin Street, said, “Ty had so much charm it should be outlawed. Did Lana really love him? I don’t know. Had she really loved anyone before? Frankly, I think she fell in love with Ty because he was the male version of herself.”

  Helen Young, an MGM hairdresser and close friend of Lana’s, said, “If I had to choose the most important event in Lana Turner’s life, I would have to say it was her love affair with Ty Power. He was thirty-three years old when he became involved with her. He still had his good looks and, as always, could charm both men and women. In fact, he once admitted to me that even straight men propositioned him.”

  When Zanuck informed Power that he’d have to fly to Mexico for location shooting on Captain from Castile (1947), he met with Romero, who would be co-starring with him in the film. Power surprised his companion when he told him, “I’m glad to take a breather and get out of Hollywood for a change. Lana is so in love with me she is smothering me to death, and I need some breathing room. To inhale some fresh air. My god, she seems to want reassurance every minute that I love her!”

  “Don’t worry,” Romero assured him. “I’ll take care of all your needs down in Mexico.”

  Edie Goetz, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, once tried to explain Lana’s “suffocating kind of love.”

  “She knows no other way to love. She’s a clinger, seemingly wanting proof of her lover’s devotion every minute. That was not Ty’s way. He often wanted to be alone for days at a time. He liked to lock himself in his house and read books, always searching for the right kind of story that might make a great film. He told me that he had never actually proposed marriage to Lana, even though she begged him almost every day to marry her.”

  In contrast, Lana told such friends as Linda Darnell, Virginia Grey, and Susan Hayward that, “Ty and I are officially engaged. He’s searching for an engagement ring for me right now, I suppose.”

  According Goetz, “Of course, I had to admit that physically—not emotionally—they were perfectly matched. When I first saw them together, they took my breath away with their stunning beauty. Her Jean Harlow platinum hair contrasted with his raven black locks. One evening, they were planning to co-star in a film together, called Forever. I told him that my father, Mayer, would never agree to lend Lana to Fox, and I’m sure Zanuck didn’t want my dad to get his hands on Ty.”

  On many a night, Power talked with Lana about making a film out of his favorite novella, Forever. Written by Mildred Cram in 1934, it was a fragile, 60-page story, whose theme was that love reaches beyond the borders of life and death. The plot involved Colin and Julie, who in this otherworldly story, meet before they are born and finally find each other in this life and in this world.

  Originally, Janet Gaynor had purchased its film rights as a vehicle for herself and perhaps Robert Taylor. Later, MGM acquired the rights as a possible project for Norma Shearer with Clark Gable. Ultimately, however, a film adaptation of the novella was never made.

  Unknown to Lana, when Judy Garland was in love with Power, he read her the story one night by the fireplace and intrigued her into co-starring with him in this supernatural tale of enduring love. Someone wrote that Garland memorized the novella ”word for word,” but that seems unlikely.

  Even though Zanuck would not green-light Forever, he and Power still remained best friends. With Lana, Power spent two weekends every month at the Zanuck estate in Palm Springs.

  ***

  In mid-November of 1946, Power left for the scenic village of Morelia, near Pátzcuaro, Mexico, for location shooting on Captain from Castile. The next day in Hedda Hopper’s column, she wrote, “Beautiful Lana Turner and beautiful Tyrone Power pledged their love and devotion to each other before he flew south.” Privately, Hopper had asked him, “Are you really in love with Lana?”

  “It’s the nearest I’ve come to it,” he confided to her. “But don’t print that. It would hurt Lana’s feelings.”

  She remained behind, filming Green Dolphin Street.

  Arriving in a bone-bare Mexican outpost, the prospects looked bleak for Power,
who faced a three-month shooting scheduled. His co-star was Jean Peters. But Hughes had warned him to stay away from her, because he had staked her out for himself. He would eventually marry her.

  Errol Flynn, Power’s former lover and a frequent visitor to Mexico, had arranged for Power to have a Mexican “guide.” It turned out to be Carlos Francisco, who was eighteen. He’d been born in Juarez to a Mexican mother and an American sailor from San Diego who had spent only one night in the town.

  Flynn had discovered Carlos when he was only fourteen years old, and had him delivered to the location shooting. In his note to Power, Flynn defined Carlos as “a party favor. He’s the most beautiful boy in Mexico, and I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  Power did agree, and moved Carlos into his modest living quarters, booting out a jealous Romero, who had, by now, gotten used to being ejected.

  At MGM, Lana had missed spending Christmas with Power. During the shooting of Green Dolphin Street, MGM had warned her not to fly anywhere until the film was wrapped. She was so desperately lonely, however, that she decided to fly to Mexico City anyway during her three-day vacation so that she could “bring in” 1947 with her lover. She had been told that it was urgently necessary for her to report back to work at MGM at 9AM on January 2.

  She opted not to alert Power, but planned to show up unexpectedly on the set.

  In Mexico City, she learned that Morelia was some 85 miles away. There was no train service, not even a bus to this remote location, which was reached via bumpy roads better suited to a donkey than an automobile. The roads often washed out, she was told.

  She placed an emergency call to Power, and, after about ten attempts, was finally able to reach Henry King, the film’s director, who summoned Power to the phone.

  “Hi, baby!” he said. “How’s the weather in L.A.?”

  “How in hell would I know?” she asked. “I’m in Mexico City.”