Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

To his shock, he learned that she had flown there to pay a surprise visit to him on the set. He promised to get back to her, claiming that he would try to charter a small plane to bring her to the nearby landing strip at Pátzcuaro.

  He came through for her, and she boarded the rickety airplane with great trepidation. In the meantime, Power had time to move a very disappointed Carlos out of his shack.

  Lana later said, “I was very upset by the sound of Ty’s voice. He didn’t seem exactly elated that I was in Mexico. I suspected that he had shacked up with some Mexican spitfire like Lupe Velez in my absence.”

  “There I was, stranded in Mexico City feeling god damn foolish. I was trying to pull off this big romantic fling with Ty, but I feared that I was like a school girl with a crush on the football captain. I was making a fucking nuisance of myself.”

  In spite of his initial reservations, Power welcomed her to the set and to his modest abode. She later told Darnell, “We made love all afternoon. It was worth the horrendous trip just to be in his arms once again.”

  “Romero, however, gave me a chilly reception, as did his co-star, Jean Peters. I heard that she was dating Howard, so I think she was jealous of me.” She also noted that a very good-looking Mexican boy kept following Power and her around at a safe distance. She said, “If looks could kill, I’d be dead.”

  To Mexico, she had brought all the equipment, accessories, and wardrobe to make herself look glamorous on New Years’ Eve.

  She wore an Oriental dress with a high mandarin collar, her skirt slit up one side to show off her shapely legs. Under the nighttime sky, “I was a vision of seed pearls and rhinestones with a diamond necklace woven into my hair by a fat Mexican woman.”

  She recalled “It turned out to be the most romantic night of my life. The whole town was celebrating New Year’s Eve, as the strains of music wafted across the cobblestoned town square where everybody gathered to hear the ringing of the church bells, signaling the new year.”

  In front of the church, as the bells were ringing, he kissed her at the stroke of midnight. She later claimed, “It was the single greatest and most passionate kiss of my life. And I’ve been kissed by some of the greatest smoochers on the planet.”

  But on the morning of her return, the skies opened up and “each raindrop seemed to contain a pint of water,” she said. “The roads were washed out and all planes were grounded.”

  She did not show up for work at MGM on January 2 at 9AM. Saville, who had already shot the scenes where she wasn’t needed, had no alternative but to shut down production. From 9AM to noon, he waited, and finally her call came in, informing him that she was grounded by bad weather, based on her impulsive weekend jaunt to a remote corner of Mexico to be with Power.

  Mayer had to be informed of the delay, which he said would cost MGM $100,000 a day. Even if he exaggerated that figure, it would be very costly to the studio.

  He asked Saville, “Does the bitch have to fly to Mexico to get fucked? There are plenty of dicks to go around in Hollywood. She should sample this new gu y, this actor, John Ireland. I was told yesterday that he had the biggest dick in town.”

  Finally, the weather cleared, and Power arranged for her to fly to Mexico City. She gave him a long, lingering kiss before boarding. “I’ll be back and the next time, we won’t have to rush.”

  That did not work out. She never returned to the location.

  From Mexico City, she flew back to Los Angeles, where she showed up the next morning to find the set completely dark. Her first fear was that Mayer had shut down the picture and would sue her for the cost of the film so far.

  Nevertheless, she put on her makeup and costume and walked onto the set. Not a soul was in sight. Suddenly, the lights were switched on, and she heard the sound of Mexican music. Saville emerged leading the cast and crew. Everyone wore a sombrero, and all of them were singing “South of the Border.”

  In spite of the serious breach of her contract, she was not sued, although her paycheck was docked.

  Lana completed Green Dolphin Street, and Power eventually finished location shooting for Captain from Castile and then returned to Los Angeles for interior shots.

  Shortly after his return, he and Lana were seen on the nighttime circuit, popping up at Ciro’s or the Mocambo. Once again, Lana brought up the subject of divorce. He put her off, telling her that Annabella was in Paris filming Éternel Conflit (The Eternal Conflict, 1948), and that nothing could be done until she returned to California.

  In Paris, the actress announced to the press, “I have no intention of divorcing Mr. Power.”

  ***

  Hughes had been surprised when his aide, Johnny Meyer, reported to him that Lana was having a torrid affair with Tyrone Power, and that they may even have fallen in love. He was no longer as infatuated with them as he’d been when he’d first met them, but he was still intrigued. He ordered Meyer to put both of them under 24-hour surveillance and to report back to him with full details.

  “From the beginning, Howard wanted to be in on the affair,” Meyer claimed, years later after Hughes had died. “He wanted to be part of the action, or so I thought. It was almost like, ‘How dare you two fall in love without getting my permission first?’”

  Hughes had also put actress Jean Peters under surveillance during the time she co-starred with Power in Captain from Castile.

  Early in 1947, columnist Florence Muir reported that Lana had packed ten glamorous bathing suits to take with her to Acapulco for a vacation with Power. Muir knew only half the story. The invitation from Hughes had been collectively extended to them both, as a committed couple, in love.

  The aviator/movie czar had arranged for “these two lovebirds” (as he called them) to stay in luxurious comfort in a villa within the then new, glamorous, and to some degree, semi-private resort of Acapulco.

  Their host would be Teddy Stauffer, a Swiss-born big band leader whose tireless promotion of his luxury retreat (and the resort that contained it) had earned him the nickname “Mr. Acapulco.”

  Fleeing from the Nazis in 1940, Stauffer had settled in Mexico. Before that, he’d introduced American-style swing to pre-war Europe. He’d owned a night club and had been a small-time actor, but mostly he was known as an international playboy.

  Like Hughes, he was a world-class seducer and had even married two of Hughes’ former girlfriends, Hedy Lamarr and actress Faith Domergue.

  In Mexico, Stauffer was on hand to welcome Lana and Power, giving the couple his most luxurious villa, which was filled with flowers and had a refrigerator overflowing with champagne.

  The next day, Hughes showed up to take Lana and Power on a sailing expedition aboard a luxurious yacht he’d rented, complete with crew. When the yacht returned at 6PM, its “cargo” included a 210-pound swordfish. “Ty and I caught it together,” Lana told Stauffer.

  Years later, Stauffer revealed additional details of Lana’s trip to biographer Charles Higham, but asked him not to print any of the graphic details. “I was in on Howard’s plan right from the beginning. I set the whole thing up for him. He planned to make a grand entrance in the nude in the bedroom that Lana occupied with Power. I told him I thought the couple might be accommodating for a three-way, although I feared that Lana might hesitate. Even though sleeping with every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Hollywood, she sometimes made cooing sounds that she was a lady.”

  “Howard had left the lovebirds alone for their first night,” Stauffer said. “But on the second night, he stripped down in front of me and headed bare-assed into their villa. I stayed nearby in case of trouble. He took the lovers by surprise. I heard a lot of loud talk, then everything settled down.”

  “The next morning over breakfast,” Stauffer said, “I personally squeezed Howard’s juice from blood-red oranges. He always insisted it be done right in front of him. He reported to me, while Lana and Power were still sleeping, that the previous night had been a success. Howard claimed that he had gone down on both of them while they kissed each othe
r passionately. Later, as Power fucked Lana, he fucked Power, who was ‘Lucky Pierre’ caught in the middle of the sandwich. Howard confessed that, ‘It was the best orgasm I ever had.’”

  ***

  After she had finished shooting Green Dolphin Street, Lana had been set to co-star with Spencer Tracy in Cass Timberlane.

  In the meantime, she sat night after night with Power, who claimed that he wanted to escape from adventure stories and prove to critics that he was a serious actor, especially in the wake of good reviews he’d gotten for The Razor’s Edge (1946). He’d discovered a controversial script entitled Nightmare Alley, a compelling story about life—morbid but fascinating—as experienced by workers in an itinerant carnival.

  In his role, Power becomes entangled with mind-reading Joan Blondell and assorted sideshow weirdos. He ends up as a sleazy, somewhat demented carnival geek eating raw chickens.

  Darryl F. Zanuck did not want his leading matinee idol to play such an unromantic role, but Lana backed Power, earning a tongue lashing from the Fox mogul. Finally, and very reluctantly, approval was granted. Even though Nightmare Alley (1947) failed at the box office, Power got some of the best notices of his career, and it eventually became an cult classic.

  In the months to come, columnists followed the romance of Lana and Power. Sidney Skolsky reported that “Tyrone Power and Lana Turner continue to be the most romantic couple in town.”

  Sheilah Graham informed her readers that Lana had gone on a diet and had lost seven pounds. “And, lest I forget, she’s still in love with Tyrone Power, in spite of her reputation—or his—of being fickle.”

  She also reported that Power was still married to Annabella.

  After a weekend with Power, Lana, alone in her house on a Monday afternoon, was overcome with nausea and set up a five o’clock appointment with her doctor. After an examination, he informed her that once again, she was pregnant.

  That night, when Power came over, she told him the news. “With me as the boy’s mother, and you as its father, it’ll be the most beautiful little baby ever born.”

  He wasn’t so sure, pointing out that since he was still married, news of the pregnancy might destroy both of their promising careers. He urged her to consider an abortion.

  She suggested that she might go away for nine months and disappear like Loretta Young had done when Clark Gable had impregnated her on the set of The Call of the Wild (1935).

  “What if the boy is the spit image of me?” he asked.

  He said that he was going to leave the decision of an abortion up to her. “I’ll respect your wishes.

  [She objected to his attitude. That was not the reaction she had wanted. In her fantasy, she had expected him to grab her, kiss her, and hold her, showing his delight that she was going to be the mother of his baby. She had also wanted him to promise he’d arrange a quickie divorce from Anabella and marry her at once as a means of making their baby legitimate.]

  The night of the following day, she was even more horrified when he told her that he was going to fly aboard a converted DC-E during an upcoming two-month Good Will Tour of Africa. Although she didn’t confront him with it directly, she felt he was abandoning her to solve the dilemma of an unwanted baby by herself. She had hoped to announce her engagement to the press before his trip, but he balked. “It would not be discreet,” he said.

  Nonetheless, she threw a $10,000 bon voyage party for him at Ciro’s. Its themewas “Cupid & Love,” and as a decorative logo on display, the letters “L&T” were entwined with an arrow. She announced that night that she would be joining him in Africa as soon as Cass Timberlane was wrapped.

  That’s not what Power told Romero the following day. “For me, my romance with Lana is on life support.”

  She drove him to the airport on the morning of his departure. The pilot of his plane was Robert Buck, and, among others, Power was accompanied by his secretary, Bill Gallagher.

  The plane was scheduled to leave Los Angeles en route to Miami. From there, Power and his entourage would fly south to Brazil and from there, they’d cross the Atlantic for the west coast of Africa.

  Before departure, he and Lana devised a secret code whereby she could inform him of her decision about the abortion. Motivated by the fear that an overseas operator might be listening to their conversations, she instructed Power that if she’d opted to abort the child, she’d say, “I found the house today,” and that if she opted not to abort the child (and presumably to raise him or her as her own), she would say, “I haven’t found the house today.”

  At the airport, she give him a long, lingering kiss, saying, “I will miss you, darling, and will count the hours until you are back in my arms.”

  She had already discussed an abortion with her most trusted confidante, Virginia Grey. She warned Lana that having the baby out of wedlock would destroy her career and possibly harm Power’s, even though men were judged by a different standard.

  Lana said, “I desperately want to have Ty’s child. But after pondering it for a week, I decided to go ahead with the abortion.”

  Unlike a previous abortion, this one was performed without complications on a clean operating table with an anesthetic. She said, “The abortion took the fetus from me, but it did more than that. I took a piece of my heart.”

  ***

  One night in Africa, Power confessed to Buck, his pilot, that he wanted to “break it off with Lana.”

  He had already told Cesar Romero, “I find it much harder to break off a love affair with a woman than with a man.”

  “So you’re calling it quits with Lana?” Buck asked.

  “I already have. I just haven’t told her yet. I want to be free as a bird, going where the wind takes me. Having new adventures, new, exciting conquests.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Man Who Got Away

  Lana Weds a Tin Plate Heir “Whose Figure Is Less Than Greek”

  In a costume drama based on the Dumas classic, The Three Musketeers, Lana in Technicolor had never looked more dazzling or more beautiful.

  “I sank my teeth into my first truly villainous role. Of course, I get beheaded for my evil deeds. But what a lovely head it was. I was playing a murderess and a thief, enough to make Lucretia Borgia look like Mary Poppins. My character was a wily and arch schemer. I’m imprisoned for my treachery. But I feign illness to win the sympathy of my jailers. Then I coldly murder them.”

  After 1945, despite her ongoing romantic problems with Tyrone Power, Lana forged ahead with her career, pouring cinema magic, scandals, and interviews out onto the fast-evolving postwar scene.

  Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote: “Lana Turner is a super-star for many reasons, chiefly because she is the same off-screen as she is on. Some of the great starsare magnetic dazzlers on celluloid and ordinary, practical, polo-coated little things in private life. Not so Lana. No one who adored her in movies would be disappointed to meet her in the flesh. The flesh looks the same. The biography is as colorful as any plot she has ever romped through on the screen. The clothes she wears are just like the clothes you pay to see her in on Saturday night at the Bijou. The physical allure is just as heavy when she looks at a headwaiter as when she looks at a screen hero.”

  The the costume drama, Green Dolphin Street, Lana was cast as Marianne Patourel, who was stronger and more dominant than her sister, Marguerite (Donna Reed).

  “Donna had the easy role, and did it well, but I had the major acting challenge--a real gutsy woman who stands by her man through earthquakes and a native Maori uprising.”

  Lana spoke to the press, commenting on success in Hollywood, defining it as “the most dangerous thing that can happen. There is nothing more devastating.”

  In 1947, after being off the screen for a full year after the success of The Postman Always Rings Twice, she released Green Dolphin Street and Cass Timberlane.

  The director of Green Dolphin Street, Victor Saville, had lined up a strong supporting cast, headed by Van Heflin, who’d playe
d a drunken lawyer in her film, Johnny Eager. Heflin had not been designated as the romantic lead, that role going to Richard Hart. Donna Reed played Lana’s sister, backed up by Frank Morgan, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Reginald Owen, and the formidable Gladys Cooper.

  Although Lana as a blonde had created a sensation in The Postman Always Rings Twice, for Green Dolphin Street her hair was honey brown. Since her role demanded several different coiffures, her hairdresser, Helen Young, devised thirty-four different hairpieces for her, some of which were never used. Her fabulous costume wardrobe was created by Walter Plunkett, who had dressed the stars of Gone With the Wind.

  During the filming of Green Dolphin Street, Lana related well to Del Armstrong, a genius when it came to makeup. She formed a friendship with him that would last a lifetime.

  They had first met when he applied her makeup for Marriage Is a Private Affair.

  “I could always trust him,” she said. He’d see her through suicide attempts, a murder, and all her various love affairs. “If I ever had a man who was a best friend, it was Del. He never betrayed me, like so many others. He was always there for me.”

  In September of 1943, MGM had offered a $200,000 prize for the writer who developed the best story for adaptation into a film. The honor went to Elizabeth Goudge in 1944. Her romantic novel, Green Dolphin Street, had already sold 1.5 million copies.

  MGM’s filming of this 1840sera drama included staggering costs and major challenges, including the hiring of hundreds of extras; the creation of background settings for New Zealand, China, and the Channel Islands; and the building of full-scale replicas of clipper ships. The biggest challenge was for the special effects technicians, who had to simulate a major earthquake. For their efforts, Warren Newcombe and A. Arnold Gillespie received an Oscar.

  Originally, Saville thought the strong role of Marianne Patourel required the arresting presence of Katharine Hepburn. But in the wake of her stunning performance in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Louis B. Mayer wanted to give Lana a chance to shine once again—this time in the Channel Islands seaport of St. Pierre. Donna Reed was cast as Lana’s sister, Marguerite. Originally, that role was to have gone to June Allyson.