Lana Turner

by Darwin Porter

  One headline read: LANA TURNER TO PLAY STRAIGHT MAN TO BOB HOPE.

  However, before leaving the studio, she had arrived at a rather loose agreement that for the next five years, she’d make one picture a year for the studio at a relatively modest salary.

  Although she did not follow through with that agreement, based on her agreement to film this final movie for MGM, she’d be allowed to collect $92,000 from MGM’s pension fund.

  Bachelor in Paradise cast Hope as Adam J. Niles, a writer who has penned books on the sex lives of every nationality from the Greeks to the Swedes. After months of “research” overseas, he returns to America to face a daunting problem. Because of his crooked business manager, he owes a million dollars in back taxes to the IRS. His publisher wants him to write a book, How the Americans Live, about the sex lives of the “happy couples” living in postwar suburbia.

  To facilitate that, the publisher had arranged for Hope to move into a rented home in Paradise Village, a modern suburban housing development awash with such innovations as big supermarkets, gadgets like a garbage disposal, babysitters, the hazards of the new freeways, and bored housewives waiting claustrophobically at home as their husbands labor frantically at white-collar jobs.

  Hope moves in, causing speculation, since he’s a bachelor.

  Of course, the assumption of any sexual chemistry between Hope and Lana would not be palatable to most viewers today, but, after all, it was only a movie. It might have been the type of comedy Doris Day would make with either Cary Grant or James Garner. As anticipated, Hope was ready to deliver his one-liners and his by now familiar facial expressions.

  Lana confessed to Grey, “I think sometime, years ago, that Bob made a pass at me. I didn’t catch it. I was afraid that if he took me to bed, i’d end up laughing hysterically. I’m told that men don’t like that.”

  “I wonder why,” Grey answered.

  At the age of forty-one, Lana appeared perfectly coiffed with makeup by her friend, Del Armstrong, wearing dresses and gowns by Helen Rose. She was photographed in CinemaScope and MetroColor by Joe Ruttenberg, who made her look years younger.

  Hope had warned her, “This Bachelor is not Oscar material.” In fact, however, Henry Mancini, who wrote the title song, would be nominated for an Academy award for his music.

  Some viewers thought that Lana looked like a stylishly dressed “robot,” but she does break loose in one scene. After downing one too many Polynesian cocktails, she takes to the dance floor to perform a hip-swinging hula, her fun moment on screen.

  The best review for Bachelor in Paradise derived from Bob Considine, who claimed that it was “Bob Hope’s funniest movie ever.” Of course, that was gross exaggeration. Hope himself told friends, “I’m not proud of this one. Of course, Lana, as always, looked luscious.”

  ***

  Finished forever with MGM, Lana received an unexpected offer for a Paramount release, Who’s Got the Action? it would be the only film she’d make in 1962 before disappearing from the screen for three years.

  As with Bob Hope, Who’s Got the Action? would be another “odd couple” pairing, this time with singer-actor Dean Martin, the “King of Cool.” He was the no. 2 rodent in the “Rat Pack” led by Frank Sinatra.

  The script about betting on horse races was by the film’s director, Jack Rose, who based it on the novel, Four Horse Players Are Missing, by Alexander Rose (no relation).

  This wacky racetrack yarn would be promoted not based on what happened on the track, but in the boudoir.

  Rose picked Daniel Mann to direct, which came as a surprise to Lana. Who’s Got the Action? seemed like a lightweight comedy farce for a respected director whose reputation had been built on such distinguished films as William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) with Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth; Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo (1955) with Lancaster and Anna Magnani; I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955) with Susan Hayward in the saga of the alcoholic singer, Lillian Roth; and BUtterfield 8 (1960), an Oscar winner for Elizabeth Taylor.

  The plot has Lana playing Melanie Flood, a dizzy but engaging socialite and wannabe author, married to happy-go-lucky Steve Flood, as charmingly depicted by Dean Martin. At first, she thinks his obsession is with other women, but soon learns that it involves gambling on horses.

  In Who’s Got the Action?, Lana got to appear in a bathtub scene for the fourth time in a movie.

  Before that, she’d been bubble-bathed in Ziegfeld Girl, The Merry Widow, and The Lady Takes a Flyer. She told Mann, “Why not call me Bubbles?”

  She comes up with a far-fetched scheme that plot-wise doesn’t make a lot of sense. Martin is losing a lot of their money at the tracks.

  She turns to his law partner, Clint Morgan (Eddie Albert), to help her in her scheme to secretly become her husband’s “bookie.”

  That way, his losses would be paid to her.

  Her plot backfires when, unexpectedly, Steve starts to score big wins on his bets, and as his (clandestine) bookie, she has to raise the money to pay him off.

  Her financial position becomes more hazardous when he involves two horse-playing, gambling-addicted judges, portrayed by Paul ford and John McGiver. One reviewer called Ford “hilarious as a bird-brained, spaniel-eyed llamalipped pony player.”

  To raise the money she needs to keep “the action” going, Lana, as the secret bookie, is forced to sell her jewelry and their furniture.

  Lana’s role in this gambling network attracts the attention of syndicate boss Tony Gagoots (Walter Matthau), who is furious about losing bets. He decides his boys will have to eliminate the competition, in this case Melania (Lana herself).

  Matthau’s role—as was much of the picture—was inspired by Damon Runyon. Matthau delivers such lines as “Give disgenulman eighteen tousan’ dolluhs frum petty cash.”

  As it so happens, Gagoot’s girlfriend, “Saturday Knight” (the very charming and funny Nita Talbot, who stole most of the scenes she appeared in) lives next door to Lana and buys many of her possessions. A New Yorker, Talbot, a sort of latter-day Eve Arden, usually played “slick chicks” and sharp-witted career girls.

  Since it’s a movie, everything works out happily in the end. Lana weans Martin from the horses and even is able to reclaim her furniture.

  Even though she had passed the big 4-0, a burial ground for most Hollywood female stars, Lana managed to look gorgeous throughout the movie in gowns and costumes designed by Edith Head, who had previously dressed virtually every major star in Hollywood.

  Both Eddie Albert and his wife Margo, were cast in the film, with Margo playing Rosa, Melania’s wacky Hispanic maid. Both Albert and Margo had had some rough rides in their careers, ever since they landed on the Red Channels list in the 1950s.

  The movie did not get good reviews. The New York Morning Telegraph wrote, “Dean Martin, Eddie Albert, and Lana Turner go through their paces with great good will. None of the film can be taken seriously, a good deal of it is as ridiculous as it is preposterous.” Time magazine wrote, “The syndicate has the last laugh in this yak derby, but the customers get most of the others. The film is not the merriest ‘oatsmobile’ that ever came down the track, but Dean and Lana make a surprisingly smooth entry.”

  Most critics panned the movie for not getting out of the starting gate.

  ***

  Nicknamed the “King of Cool,” Dean Martin was one of the most popular singers and actors in America when he teamed up with Lana to make Who’s Got the Action?

  Ashe first met him in Los Angeles early in his career when he was teamed with comedian Jerry Lewis. She was seen in the audience at a club called Slapsy Maxie’s, which was a popular spot, attracting many stars such as Doris Day and Danny Kaye.

  At the time, Martin was married to his second wife, Jeanne Biegger, a model and former Orange Bowl Queen from Coral Gables, Florida.

  But that didn’t stop his womanizing, something he shared in common with another of Lana’s beaux, Frank Sinatra.

  “The
most beautiful broads were crazy for Dean,” Lewis said. “In truth, I fucked more than he did, but it was always like they wanted to burp me.”

  A strong supporting cast zestfully poured themselves into their roles as eccentrics indulging Lana in her (adorable) whims.

  Above, Nita Talbot, playing a gun moll, and Eddie Albert.

  Ann sheridan, one of his early movie star conquests, said, “Dean was a love ‘em, leave ‘em kind of guy. He was a bastard, all wine and candlelight at night. For your efforts in the boudoir, you got a pat on the ass in the morning, right before he headed out the door.”

  Sinatra is credited as the man who fixed Lana up with Dean in encounters that included a long weekend in Palm Springs. He joked to Martin and some of his other “Rat Packers,” like Peter Lawford, “As is well known, Lana seems to like Italian pepperoni, the bigger the better.”

  Martin’s biographer, William Schoell, wrote: “Lana had the hots for Dean and wasn’t afraid to let him—or anyone else in the room—know how she felt.”

  “The fires of September” had cooled to a burning ember when Dean Martin and Lana reunited on the set of her latest movie.

  He told Peter Lawford, “Lana is still beautiful, even a bit sexy, but she’s become a bit matronly for me. As you know, I like ‘em young and fresh. I hope she doesn’t demand that I fuck her regularly, like we used to do in the good ol’ days.”

  Years before she co-starred with him in a film, Lana showed up with Martin at such clubs as Herman Hover’s Ciro’s, later going to a late night party at Hover’s home after the club closed. After a wild night of heavy drinking, Lana with Martin would slip out the door at around 2AM in the morning and disappear into the night.

  ***

  One afternoon, Lana encountered Marilyn Monroe on the set, heading to Dean’s bungalow. The two blondes had not seen each other since the days when Monroe was trying to get her career launched in Hollywood, using Lana as one of her inspirations.

  “Lana, you look gorgeous,” Monroe said. “Still. As you remember, I once used you as a role model before I created my own screen persona. And now I’m a bigger star than you are—that’s Hollywood for you!”

  “All stars flicker out,” Lana said. “You’ll find that out one day.”

  “I don’t want to think about that,” Monroe said.

  Then Marilyn reported that she was going to be the star of a new movie with Martin as her leading man. “It’s called Something’s Got to Give.” She explained that it was a remake of My Favorite Wife, the 1940 film that had starred cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

  “Which role do you play? Lana asked with a smirk.

  “The Irene Dunne part, silly,” Monroe said. “Gotta go.” Then she tottered off on high heels.

  That afternoon, Lana told her makeup man, Del Armstrong, “Dean might make it through the picture, but I don’t think Marilyn will. She’s coming unglued.”

  She was right. Marilyn was murdered in August of 1962 after the picture had been shut down, her death still a mystery.

  ***

  Lana’s next movie, Love Has Many Faces, set by Columbia for a 1965 release, evoked those women’s pictures of the 1940s.

  Still looking gorgeous in a bathing suit, Lana was cast as one of the richest women in the world, buying male flesh in Acapulco.

  Here she has a tense scene with Cliff Robertson, whom she’d “purchased” and married.

  The plot by Marguerite Roberts focuses mainly on Kit, who is married to a former beach boy and hustler, Pete Jordan (Cliff Robertson). Kit is pursued by Hank Walker (Hugh O’Brien), another sexy hustler who preys on older women, often blackmailing them.

  One line in the movie was drawn from Lana’s own life. “She was meant to have seven husbands, and I’m next.” It was uttered by Hank.

  To complicate matters, yet another “beach boy” has washed up on the sands dead. Lt. Riccardo Andrade (Enrique Lucero) sets out to investigate his death. It is discovered that he was a former paid lover of Kit, who had given him a bracelet engraved LOVE IS THIN ICE.

  The dead American’s deserted girlfriend, Carol Lambert (Stefanie Powers), flew in from Detroit to learn what she can about her former boyfriend’s death. As a subplot, she falls in love with Pete, Kit’s husband.

  This time, Lana’s competition was a brunette, Stefanie Powers. It was speculated that Lana was jealous of the screen beauty, a star of tomorrow, all fresh-faced and beautiful, as Lana herself was drifting into middle age.

  There is another subplot, as Hank and his friend pursue two American women on vacation—Margot Eliot (Ruth Roman) and Irene Talbot (Virginia Grey). Lana had insisted that her friend, Grey, be cast as one of the aging women with an eye for young beach boys on the make.

  Roman, known as the “Ice Beauty” in many films of the 1950s, was at the nadir of her career after a successful run of A-list pictures in the past decade. Those included her most memorable, Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), co-starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker.

  Near the climax of the film, Kit and her husband go to a Mexican ranch where bulls are trained. Here, she meets Manuel Perez, an actual bullfighter played by Jaime Bravo. Carlos Montalban, the older brother of Ricardo Montalban, was cast as Don Julain. Lana talked with him about working with his brother on Latin Lovers.

  Del Armstrong, her makeup man and confidant, claimed, “Lana was happy working again in such a glamorous role. As a fringe benefit, she had two of the handsomest leading men in Hollywood to enjoy after dark, each of them very sexy, and very available, each unattached at the time they worked with Lana—not that that would have stopped her.”

  Depicted above, Lana with Cliff Robertson.

  Kit has seen a relationship developing between Pete and Carol. Exasperated, she rides off on a horse but falls from it and is gored in the stomach by a rampaging bull. This near-fatal accident seems to rekindle Pete’s love for his wife, and he rushes to her side to see her through recovery. A wiser Carol returns to Detroit.

  A large selling point of the movie, views of which were included in the advertising, was the fabulous wardrobe created for Lana by Edith Head, who had designed her wardrobe for Who’s Got the Action?

  Producer Jerry Brasler had ads released with headlines that screamed LANA TURNER IN A MILLION DOLLAR EDITH HEAD WARDROBE.

  During its filming in Mexico, Lana may have taken the role of Kit Jordan too literally, as noted by press agent George Nichols.

  “Acapulco reminded Lana of some of the good times in her life, as well as a nightmare or two, especially when she spent time here with Johnny Stompanato. It was difficult for me to believe that Lana drank during working hours, but she did. She also had romantic flings, as she was very lonely, a frightened child. Alcohol gave her the confidence to face life every day.”

  The entire cast, especially Grey, became aware of Lana’s flings with both Cliff Robertson and Hugh O’Brian, as well as the charismatic bullfighter, Jaime Bravo.

  Hugh O’Brian had fascinated Lana ever since she’d watched an episode of his hit NBC-TV series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-61). she learned that he’d been the roommate of Stompanato when they’d attended military school together.

  In Love Has Many Faces, O’Brien appears in a tight-fitting bathing suit “that made things—or rather his thing—rather obvious,” Lana said to Grey.

  Lana knew that O’Brien had never married, although he’d had certain affairs, including one with singer Margaret Whiting.

  As regards his inspiration for how he interpreted the character he played, O’Brien admitted to the director, “I’m basing my character on everything I’ve heard about Stompanato.”

  She was even more intrigued by Robertson, who had appeared as Lt. John F. Kennedy in the 1963 PT 109. After his rather thankless role in Love Has Many Faces, he would go on to win a Best Actor Oscar for his 1968 role in the movie Charly.

  Another Dubious Day in Paradise

  Depicted above are Hugh O’Brian (left) and Ron H
usmann, cast as two omnisexual and amoral beach boys who peddle their flesh to older women.

  Love Has Many Faces was a precursor of such later novels as Midnight Cowboy and Butterflies in Heat about young men who hustle and their dynamic with women (or men) they service in sex-for-cash deals.

  Her affair with Robertson occurred right before he married the elegant and rich Dina Merrill, actress and Post Cereals heiress.

  He was a skilled pilot and one weekend, when they were free, he rented a private plane and flew her along the western coast of Mexico. They landed at a cactus-studded outpost, a modest inn, where he first seduced her.

  Back in Acapulco, Lana had a somewhat chilly relationship with Stefanie Powers. She had just appeared in the 1966 film, Die! Die! My Darling (released in Britain as Fanatic) starring Tallulah Bankhead.

  Her career fading, Ruth Roman was cast as an aging American heiress who goes to Acapulco for a vacation and hooks up with the beach boy and hustler, Hugh O’Brian, who really has his eye trained on bigger and richer game–Lana herself.

  Born in Hollywood, Powers was 21 years younger than Lana. And both seemed to have an eye for Jaime Bravo, a well-known matador of his era, known for his skill as a bullfighter and his many widely publicized celebrity affairs.

  Lana was a devotee of bullfights, and an “aficionado” of Bravo. He’d received rave reviews from her friend, Ava Gardner, who had seduced the handsome young man in 1957.

  The first time he took Lana to bed, she reported to Grey, “Jaime shares something in common with the bull. When he appears in that bullfighter costume, he doesn’t need padding like some matadors.”

  Shooting Love Has Many Faces wasn’t all about lovemaking. For a week, Lana came down with some mysterious virus and was unable to report to work. At one point, her temperature hovered at 104 degrees. Even after she returned to work, she had a relapse and had to go to bed again.

  Reacting to that, Bresler began secret negotiations with both Joan Crawford and Susan Hayward as replacements for Lana. But she recovered in time.