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180: Lana Turner +Johnny Stompanato: Love Hurts
51 Plays1 month ago
APOLOGIES for the Delay, tech issues struck again! Trigger warning: for Abuse, Attempted Suicide, Miscarriage and sexual abuse mentions. Please listen with care.
Old Hollywood Part Two is here and its all about the "Goddess and the Gangster" aka Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato. Let's just say it's a bit of a rollercoaster, rags to riches story with a raging violent streak.
We go through Lana's early life and who she married before she met Johnny (she could give Liz Taylor a run for her money!) and their love story. Of course, it's true crime so somebody's gonna get hurt and we won't say anymore, you'll have to listen and find out!
The glam factor is fun, from her pink carpets to her white Cadillacs, and it's not necessarily a super sad ending for all involved, so tune in to here the Old Hollywood Tea!
Hope you enjoy and tell us what you think! Keep it Cryptic, Cuties!!!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Episode
00:00:04
Speaker
Darkcast Network. Indie pods with a dark side.
Hosts Introduce Themselves and Show Continuation
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back to Castles and Cryptids, where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck. And I'm one of your hosts, Alanna. And I'm Kelsey.
00:00:40
Speaker
And we're back for our second part in old Hollywood series.
Editing, Recording Delays, and Patreon Updates
00:00:49
Speaker
And, uh, wowzers. I did not remember a lot of the first one because you edited and then my brother was texting me jokes that I wasn't getting.
00:01:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I did edit that one. And I was like, I was like, oh shit, was I even there for that episode? um No, I just ah just or ah like edited your responses in from previous episodes of audio sound bites.
00:01:18
Speaker
Wow, cool. I can't believe it. Wow, shocking. I just have a soundboard of Alana responses I just play them on a keyboard.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah. i was like, okay, yeah. ah To be fair, I didn't edit that one. I was like... And it was like oh over a week ago. yeah we're hum we're getting there. We're gonna record this one and then popping out our um Patreon because that got a little delayed. Schedules conflicting and yeah of things and Birthdays are happening. Oh, it's that season. But um seasonal depression is ending, so that's good.
00:02:03
Speaker
It's a lot of sunburn now.
Weather and Work-Life Balance
00:02:07
Speaker
ah On Sunday, when I was going to the witch's market, I drove with my windows down and I was like, oh I've forgotten fresh air.
00:02:18
Speaker
yeah, yeah. yeah driving Driving with your windows down is so nice. forgot how nice it was. Yeah, and it's funny because, yeah, obviously there's people with way different climates going on. We had California fires and then we're up here and we were in a cold snap.
00:02:37
Speaker
and now And there was a ah post on the Edmonton subreddit that was like, what are you guys going to do now that it's not minus 40 or whatever, you know, minus whatever for the last...
00:02:49
Speaker
I don't know if I was telling you that, but it was funny. People were just like, open my windows, like let in fresh air, yes break up the ice. Yeah. Open my windows, ah get some fresh air is my go-to.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh yeah. We can start using our patio door again. Cause we get terrified. It's going like freeze open or freeze shed or it's, it freezes so yeah yeah that's probably really annoying for you guys yeah we let the dog out the side of the garage instead so it's yeah yeah longer um but yeah pat's birthday happened this weekend so i had a three days off but it's monday and i'm still tired and this was the only day we could get this one recorded yeah it's all your fault you are always working no i am this this week we're currently in is the first week where i didn't have three closing shifts i only have two so yeah does make things a little bit easier
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes we can like shove it in on a Saturday afternoon, but most of the times we're mostly only able to do it on evenings.
Podcast Support and Forensic February Delay
00:04:13
Speaker
So yeah, it really depends.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, you guys know. So keep listening and telling people and subscribing and being on Patreon and all of the things because you're going to keep us going.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah. The episodes will eventually get released. Come on. Yes, I am very excited for this one and then the yeah forensic February one we have been working on and...
Lana Turner's Early Life and Career
00:04:43
Speaker
yeah just ignore the fact that it's slightly into march it's fine and we'll all keep our our cute little ah array alliteration idea didn't work out so we're like oh frantic february and for not february starting out like so slow because it was so bloody cold and dark and boring and then all of a sudden it was like over in like three seconds and I was like wait ah February oh no now it's March oh my god yeah so I don't know we can crack into it if you want because um
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. I was going to say you're going first, but I'm not going at all. So it's just you Take it away, Alana. o Oh no. I'm going have only myself to listen to when I edit this week. Gross.
00:05:38
Speaker
and I'm so spoiled. I'm spoiled. i don't have, and don't have to do, don't have to do anything.
00:05:48
Speaker
She just kicks back and closes her eyes and paints on like, you know, fake eyes on top her eyelids. Yeah. I'm here. Oh, there was one episode of And That's Why We Drink where Christine like famously accidentally got too cozy and fell asleep when Em was telling her story their story.
00:06:08
Speaker
Oh, jeez. I mean, then I was more prone a couple of the times, I mean, before we started having the videos that we could see each other. some Sometimes when it was just us on our phones or just the audio, it was a lot harder.
00:06:27
Speaker
a lot harder to... not daydream or zone out and they'll be like wait what's happening yes totally yeah it's it's very much harder to focus when you can't see anything yeah that's why I'm not good on the phone a total nope I am not either i and normally have to walk around when I'm on the phone or i for some reason can't pay attention to what's happening If I'm sitting, I will be like zoning out. i got gotta keep moving so that I'm focused on the phone call.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, who knows? Maybe you the touch of the... ear
00:07:10
Speaker
I was trying to remember what ADD stood for and then I couldn't get there. Wow. There you go. My brain my brain's gonna make it today. Good thing I have words on a page when we go to this script. Yeah.
00:07:24
Speaker
ah Right. Right. Oh my god, yes. Yeah, no, it's it's a struggle to focus. I think it's the inattentive ADHD thing, too. Yeah, I was it's watching something on YouTube and they were talking about how people don't have attention spans and have to watch stuff like while they eat, and was like, great, I'm sitting here watching them complain about that while I eat dinner.
00:07:47
Speaker
God damn it. They're like, people spend too much time on social media, especially while they're eating. yeah. and on here and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, oh, what am I doing right now? Eating in front of my laptop while they talk about people eating in front of TVs.
00:08:03
Speaker
cool Oh no, we've lost all our community. Yeah. yeah It's like used to have dial up and now um I'm pretty sure i read that if something doesn't load within three seconds, like the webpage, you're going to get frustrated. i'm like, if something doesn't get your attention in three seconds, you're just going to scroll on. Yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah. I see people do it. A hundred percent. I do it myself. Yeah. Oh, it's rough. um Anyway, so now that everyone's already moved on. yeah couldn't be Let's go back in time. Let's talk about current world problems, about attention spans. Let's go back in time.
00:08:42
Speaker
Oh, I also love how but we were talking about how you went to the witch remark before we started recording or like officially started the episode. And then you're like casually just like, and on my way to the witch's market, you just drop that in there.
00:08:56
Speaker
Which was great, but... Go to her Instagram. She won a little gift baggie.
00:09:03
Speaker
um Yeah, I got a cute little things and then I spent almost $100. Oh. Well, so
00:09:13
Speaker
you still got some freebies.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. I I will post my pictures of it. I'll see if Gorda plays with this little... little f You have a knitted F-bomb. Yes. It looks like a little bomb with like ah a fuse and then it has an initial F on it. And I think these are supposed to be F-bombs, but at the table that ah I know it was from, like the vendor, she had other initials that she was doing. She had like a bunch of initials, like almost the whole alphabet on the table. So I know there's like, you could buy letters and it was the same thing. It was on a little bomb.
00:09:52
Speaker
um But I like to think the fact that I have the F, that it's yeah an F-bomb. Because I think that's funnier, because I don't know, maybe
Lana's Personal Struggles and Relationships
00:10:01
Speaker
Fenn? Fenn is probably the only one I know oh it has an F initial.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah. yeah i mean Yeah, that's all I can go to. No, it's cute. It looks like the little bomb guys from like Mario, Super Mario, just without their little legs. It does.
00:10:20
Speaker
It's really cute. And I think they were like $10 or $15 each, so... The fact that it was free in the bag is like, whoa. She had to make 20 of these.
00:10:31
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, this was free in the bag, and they do 20 of them each of the two days. So, like, she had to give away 40 of these. Like, if... Damn.
00:10:43
Speaker
We're gonna have to out what the... That's why most the other people give away stickers and stuff and... Which we don't even do that. ah So we'll give her a shout out. And that's our that's our cue to say donate on patreon.com slash castles and cryptids.
00:11:01
Speaker
Where I think if you're still a Patreon member at one of the tiers, after three months, you get a sticker. That is true. A couple of people have gotten a sticker. I have mine on my...
00:11:13
Speaker
um thing because we got a sample yeah not because i'm my own patreon patron
00:11:23
Speaker
my own grandpa okay enough class i wasn't even giggly before we started it's it's just what happens um no fun it's monday night plus like i just this story was so good in the article because it was vanity fair was like so good and so juicy and long yeah you like feel like you've watched a lifetime movie or something by the time you get done them you're like okay yeah i've had that with a few of mine that i've pulled from vanity fair got right you're just like damn how long is this article you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and you're like wow this is yeah everything i ever needed to know it is it's like this must have been half of the magazine um
00:12:12
Speaker
And they are really long, but they're great. And that it was funny because we've been rewatching some friends. And then there's the one where they Phoebe starts going to book club and Rachel wants to go and, but she doesn't read the book. And then she's like, well, I got stuck reading something else. And Phoebe's like, what? And she's like, I think it's Vogue, actually. Vogue.
00:12:31
Speaker
so But maybe it was Vanity Fair. But either way, i was like, oh, if it's Vanity Fair, the articles are fucking long. Yeah. Okay.
00:12:42
Speaker
This ah is about Lana Turner and her BF, her man, Johnny Stompanato. I'm going with Stompanato. Okay. Okay.
00:12:57
Speaker
and I know it's Lana. She talks about it. Okay. So, yeah, I think we both went pretty far back. It's funny, yeah, I don't know if we talked about it. If you look up old Hollywood crimes, sometimes you just get Any celebrity. the seventy s The eighty s the ninety s I was just like, oh, that's not
Lana and Johnny Stompanato's Relationship
00:13:19
Speaker
what I wanted.
00:13:20
Speaker
Just like any celebrity. know, I ran into the same thing. and this One of them was like, in 2008. And I was like, nope. No. It's like, what are we class? put old.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah. need almost 100 years okay? Not in 2008. Oh my Gordo. Gordo.
00:13:37
Speaker
not not in two thousand and eight oh my god
00:13:44
Speaker
Right on time. He did stretch up and try and rip the stickers off the wall. Well, he's a jackass. Oh my god, buddy
00:13:58
Speaker
He's a cute jackass. This is him thumping his tail because he's so mad. His cuteness doesn't help us and on a non-visual medium. Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker
He is cute, though. So we'll start with a little bit of Lana's background. She was actually born Julia Jean Judy Turner.
00:14:26
Speaker
The Judy's in quotes. Oh, wow.
00:14:30
Speaker
ah So maybe through that was a nickname. Julia Judy Jean Turner? julia jean quote judy wow that's lot of jays i know right i'm starting to understand why she changed it um to to lana but she was born to ah parents were john virgil turner and mildred francis cowan That's two more names we need to bring back. Mildred and... Sorry, what was the dad's middle name?
00:15:06
Speaker
Oh, Virgil? Virgil. no one
00:15:12
Speaker
ah Maybe. I don't know. My parents kind of have old-timey names. Also, there is some old-timey names coming back. Like, I see when I do the healthcare, I don't know if I talked about that, but I'll see, like, the baby names that people are naming them. and Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
Sometimes it's like, Edith, and I'm like, what?
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, oh um ah yeah, Frances. um Mildred, I don't know. I just can't get behind it.
00:15:44
Speaker
My dad dated a Millie. She was not very nice. Okay. It's bad that the first nickname that popped into my head was just Dredd. judge dread was like oh people are gonna be like she's so gloomy her name's dread oh my lord amazing um she was born okay so fit oh yeah she was a february baby february 8th 1921 in wallace idaho midwest baby
00:16:20
Speaker
yeah And tragically her father died a violent death when she was only nine He was beaten and robbed He spen was like spending a night out gambling and playing craps So he was robbed of his craps winnings one night in San Francisco and killed Jeez What is that? Gordo is just smacking his tail against the desk He looks wild right now Gordo you're like really ruining the moment buddy his A man has died. His like, I don't know, the fur around his neck and shoulder area is like poofed up and then his head is pushed in.
00:17:01
Speaker
Oh, he's made it like, he's all rough. Yeah. And then he's just with his tail.
00:17:10
Speaker
What a weirdo. Cats are strange. Yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
We'll have to take it intermission. Okay.
00:17:27
Speaker
okay So yeah, that happened. So she at that time went to stay with friends in Stockton, I guess. Her mother sent her there for a while and she got abused. She was taken away from oh dealing with them.
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's not going so great so far. No. No. That sounds really sad. she was She's so young. i know. it's Yeah.
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah,
00:17:59
Speaker
yeah I was going to say she learned from the best. No. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I just mean like, yeah, they didn't, you know, the the parenting skills for that back then, I don't know.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah. Who knows? Maybe they did the best they could. um They moved a couple more times, her and her mom. um And everywhere they went, they would always make sure to find time to go to the movies. That was like their thing.
00:18:30
Speaker
So. Yeah. Her mom just loved them. And her mother also was really good at sewing and repurposing like clothes into fancier clothes.
00:18:42
Speaker
Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. could kind of make them look like a little bit more stylish um then 1936 they moved to la so it's just like oh real old hollywood glamour i'm sure yeah the 30s were definitely well and thirty s i feel like I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I love it. But also at the same time, it's like, it's the height of the depression also. So it's, yeah, it's also not everyone's not doing so great. yeah But yeah, you could just like go and start going to Hollywood high, which just sounds like something made up.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yeah. the The sign, remember how the sign it used to say Hollywood land. And then the land part yeah came down. It's like, it probably still said Hollywood land.
00:19:37
Speaker
So weird.
00:19:41
Speaker
Gordo? Stop it. She is acting out a little bit when as a teen. She's skipping some classes. And one time she skips class and goes to get a Coke at the Top Hat Cafe nearby.
00:19:58
Speaker
a Coke. Did it have real cocaine in it still? It definitely had that, uh... sexy glass silhouette yeah anyway it's supposed to look like a woman's curves uh and her she's getting noticed for her curves i'm sure by a publisher at the hollywood reporter who happens to be there and he says hey gal you want to be in the movies just like that yeah yeah i've ever thought of modeling and she's like oh golly gee i guess i'll have to ask my mom
00:20:36
Speaker
It's just the sweetest thing ever.
00:20:40
Speaker
um So she gets herself an agent, a Zeppo Marx, which is a hell of a name. Right?
00:20:52
Speaker
I got nothing. oh he And that's her agent. And she quickly gets a ah a small part in a movie where she gets to get murdered.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yay! The original Law and Order or CSI cameo. Play a dead body. Oh yeah, everyone's, yeah, it's like a rite of passage.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, it'd be hard. You have to just sit there. Oh. Yeah.
00:21:23
Speaker
Oh my god. This is why i never made it. Couldn't sit still enough to be a dead body. no oh So around this time, she gets a little rebrand, starts going by her new name, Lana Turner, ah for which both she and Warner Brothers guy named Mervyn Leroy would claim credit for the name change, I guess.
00:21:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:50
Speaker
I'm sure it was someone's idea. um and then she tells her mother you'll never have to work again and uh turns out she was right so that was kind of cool that's that's nice i like people that like give back to their parents and everything yeah even if she had a bit of a rough start it's like yeah yeah trying to do better um so of course she's touted and built up as like this sexy girl this new it girl um yeah frequently having scenes where she would just have to strut across um the room and then one she was wearing a sweater so they started her calling calling her the inventive name of sweater girl
00:22:39
Speaker
oh no Oh, talk about getting typecast. i did one role. One sweater. I wore one cardigan. um cardigan girl.
00:22:51
Speaker
Oh my god, so stupid. Smoking cardigan girl number one
00:22:58
Speaker
I mean, I guess it's better than like Tits McGee, but maybe that's i yeah the only one they wanted to print, they called her. ah Secretary number two.
00:23:10
Speaker
Sort of. No, she became known for playing, ah it said, luxury loving bad girls. Whatever that means. Pretty, I don't know.
00:23:21
Speaker
so Sugar babies? I don't know. um She also would the become known for her clubbing, her glamorous lifestyle, and had some affairs with some more mature gentlemen, like a Greg Bouter?
00:23:40
Speaker
I don't know if that's how you say it. ah But yeah, he was like, she was still quite young and had just started there not too long ago. And he was a 30 year old lawyer for MGM, I guess.
00:23:54
Speaker
So that
00:23:57
Speaker
ah yeah, she's moving up in the world. ah She dated billionaire Howard Hughes. Ever heard of him? Yep. Yep.
00:24:07
Speaker
I was like, okay, okay, here we go. And she's like working with hot stars like Clark Gable and someone named Robert Taylor. um She was a popular pinup girl ah during World War Two.
00:24:20
Speaker
Posters. Okay. Oh, yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker
Gotta inspire the soldiers. gotta have something worth fighting for. Keep those troops' spirits up. Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
Or something. yeah um Yeah. By 1942, she is getting married to a Stephen Crane. um They quickly get pregnant, and she quickly finds out his first marriage is not fully over, and then decides to have his one annulled.
00:24:57
Speaker
Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:03
Speaker
She's a bit ah bit of a Liz Taylor when it comes to her love life. There's a lot of lot of marriage stuff that's going to go on. Damn. That's why it's such a good, so like, her just her life is interesting, and then...
00:25:19
Speaker
Obviously, there's a story we're going to come to here, but just bear with us. um We're putting on our little scarves and we're getting in our convertible and we're along for the ride.
00:25:31
Speaker
yeah
00:25:34
Speaker
Kelsey does have a scarf on. No, it's a bandana. It's like a bandana thing. Yeah. My hair looks bad. I've been wearing it in ponytail for like two days. Yeah.
00:25:46
Speaker
i I didn't feel like putting it back up, so I was like oh, let's put a headband in.
00:25:54
Speaker
Keep it out of my face. Yeah, the quality's pretty grainy anyway. I got in here and almost immediately put half of my hair out because it was bugging me. Yeah. um We're handsome guys, that's what we're saying. We're cute.
00:26:11
Speaker
These don't go on YouTube because we don't have the right lighting. Yeah. oh yeah Need to get ring lights. We need to buy a whole new wardrobe.
00:26:22
Speaker
I'm normally wearing my pajamas. I wore these in my house all day today. This is going on YouTube. I would not be doing that.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, Lana had to go to work and make money. I didn't. I stayed home. I stayed home and watched things on YouTube. I had three days off in a row and I'm still tired this morning. i was like, oh.
00:26:46
Speaker
but I was like, I drank all weekend. I worked all weekend. Today was my first day off in like three or four days. We binge watched a miniseries called The Madness and um didn't do much else.
00:27:06
Speaker
A couple of movies. yeah cool cool it's good it was good um so 1942 first marriage okay first marriage oh no grass spoiler alert it oh yeah yeah yeah um he begs her to take him back he's divorced that other lady so they remarry oh my god no don't do it same person twice oh my god so funny
00:27:39
Speaker
Um, but remember she's pregnant. So i guess Cheryl is born 20 on the 25th of July, 1943. Um, she was born, um, RH incompatible, they call it.
00:27:57
Speaker
So feel like it doesn't happen as much now because they check both your blood types when you get pregnant and, do something so that they don't have to deal with this but yeah it has to do with like your blood types not jiving or whatever from the parents so she actually required several blood transfusions when she was born um oh so that was i didn't know what that meant
00:28:23
Speaker
My limited understanding is mostly from Outlander, so don't...
00:28:31
Speaker
I was pregnant once, and I feel like it is something they do check on, because they're like, oh, you know. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, it's something to do blood types. I don't really know. um I didn't have any time for any rabbit holes with this one. Yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah. So LaLana is working constantly and that's stressful. So they do end up divorcing like the following year.
00:28:59
Speaker
um But it won't be long before she finds love with a guy who also has an awesome name, Tyrone Power.
00:29:10
Speaker
That is a good name. i like that. like it too. What does he do? rocked her world. he a billionaire? don't know.
00:29:22
Speaker
I literally only looked him up to see if I was like, he sounds like a strong black man. He wasn't. He was white. That's all I remember. I'm so sorry. I also assumed based on the name Tyrone.
00:29:34
Speaker
Right? Isn't that terrible? Should we look him up as an actor? I don't know. could be anything. Tyrone Power. Okay. oh yeah Oh no no. Oh no no. Did I click the thing?
00:29:45
Speaker
Almost clicked our intro music again. By mistake.
00:29:50
Speaker
That's where my mouse was.
00:29:54
Speaker
Oh yes he was an actor. Tyrone Power. American actor. Yeah she's meatin'. Ugh he's suave.
00:30:04
Speaker
Dark hair. Maybe Italian. I don't know. They all look it when it's in black and white. Everybody just looks yeah The cameras didn't have as good a resolution.
00:30:15
Speaker
and he's swarthy. He's swarthy. Yeah. um Such a good word. She was madly in love with Tyrone, ah but he ends up breaking her heart and leaving her for Linda Christian.
00:30:32
Speaker
Not Linda. It's a roller coaster, I'm telling you. Lana's third husband was Bob Topping. Bless him with my name. Kind of funny. ah She marries him in 1948. So shes she's on the rebound from Tyrone, which was just the year before.
00:30:54
Speaker
This guy's unfortunately a mean drunk. So that's no good. Ooh. Get rid of him. Let's move on to number four Is there a number four?
00:31:04
Speaker
Of course. Didn't I say Liz Taylor? What does she have? Like eight ex-husbands? Oh, don't know. I don't know.
00:31:14
Speaker
It's a lot. Okay, so this one, she had two pregnancies with him that sadly resulted. Trigger warning. Miscarriage. Unfortunately, like, it happened.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah. It ain't happens again. So it's like just Just going to put that out there. So she had, yeah, two pregnancies with him that ah one ended in a miscarriage and one ended in a stillbirth. So both quite traumatic.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He, that guy, Bob left her in 1951. And this was so distressing that she slashed one of her wrists Sorry. Trigger for suicide attempt.
00:32:02
Speaker
Trigger warning. Too late. um Maybe I'll just put one in at the very beginning for all of the things that are. It's a true crime episode.
00:32:14
Speaker
oh Yeah. People know. was there i know. i do feel bad, though, if people have specifically... yeah Anyway. Um, yeah, so that happened. And then when she, so, so she had like a scar on her wrist or whatever. So they had to make her a special bracelet that to cover it up when she was filming, um, a movie called the Mary widow rather ironically.
00:32:38
Speaker
Um, yeah. So that's unfortunate and, uh, pretty rough, but now it was like the night there, the early 1950s and she was financially in, um,
00:32:50
Speaker
you know, her career was doing really well. um She's raking in like five grand a week in money. lee Oh, whatever that is.
00:33:02
Speaker
Like a billion dollars.
00:33:06
Speaker
It's funny because I do listen to the the one podcast called Disaster Hour where he will be like, what do you think that's worth in today's money? And then put on the um Who Wants to Be a Millionaire music.
00:33:19
Speaker
And sometimes she guesses the co-host really close to like... You know, what's five grand in nineteen fifty s in today's money? And she'd like, $70,000 or something, right?
00:33:30
Speaker
Well, once you know a few of them, if you know, like, what 10,000 is, or like that kind of stuff in like, kind of similar decades, it's probably not too hard to make guesses.
00:33:43
Speaker
go I don't know. i mean,
00:33:47
Speaker
it's occasionally she gets it pretty, pretty spot on. And then other times it's just like, oh no, you know, like it's, I i think I would be terrible at it. But even getting shit, if like people got paid $5,000 a week, like, oh my God, that's a lot. Nowadays, you would be like losing your shit.
00:34:08
Speaker
Right? Right. eight A week. A week. Hold on. I'm going to math what it would be right now. not um Not even like converted.
00:34:21
Speaker
Just if you got $5,000 a week for 52 weeks a year, it'd be $260,000. That's a fabulous drug. it that Assuming you're working that whole time.
00:34:36
Speaker
That's a quarter of a million dollars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's great. She's rich, biatch!
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah. um ah Yeah. So, but it is, it's taking a toll. They said she had bouts of melancholia, which I'm sure we would call it today depression.
00:34:58
Speaker
And yeah she was known to take amphetamines to improve her mood. Oh. Well, pep in her step. I'm doing that.
00:35:08
Speaker
Everybody was always on drugs. Gordo says don't do drugs. You seen that video of Hitler at the whatever whatever Olympics? He's just like jittery as well. Oh my god.
00:35:20
Speaker
Anyway. I know. I went right to Hitler. I'm sorry. who was like, I don't Google videos of Hitler in my spare time, Atlanta. You really need to get on Reddit. No.
00:35:34
Speaker
I'm sorry to tell you. ah It's the best and the worst. Is this like, um is that like that fucking, is it Kim Jong-un looking at things or whatever? that are doing things?
00:35:47
Speaker
god, don't know. used to be a Twitter that was just him looking at things because he always stood with his hands like craw kind of like folded behind his back and it would be him just doing things so like him riding an escalator just like Like, straight face. And then him looking in a swimming pool.
00:36:06
Speaker
like Like, everything he does, he looks like he's staring at a piece of art in the museum or something. Yeah, yeah just like, no no emotion, no reaction. Just doing things.
00:36:17
Speaker
like
00:36:20
Speaker
Oh my god, the internet. It's a wild place. And gordo Gordo's back is by the mic purring. if If the mic picks it up, I don't know if it will.
00:36:32
Speaker
We'll tell him, keep it down in front. yeah um Oh, shit. Okay, so talk about Rich. shes Lana is living in a 15-room mansion in a place called Holmby Hills, which is a terrible name, very hard to say.
00:36:51
Speaker
But the house has a soda fountain, a beauty parlor, a pool, a tennis court, and is equipped with 10 servants. Nice. Good for her You know what? Good for her. It's a regular California mansion.
00:37:07
Speaker
I hope she walks around in a, like, the sheer black feather cuffed robe. Just at all times. Well, you know, there was a few times where they, of course, have to describe yeah her clothes because it was Vanity Fair.
00:37:25
Speaker
ah Yes. Picture the white Cadillac monogrammed with her initials that she drives. Yes. It's the whole nine yards. It's Cribs. Before Cribs was the thing.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah. You remember MTV's Cribs? I think I've only seen a few episodes. Yeah. Yeah. i think I watched more so like Pimp My Ride.
00:37:50
Speaker
ah oh yeah, that was the thing. Then I watched Crips, but... Early reality man. I didn't watch a whole lot of either. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:01
Speaker
Those were wild times. Who wants to marry a millionaire? Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
um on set she's got the biggest dressing room ah she has her own i'm just gonna call it a personal record player dj girl who puts the record she wants to listen to on the record player for her that's her whole job um nice she's got a lady named Carmen Cruz they refer to her as her maid so um but like she does become very close to Lana so they you know friends as much as you can be with your entourage yeah yeah um yeah cause lot of those stars are so isolated it's the only people they see all the time yeah
00:38:53
Speaker
But they would sit in the afternoon and drink coffee and chat and watch TV and like actually hang. That's nice. Yeah. I thought it was cute. She ah called her Lenita. She said Lenita was.
00:39:08
Speaker
Sorry. um I think I might have to start going by Lenita. It's just. No. oh I don't know. There's a lot of like Spanishy Spanish sounding things that are thrown in. So.
00:39:20
Speaker
Maybe it's because of Carmen. But she said, Lanita was a very good businesswoman. She felt betrayed by some people that she had trusted and gave loans to as well. Lana helped um many, many people.
00:39:34
Speaker
She was always there for Carmen during all her big life milestones. In 1953, Lana had her next big milestone when she married Lex Barker, former Tarzan.
00:39:46
Speaker
That's who he is. oh I guess he played Tarzan. It's not, uh... Tyrone? No.
00:39:59
Speaker
I can't remember his name. Brendan Fraser? Oh, wait. Yes, George of the Jungle. Oh, okay. He's the only Tarzan I know, besides the animated Disney one.
00:40:11
Speaker
ah I was about to start going, wait, Skarsgård, because he was hot. I didn't watch that one. oh Love me a Skarsgård. Okay. I normally do too.
00:40:23
Speaker
I think I tried watching that movie. like Oh no no. Yeah, just the movie. Yeah, I don't really remember. was too busy looking at his abs. Right? ah Now I'm all flustered. um Okay.
00:40:41
Speaker
So she yes, she marries Lex Barker, former Tarzan. They also tried and failed to have a child together. Her depression and drinking worsened at this time.
00:40:52
Speaker
by 1957, they had broken up and, ah this was a nasty ending as, uh, there was an allegation of abuse from her daughter, Cheryl, um, against Lex.
00:41:08
Speaker
I was going to say, where is her daughter in all of this? She just has the one kid, right? She does just have the one kid. Her mom steps in to help a lot. Mildred. Mildred's there.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:41:26
Speaker
What, buddy? Stay down. So he definitely denied this allegation of sexual abuse? Oh, of course. He'll be like, you caught me! Of course I did it! I mean... an asshole!
00:41:40
Speaker
It's legend! I don't know! I have to say! Yeah. Okay. I don't know. All I know is he denied it to his dying day, and he called Cheryl...
00:41:51
Speaker
very strange and said she would end up in great trouble so there's that oh um but yeah i don't blame her she broke up with him right away and that was like at least she wasn't having any of that like good for lana yeah you know what maybe the best thing is to be apart like yeah like um Solana starts having a rough time at work.
00:42:18
Speaker
She's dealing with some debt and her contract with MGM comes up for renewal. She strikes out on her own.
00:42:27
Speaker
and so Under the man. That could be hard. Yeah, it could have been like terrible. Like, I don't know. It seems to work out okay for She did have to sell the mansion, but you know, downsizing is fine.
00:42:43
Speaker
That place is ridiculous. Yeah. Who who really needs like 10 servants? Oh my God. Totally. She's probably never home. Yeah.
00:42:54
Speaker
She often gets jobs that seem to mirror her life. She was then take, takes a job or a film about a repressed mother with an emotional daughter that hit pretty close to home for her daughter, Cheryl.
00:43:07
Speaker
um That happens few times. Yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
But now we come to our other main player. the names are just... They're just so chef's kiss. Enter Johnny Steele.
00:43:27
Speaker
philip so That's what he's calling himself anyway. It's like Fifty Shades of Who now? Yeah. Anastasia Steele. Johnny is... um so johnny is kind of love bombing her sending her flowers and gifts and things these are these are a few of your favorite things um yeah so she's kind of like oh yeah even though was like all the little things i like and it's kind of weird yeah it could be creepy yeah it could be stalking something stalky today
00:44:07
Speaker
Oh my god. Even up until the 90s, god, our romance movies were so stocky. I know. I was listening to something on the radio and they're like talking about cute ways people like met like the one or like the partner they're still with and this person called in and yeah, was talking about her dad and mom and how the data the mom worked as a secretary at oh shoot, was it like a hospital or something? Maybe it in like admissions or something? And ah maybe she was a nurse and the dad had come in and then he kept asking her out and she kept saying no, no, no. And like ah dozens and dozens of times and then like over months and months and months.
00:45:00
Speaker
Oh boy. And then finally, had and then finally said yes and then um they're still together it was like 50 60 plus years later i mean so it turned out good but it was just like i was listening the whole time in the story i was like this is all red flags like does anybody else listen to this hear all of the red flags oh totally this would not fly to get today no means no i shouldn't have to wear you down yeah and they're just like yeah and everybody always that saw them together was like yeah she was like so beautiful like
00:45:34
Speaker
past 10 out of 10 and they look at him and go and you like one like just nothing like below average guy this was like how'd you get her and was like oh damn like yeah i just didn't like you no and i didn't like that the radio host was like oh he really wore her down well it worked out well for him and it was like oh don't like that like don't yeah but what are you gonna do like retroactively shame this guy's dad like it's tough yeah that's a rough one i'd be like oh okay but it's like okay well like maybe after the fifth time she says no like you shouldn't keep harassing her at her place of employment okay yeah just a little that's scary don't go to people's jobs
00:46:28
Speaker
That's brutal. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I grew up on. Cringy rom-coms. Absolutely. same and So 90s movies you're watching and you're going, oh my god, this is so bad.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah, if it's not that, it's the she's all that, never been kissed. Like, the oh, they're the ugly duckling, but are they really? And then you dress them all up. Hold on, let me all love me take her glasses off and take out her ponytail. And oh my god, now she's a model.
00:47:02
Speaker
Because they they're like... what They're Clark Kent glasses. He says that... Oh, I picked my scab. um that's they have They have them in um Ready Player One. Pat loves that movie. and he like They're in that video game and she puts the Clark Kent glasses on him. it's like They're the Clark Kent glasses. They make you look like invisible to everyone around you.
00:47:26
Speaker
I was like, oh my god. ah Okay. So, yes, we have met Johnny, and he is quite suave and sexy.
00:47:39
Speaker
So, you know, even though he's a little stalkery, they start sleeping together. Okay. Okay. um She's now filming a movie called Peyton Place, and he's met Cheryl, and he's quite charming to her, and nothing...
00:47:59
Speaker
untoward there that i know of just don't get scared but he would take her on drives like and tell her about how much he cared for her mother and stuff um and cheryl uh at this point she's older and she's old enough to work at or at least they figure she's old enough to work at johnny's gift shop i'm sure the laws were more lax yeah um Yeah, she's like, oh, it's not that nice of a gift shop, but he always has money.
00:48:30
Speaker
um right. um There's always men popping in and out of the store. um The first big fight they had was when Lana found out he'd been hiding his real name from her. His real last Well, that's a red flag.
00:48:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, unless it's like her, it's like a stage name. I mean, yeah, she's just not technically using her real name anymore, but when you date people like Tyrone Power... Depends what the context is of not using the right name.
00:49:07
Speaker
ah you yes, yes, yes, is it yes. And it was probably due to his mob connections. Oh, so that's a bad reason to... Yeah, he really worked as a bodyguard for...
00:49:21
Speaker
um Did you talk about him in the case your case, Mickey Cohen?
00:49:26
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe he came up when I read something about your case. When I was reminding myself what you talked about. Yeah, I think the two guys...
00:49:37
Speaker
um They disappeared around the same time as Jean worked for Mickey. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That sounds familiar. Yes. There's a little um crossover there. He was Mickey's bodyguard.
00:49:51
Speaker
who Oh, yeah. He's he comes up again. um So, yeah, he was probably trying to hide that side of himself from her and.
00:50:04
Speaker
She's trying to present this, you know, glamorous movie star image. So she's like, no, it's over. Like, I don't need this okay trouble. She's ghosting him as best as she can.
00:50:18
Speaker
um Seeing other people like going out on other dates. um But yeah, he's persistent, shall we say, just like those. no That guy and the secretary.
00:50:34
Speaker
No, it's it's really shitty though. um She would lock her bedroom door every night like she was scared, I guess. Until one night she forgot and he entered her home and went into her room while she was sleeping.
00:50:50
Speaker
Damn. he held a pillow over her face until she started struggling and then when he took it off of her face he tried to make out with her. What the hell?
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah, he's pretty shitty. Um, yeah. It's a pretty abusive relationship. She was terrified about his him and his friends, so she didn't, like, he knew she wouldn't call the cops on her for that.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah. Um. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. as often as the case like it's tough to get away from someone so like who is your abuser um so he's like worming his way back in like I don't know it's tough I do try to put myself in her shoes but like that would be so scary I don't know yeah yeah it's tough to know well cause I mean ah from what it sounded like at least their relationship wasn't
00:52:01
Speaker
bad like when they were together it's now that they've broken up that this sounds like it's happening so i can see the thought processes of okay well if we just get back together like this will stop which now at this point that it started it most likely won't but right but that is a that is a very yeah common cycle for and and it is ah it is the most like dangerous time they say when you're trying to get out of the relationship so Maybe she just figures, yeah, easier to get back in.
00:52:35
Speaker
um So he's still hanging around. She's fering filming her first film for her own production company, which is the production company is called Lantern. that's Yeah. it's like So that was pretty cool. I think she's probably pretty proud of that.
00:52:51
Speaker
And the film was called Another Place, Another Time with Sean Connery.
00:52:58
Speaker
Um, the costume designer on the set, uh, God, I don't know if it's pronounced Moss. Cause that's how their first name is spelled. Moss Mabry.
00:53:11
Speaker
The names. um No idea. They're wild. Um, this is the costume designer and they recall how Johnny would hang around and how utterly charming and likable he was.
00:53:23
Speaker
um, And how big of a ladies man, because he was also sleeping with ah her seamstress. So the seamstress on the film set was also sleeping with Johnny.
00:53:36
Speaker
And they are ah Moss suspects that he was using her as a sort of sugar mama because she had like quite a big nest egg of money that she inherited or something. I don't know.
00:53:51
Speaker
So it's complicated say the least. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. You probably think you can see where it's going, but we'll see.
00:54:05
Speaker
um Lana tries to break off the relationship, but is unsuccessful. um but She also like wouldn't go anywhere in public with him, like not even to the coffee shop, which really pissed him off She didn't want to try to be like, well, you wanted us back together. So this is what you get.
00:54:25
Speaker
Right. Like, oh, gee, i don't want to associate with someone who's a criminal. um Yeah. Yeah. He did buy her a black poodle for a present and she named it Gypsy.
00:54:39
Speaker
Cute. Yeah. Yeah.
The Fatal Confrontation and Aftermath
00:54:43
Speaker
for dawn geez uh they got a house in a place called hampstead heath uh he would also just ask her for money i guess he'd be like i need a thousand dollars to option a story called the battered bride which gross oh no right and she's like you already have a weekly allowance
00:55:08
Speaker
Ha ha ha! He has an allowance. That's my favorite. I'm like, no honey, do some more chores. Right? Go buy yourself something pretty.
00:55:20
Speaker
oh Ugh.
00:55:23
Speaker
Don't spend it all in one place. Yeah. He's like, no, I want to be a star. No. Um... Yeah, I think that probably pissed him off. Yeah, he couldn't deal with the fact that she- he could fucking job.
00:55:37
Speaker
Oh, I know. He's got his little- What's he bring into the table?
00:55:45
Speaker
was it? His pawn shop or his whatever it was. His gift shop. I can't remember. His pawn stars. Yeah. um But yeah, he would get so mad at her that like one time he strangled her so badly that her vocal cords ended up damaged.
00:56:05
Speaker
Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that caused her to have to avoid dialogue scenes for three weeks. Wow. No. um Yeah, and that was, like, disruptive to actual production. um So one that when they were when that happened, I guess they were still filming in England, so they told Scotland Yard that Johnny had threatened her life, and he was deported from England within 24 hours. Okay.
00:56:36
Speaker
okay Got him out of there. Fuck off. Now she just has to stay in England. Yeah, right. Stay England.
00:56:49
Speaker
But by January 1958, filming had finished on that project. um So she either had to stay there, go home, or figure out what she was going to do. um A nervous wreck at the time, she decides a vacation might be a nice way to unwind.
00:57:05
Speaker
So she plans a trip to Mexico. um However, on her way to Acapulco, on her connection in Copenhagen, she sees Johnny waiting on the tarmac.
00:57:18
Speaker
Well, that's creepy. He like, he figuratively hijacks her vacation. He like, he gets there and he goes with her.
00:57:29
Speaker
ah they go to a place called Villa Vera and the owner remembers she seemed like uncomfortable the whole time and like she wanted to talk to the owner alone so the trip is cut short she goes back to LA she's looking for a house to rent of course Johnny's inserting himself into the process and complaining about the houses he doesn't like um I know what a guy it's not for you right She finds a place in Beverly Hills and settles on that one.
00:58:02
Speaker
And then she's nominated for an Oscar for Peyton Place. So that's cool. Oh, wow. Yeah.
00:58:12
Speaker
And Johnny wants to go the awards ceremony with her. What do you think she says? no. No. That's a big no.
00:58:24
Speaker
ah She decides to take her mom, her daughter, and her friend Glenn.
00:58:30
Speaker
Oh no. She's like, like, she won't even take you to the coffee store, buddy. Yeah, she won't even take you to go get coffee. You want to go to the fucking Oscars?
00:58:43
Speaker
Oh Figure it out.
00:58:48
Speaker
So he's obviously mad, furious. He's glaring at her. She's getting all dolled up in her gown. um And gets to the event okay and all that. She's attending, looking fabulous.
00:59:02
Speaker
I don't know what she was wearing. You'd think they would have had that in there. But ah she did lose to Joanne Woodward for her role in The Three Faces of Eve. So I don't know who that is either.
00:59:15
Speaker
right um she got home to face did i say his last name was stumpanado
00:59:27
Speaker
oh i think at the beginning yeah yeah was like i just can't just start referring to him as that and then be all confusing anyway It's long, so mostly I just called him Johnny because it was easier to type that, to be perfectly honest. Yeah. um so he's PS'd.
00:59:45
Speaker
He grows violent and is yelling at her. um But whatever, they get over that day and not long after that, Lana's able to move into her new abode in the hills on North Bedford Drive.
01:00:03
Speaker
So she takes possession on April 1st.
01:00:07
Speaker
they three days later it's a rainy good friday like good friday you know because it's april
01:00:18
Speaker
um and that's the day that everything's gonna go down here so as soon as you throw in a specific date you're always like oh this Yeah, yeah, I'm like, 1958, 1956. And they're um like, on this specific day at 2pm. Nothing unusual happened at all. The end. Goodbye.
01:00:44
Speaker
Um, so a quote from, uh, one of her entourage there. The day was real gloomy. Del Armstrong remembers. He dropped by the Bedford mansion for a drink with Bill Brooks, who we'd met in Hawaii when Lana was doing the John Wayne movie, the sea chase.
01:01:04
Speaker
Oh, John Wayne. I know. Right. Just name dropping. My mom's side of the family, we, well, not related by blood, but through marriage to John Wayne. Ooh! Yeah.
01:01:20
Speaker
He's a relative partner. Yeah, so she's always been obsessed with John Wayne.
01:01:27
Speaker
Nice. So we were sitting around drinking gin and tonics and shooting the breeze when Johnny walked in. He was very civil to me, and he didn't have to be, but I'd never been intimidated by him, and I guess he knew that.
01:01:41
Speaker
Anyhow, Bill gives them the glad hello. They obviously knew each other. Johnny gets uncomfortable. Then Bill announces they'd gone to military school together in Missouri. I could tell Lana seemed surprised, Armstrong adds.
01:01:55
Speaker
Johnny makes some kind of excuse, then leaves. Then Lana asked Bill, when did you go to school with John? And he says, we graduated and ah in 1943. And Lana says, I thought Johnny was 43 years old.
01:02:09
Speaker
Bill says, hell no, he's my age, 33. Then he warns Lana, that Johnny is no good, bad news. He got into terrible trouble at school stealing.
01:02:21
Speaker
Lana is fit to be tied. End quote. Yeah. He lied about his name. never heard about somebody like lying you're 10 years older?
01:02:32
Speaker
Older! because she is Because she is like 37 now. So he's lying to be closer to her age, guess. But right?
01:02:44
Speaker
Weird. Yeah. Normally people are like trying to pretend to be younger or. oh yeah. I guess there was that one true crime case about that one lady who was pretending to be like a senior citizen.
01:03:01
Speaker
um The boarding house that she was running. So, I mean. Those are so weird. Yeah. Can't always pretend that they're pretending to be younger, but. It's yeah. That's usually the trope. It's a woman lying about her age. Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:18
Speaker
I know, I'd be surprised too to be like, oh, this guy is like 10 years older. But then I'm like, and why did everybody look like they were in their 40s? ah Years ago.
01:03:29
Speaker
Like, I don't know. It's weird. Times were hard.
01:03:36
Speaker
Even the 80s, you're like, that's a teenager? No, she's supposed to be 20. Yeah, he's got full facial hair. like Oh, the heavy makeup. Oh my god. The lip liner. Ugh.
01:03:48
Speaker
Anyway.
01:03:51
Speaker
So this obviously was upsetting to hear about another lie. And for Lana, it was the final straw. She was like, dude's 33. I'm 37.
01:04:05
Speaker
She's like, thought he was at least my age. And he's lied to me again. he barely has it. Barely has a job. I have to give him an allowance. Get out of here.
01:04:16
Speaker
I already have a child. Yeah. yeah So she, yeah, she, she was crying to Cheryl that telling her he's lied again about something else. I'm going to get rid of him tonight.
01:04:29
Speaker
Her friends do invite her out to dinner, but she declines. By 8 30 PM and at the door, right on time, here's Johnny.
01:04:40
Speaker
Okay. I'll see myself out. I, Cheryl was home now and recalls recalls how Johnny seethed. He was screaming things like, you're not going to get rid of me so easy, Miss Movie Star.
01:04:55
Speaker
and Lana says she doesn't want to fight in front of the baby. So she goes to get a drink. um Then they end up back upstairs in her pink carpeted bedroom. Because it was important they told us about the pink carpets.
01:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, nothing about the rest of the house other than the fact that it's pink carpeted bedroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They might have put that in the opening paragraph where they're like, she was wearing black pedal pushers and a white blouse. And I was like, ooh, pedal pushers.
01:05:29
Speaker
i remember we used to call them that. Yeah. um so she's locked herself in the room to get away from Johnny and then he's banging on the door and like they're gonna let him in and argue some more very loudly so Cheryl knocks on the door and asks to come in and then she speaks to her mother quietly near the door while Johnny leans against a wall several feet away she asks Lana why don't you just tell him to go she calls her a coward but she's like 14 so we'll let it go
01:06:04
Speaker
Lana tells her daughter, you don't understand. I'm deathly afraid of him. To which Cheryl replies, don't worry. i won't leave you. I won't be far away.
01:06:17
Speaker
um This seemed to give Lana some courage and she went back into the fray, closing Cheryl outside the door and continuing to argue. ah So Cheryl's listening and it's getting more and more heated.
01:06:29
Speaker
Johnny's calling her names and threatening her that she'll never get rid of him, et cetera, et cetera. She'd be like, all right, I had enough. And he'd be like, cunt, you're dead. Because he's such a nice guy.
01:06:41
Speaker
Then hears. That's when I'd be like, hey, please. um My boyfriend's part of the mob. Why you come get him? Fuck you. I'm going to call Mickey.
01:06:52
Speaker
um No. He's an informant. he who Tell his mob buddies that ah he's actually an informant. And then you tell the police that he's part of the mob.
01:07:04
Speaker
and Yeah, could work. You get yourself out of there and you move back to England. Oh, jolly old England. She had it good there.
01:07:16
Speaker
you Get Scotland Yard again.
01:07:21
Speaker
Yeah. But no, then Cheryl hears something that really scares her. He hears Johnny say, or she hears Johnny say, you'll never get away from me. Wherever you go, I'll find you.
01:07:34
Speaker
I'll cut you good, baby. You'll never work again. ah don't think I also won't get your mother and your kid too.
01:07:42
Speaker
jeez oh cheryl was like like she's not supporting them financially yeah like gonna cut your face so she can never work again well fucking you get a job i know it's like literally out of a fucking movie itself i'm like cut your good baby i was like jesus christ oh yeah um So that was very scary for Cheryl to hear.
01:08:13
Speaker
So she ah panics and grabs a knife from the kitchen and races upstairs to the bedroom. She opens the door and sees Lana standing there crying and Johnny's behind her and she sees that his arm seems to be raised in the air.
01:08:31
Speaker
ah So Cheryl stumbled forward with the knife in her hand, which plunged into Johnny's torso.
01:08:40
Speaker
Cheryl would later retell the story in her book Detour, a Hollywood story co-written by Cliff Jarr. don't know why I put that there. Oh, well, because there's three
Media Frenzy and Investigation
01:08:51
Speaker
different versions. They said there was three different versions of what happened that day.
01:08:55
Speaker
There was her book, Lana's book, and the, what is it called? The Coroner's. You know. Ah. Yeah. and Okay. Okay.
01:09:07
Speaker
I'm going to be believing of the coroner most likely then. so it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:20
Speaker
Is it a situation of he tripped and he tripped and fell on the knife 17 times? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. and I don't really have exactly like what they just alluded to the coroner's report. I don't really have any parts of it, but you um yeah, we'll get to some details, of course.
01:09:37
Speaker
Um, Lana would tell her version in a book that was called Luna, the Lady, the Legend, and the Truth, which came out in 1982.
01:09:47
Speaker
She'd just be calling herself all sorts of things. Luna, Lenita. know. I was like, that's a totally different name. know. I thought maybe it was a typo, but no. Um, we all need to have 16 different nicknames.
01:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, why not? For different moods. Ugh. So, and she would be called upon in court to testify on it. But from what we know, the knife went in and hit ah his vital organ.
01:10:18
Speaker
it went through the liver and punctures the portal vein and the aorta. Nice shot. Yeah. Yes.
01:10:29
Speaker
And he just goes, my God, Cheryl, what have you done? ah before collapsing onto the floor and she goes i stabbed you i hope you die god i have no sympathy for him no it's yeah i mean
01:10:51
Speaker
yeah he's not great Lana does not know what has happened at first. She said she didn't notice any blood and, you know, thought maybe she punched him, whatever.
01:11:04
Speaker
and But when he falls onto his side, she freaks out and is like, get a towel! Such a funny it's first thing you think of. i don't know.
01:11:17
Speaker
she Yeah, weird. ah Yeah. She throws the knife in the wash basin, grabs some towels, and runs back to Johnny's side where she tries to staunch the blood on the wound.
01:11:30
Speaker
And she calls her mother in a panic. So she tells her mother to call Dr. Mac. She couldn't even think of his number in her panic. The 911's not a thing yet.
01:11:42
Speaker
Of course. Yeah. Oh, okay. I was going to say, not calling the police. ah know I mean, at least we're getting a doctor. But yeah.
01:11:55
Speaker
ah Cheryl, meanwhile, has picked up another phone and calling her dad, who works nearby at his ah restaurant, called the Luau, if you would like to know what the restaurant's name was.
01:12:07
Speaker
um Sure. Sure.
01:12:10
Speaker
uh meanwhile lana gets her mother mildred yes to call the doctor she's saying it's emergency mildred's calling the doctor and steven shows up at the house cheryl's father right gets himself in uh up the stairs and he goes oh my god and lana's like didn't even see him she's like why are you here steven and she's like kind of trying to block what's going on and And the next thing they know, if we hear Mildred Turner is running up the stairs, freaking out, saying, where's my baby? Where's my baby?
01:12:45
Speaker
Everybody's yeah converging. It's a whole family. Yeah. Cheryl's dad is like comforting her and she's just saying sorry over and over again.
01:12:56
Speaker
um Dr. Mac shows up and takes charge. He checks the patient first and ah calls another doctor too and then he gives Johnny a shot of adrenaline attempting to revive him so um pulp fiction yeah yeah i was like oh yeah medicine in the fifty s Right?
01:13:21
Speaker
Then he gave him a bump of cocaine. No. Yeah. Give some cocaine about it.
01:13:32
Speaker
He tells just... Oh, then he's explaining to a distraught Lana to dial zero to order an ambulance through the operator. oh like, oh, finally. Somebody knows how to do it.
01:13:47
Speaker
checking him for a pulse and not looking very happy. He tells Lana to call Jerry Geisler, um, who was the most powerful attorney in Hollywood at the time. ah Ah, okay.
01:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. He has represented the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Bugsy Siegel. Who? That's insane. I don't know what Charlie Chaplin did.
01:14:12
Speaker
was scared to look it Uh, I'm scared. He, uh, underage stuff. He had an underage wife that got pregnant that he married while she was underage and parents had to give him guardianship over something because she was too young to give consent to get married to him, I think, so.
01:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, her parents like basically signed over guardianship to him and then he married her just before she gave birth or something. Ew. Happened a few times. Not great.
01:14:47
Speaker
Yeah. Like them young. Okay. Yeah. Gross.
01:14:56
Speaker
His movies are good, though. watched a bunch them during COVID. They all got added to... and think it was Netflix added a whole bunch of them. started watching and was like, I heard something about him one time and I googled it and was like oh shit!
01:15:10
Speaker
Plus he rocks that Hitler stash. Yeah. That was his character. What he? so yeah i see ah a Tramp or something? or something yeah Yeah, the Tramp.
01:15:23
Speaker
think it was. Yeah.
01:15:46
Speaker
Alright. Oh, we are back.
01:15:53
Speaker
We're back, Gordo's back. Oh, guess who's cat? Cat again. Gordo's back.
01:16:05
Speaker
Oh, pardon me.
01:16:09
Speaker
um Okay. I'm going to try to wrap this up Without leaving out any of the juicy bits.
01:16:22
Speaker
yeah Okay.
01:16:25
Speaker
Well, obviously it was a scandal of like... a decade i don't know um the okay so but the ambulance has been called uh stephen crane has to i guess with help push four cars out of the driveway so they could get the ambulance up the drive and none of them had keys in them so they're seeing the cars oh my god um In fact, a quote from ah one of her entourage there, Glenn Rose, said that it was like a circus.
01:17:00
Speaker
By the end of the day, entire families were crammed into their cars ogling and ogling or ogling, whatever. And there were people literally hanging from the trees.
01:17:13
Speaker
For weeks, there was a constant traffic jam, the public just couldn't get enough of all the gory details, and I was frankly fascinated too. And all the ingredients of a sordid detective thriller.
01:17:23
Speaker
I mean, the gangster and the movie star. What could be better than that? Yeah.
01:17:31
Speaker
I heard even Gordo had something to say about use He keeps rubbing his face on the mic and I keep having to move it further away from him. Yeah. He's like, it's fuzzy.
01:17:41
Speaker
It's not really, but. Yeah. It's something I can rub my face on. Make it smell like me. Rub your face on the F-bomb.
01:17:50
Speaker
oh They talked about this guy named James Bacon, who was a correspondent for the Associated Press. And ah he just tagged along with the cops and told them he was assistant to the coroner to get into the house.
01:18:05
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. uh yeah he was 84 at the time of the article and he recalled how he just moved right along with the cops and said that he'd done a lot of interviews with lana turner ever since she made honky tonk with clark gable back in 41 and
01:18:24
Speaker
and he walked right in yep but do um the there was a detective fred otosh also there and geisler had arrived the ah lawyer the big shot lawyer um but ah
01:18:47
Speaker
and oh yeah here we go we've got another key player chief clinton anderson oh no i know we've got alana now we got anderson it's uh s-o-n though yeah yeah uh he's there at 10 50 uh so yeah later on in the evening and he's chief of the beverly hills a police and he knew about the turners he had had gotten a call from mildred the mother
01:19:21
Speaker
of lana a week prior because she was concerned about johnny you know and lana and her him beat her you know getting beaten um well that's good because at least that shows like history right a little bit except they had declined to file a police ah report as he advised Okay.
01:19:48
Speaker
I know. We're so close. It's nice that he recommended that and didn't wasn't the one telling them not to, I guess. Yeah, exactly.
01:19:59
Speaker
um Yeah, it seems like he was taken seriously. And the police were aware of Johnny Stomponato, a.k.a. Johnny Steele, a.k.a. John Valentine,
01:20:12
Speaker
What? I don't know. I guess that was another one of his aliases. Valentine, Steel, Stomp, and Otto. Those are three crazy different names.
01:20:24
Speaker
I know. Stomp and Otto's great. Why do you have to change that? If that's your real born one. It's too mob sounding now that... It is very Italian to me, yeah.
01:20:38
Speaker
And then the other two sound like porn names. Yeah, so true. Steel and Valentine. oh my god, Valentine. yeah or a villain, because then you had Valentine Morgenstern in The Shadowhunters. Shadowhunters.
01:20:53
Speaker
Oh god. Oh god. So, yeah, they knew him. he had been in trouble with the law. He'd been arrested least twice.
01:21:04
Speaker
oh Oh, like Lana, he's been married three times already.
01:21:10
Speaker
I'm sure he would have got up to her number. Maybe. He had a 10-year-old son from a previous relationship who was called Johnny III. Poor Johnny.
01:21:23
Speaker
Oh, and yes, I'm sorry, what he did for his ventures, it was he had owned a furniture store, a pet shop, and sold cars on the side. he just did run on whatevers.
01:21:34
Speaker
Oh, like probably stolen cars then. Oh yeah. And he slept with many, many women, and one starlet and actress said that he was known in Hollywood as a great lover with a big dong. So I think that explains a lot right there.
01:21:50
Speaker
But it couldn't make up for a shit personality. Yeah, I know. Couldn't you just be like, ugh, decent? Yeah, and it's not that hard. Just, oh my god. Don't suck!
01:22:03
Speaker
Yeah. Don't be an asshole.
01:22:09
Speaker
Oh god. He could have been a, he could have been set for life. You know what? He could have just made her happy and not lied to about shit or told her the truth.
01:22:21
Speaker
And she probably would have been fine with it. know, but she honestly didn't sound like she had a super high bar. Like, don't abuse me or my child. Yeah, yeah because it sounded like things were like, okay, before.
01:22:36
Speaker
I know. it It did seem like, yeah, it didn't come out until later. Yeah, which is unusual. i don't think I've heard that before.
01:22:47
Speaker
Or maybe it just didn't last long enough that it progressed like it typically does. Yeah. I don't know. Sometimes you'd hear about it when the yeah when the relationship moves into the next stage, like marriage. Then all of a sudden they'll yeah reveal their awfulness.
01:23:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah, then Chief Anderson notices that this James Bacon guy is not part of the coroner's office. He knows he's a reporter. And according to Bacon, he blew his stack.
01:23:23
Speaker
Oh, and not only that, when he spotted the other two guys there, the lawyer and the, who was the other guy, detective? Somebody, Geisler and Otash, he practically goes ape.
01:23:34
Speaker
The fact that the press, a private eye, and the attorney Gessler were at the murder site before he was really upset him.
01:23:42
Speaker
You don't say. Well... Ugh. Can upset you all you want, but that's the order you guys were called in, so... I mean... Yeah, it's crazy how the word gets out so fast.
01:23:59
Speaker
So he kicks the reporter guy out and he interviews Cheryl, getting her version of events... Um, and, you know, taking into account, I guess, her, she had a little bit of a troubled past as well, running away from her boarding school, um, so living with grandma.
01:24:17
Speaker
How old is she now? 14. Oh, okay, yeah, she's still so young. Mm-hmm. It's rough, yeah. It's, it's, it's a traumatic one, I'm sure.
01:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot. So... Where was I? Oh, yeah, Cheryl was just repeatedly saying, I'm so sorry, chief. I didn't mean to do it. Johnny said he was going to hurt mother.
01:24:53
Speaker
And so that's very sad. But like he's like, okay, their stories are adding up and the mom's saying the same thing. Um... and the Oh, they were just making a press statement.
01:25:11
Speaker
Sorry, I don't know if I need this.
01:25:15
Speaker
Uh, yeah. After the press left, Geisler joined Cheryl as she gave a statement to the police, which was in part, he was threatening Mother to kill her and to hurt Daddy, Granny, and me. So I rushed into the room and struck him with the knife.
01:25:28
Speaker
Struck him. Um... Yeah, so they're like, okay. Lana's like, I'm terrified of him. Like, he's violent. Yeah.
01:25:39
Speaker
All this, of course, is brought up. um He has ties with the mob. yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they know him. Like, the police are aware of who he is.
01:25:52
Speaker
um But, like, and don't know. He's been in ah like a lot of real trouble, but whatever. going to say, I guess murder is still murder.
01:26:03
Speaker
yeah it's so It's something already. It's manslaughter at least. Um, they're down, taking down the police station, paparazzi are everywhere.
01:26:15
Speaker
And the attorney is trying to get ahead of it. He's telling them that it was justifiable homicide with no cause for a trial.
01:26:25
Speaker
I think what he should have been saying is no comment. It's your attorney. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And of one sad detail was only later ah would Cheryl even realize that Johnny was holding his arm up because he was holding a suit jacket on a hanger. He wasn't um going to strike like Lana at the time.
01:26:50
Speaker
Oh, well, he had still been arguing and he had just threatened them. So it doesn't really matter whether or not he's holding a weapon.
01:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like she was, she was in a lot of danger in that relationship many times. Yeah. um So yeah they give their statement and all that.
01:27:16
Speaker
But yeah, definitely that would that would haunt Cheryl a little bit because she would later write, Would I have raised the knife if John's arm hadn't been raised? I don't know. I believe that in my fright I jabbed at him with the night knife out of a split second impulse to scare him.
01:27:30
Speaker
I knew little of knives. Indeed, the autopsy revealed that the blade had been inserted upside down, that is, sharp side up.
01:27:40
Speaker
You don't know how to use a knife at 14? I'm sorry.
01:27:45
Speaker
a little weird i knew little of knives i do not eat food the most bizarre statement i knew a little of knives just i was just like she probably means she was very yeah confused and panicked and scared and doesn't remember well but don't know do not do you not butter toast do you not cut meat like I know little of knives right we have servants I I know I don't cut my oh no do you think maybe she can't even chop anything at the time this was such a weird statement to me I know little of knives I love the old time way they speak too
01:28:37
Speaker
would i have struck him yeah to um so they take go to take her into a cell and laura's like freaking out like oh no yeah i want my baby with me and she chased down the hallway yeah it is don't be scary so she like yells at them to open the door and they're like okay because they just like slammed her behind bars i guess um And it was very traumatic for both mother mother and daughter by the sounds of it.
01:29:07
Speaker
um So yeah, they let her in to comfort her a little bit, but then they're like, okay, you're going to be booked overnight on a holding charge on suspicion of murder.
01:29:18
Speaker
Mama's got to go home. So she gets home just as they're wheeling Johnny's body out under a sheet. Uh-oh. yay
01:29:32
Speaker
That First! Lana was very traumatized. She's wailing uncontrollably. And they're rushing her into the house and hiding her from the paparazzi.
01:29:49
Speaker
And then she's there with her... Oh yeah, Del Armstrong. That's her makeup artist. And then her Glenn Rose, her press agent. And meanwhile, back at the coroner office, they call good old Mickey Cohen to come identify Johnny's body.
01:30:07
Speaker
of all the people, just call the mob boss.
01:30:11
Speaker
Hey, we can't arrest you for anything because we probably don't know where you are. But you hey, you want to come identify your bodyguard's body? Hey, we know you know this guy. Yeah, that's so hilarious to me. Yeah, that is ironic. He was his bodyguard, yeah.
01:30:27
Speaker
um Yeah, so he's like there crying and whatever. And he's going to make arrangements to have Johnny buried in Woodstock and for his brother to come get him.
01:30:39
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe I'm embellishing. I don't remember anymore. Tears are silently streaming down his face, Kelsey.
01:30:49
Speaker
And he's like, i don't like it. It's fishy. He says, there's a lot of unanswered questions about how Johnny was killed. I'm going to find some of those answers no matter what happens. um yeah the 14 year old stabbed him with an upside down knife that's what happened but he don't believe that he also said Johnny's been around for a long time but what if they they tell me it's true he made no effort to dodge the knife it just doesn't gel with me when I heard how Johnny was killed cold chills went through me it's a fantastic way for a man like Stompanato to die ugh these quotes are just so good
01:31:29
Speaker
but Yeah, they're so, so, like, bizarre. And we're all speaking with our transatlantic accent. It's the thirtyties no it's the 50s now. Whatever. Oh,
01:31:46
Speaker
ah I just eat it up. So, this made me a little sad. Johnny had had pictures of Lana in his pockets, like, with loving little notes on them and a lock of her hair.
01:31:58
Speaker
when he died. um on his wrist was an ID bracelet engraved with the following phrase in Spanish. Daddy John, my sweet love, this recalls a piece of my heart which will be with you always. And remember, Guido, my life for you for all time.
01:32:14
Speaker
Lanita.
01:32:19
Speaker
Weird.
01:32:21
Speaker
I mean...
01:32:27
Speaker
Whatever. They seem to really love each other, but they really had a bad relationship. Yeah. Too intense.
01:32:37
Speaker
So, yeah, they are all supporting Lana and her team is like, come to my house. You can't sleep here. Like everything's stressful and there's paparazzis everywhere.
01:32:51
Speaker
Everybody lawyers up. Stephen Crane gets a lawyer.
01:32:57
Speaker
I don't know why he gets a lawyer. He kind gets a lawyer named Arthur Crowley. Just so I could say Crowley. um and just Yeah. Mr. Crowley.
01:33:08
Speaker
um Whose former clients included the scandal magazine Confidential. And Geisler repped Cheryl and Lana got a lawyer named Louis Blau.
Public Sympathy and Legal Proceedings
01:33:21
Speaker
Cheryl was taken to juvenile hall after attempts to release her to her grandmother failed. important um the customary procedure was to hold the suspect for 72 hours and the the DA was not going to budge on that one. Not even for the daughter of a celebrity.
01:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. um please And then when they let Lana come visit her daughter, her team pulling up in her twin Cadillacs really made the other parents mad as they're waiting in line in the rain outside the facility.
01:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, then they're trying to avoid, you know, accusations of special treatment. But, yeah, that's not going to happen, right? you can't You can't help what you drive, though.
01:34:11
Speaker
Yeah. didn' And, yeah, Cheryl's having a rough time a bit. ah Some woman just accosted her in the day room and saying, your mom killed him, didn't she? Until Cheryl was screaming back at her, I did it, I did it, I did it.
01:34:28
Speaker
out of frustration and fear. ah Weird. Yeah. Lana was supposed to remain in seclusion until the inquest, so she was not allowed to see anything the papers were saying about her or anything, which included the love letters that were being printed between her and Johnny.
01:34:46
Speaker
Her personal letters. Oh, I hate that kind of stuff. Yeah. She really liked to call him daddy. Yeah. Say, I'm your woman.
01:34:59
Speaker
But but now now he's younger than her. You're my boy. You're my boy and I'm your mama.
01:35:13
Speaker
It was likely that it was Mickey Cohen who leaked them. He insisted he got them prior to Johnny's death. And then he gave them to the LA Herald and the Express. Yeah. And he claimed he was trying to show Johnny's good side and that they, they did love each other, guess.
01:35:33
Speaker
But like as embarrassed as it, it, you know, it might've made her, it like actually made the public seem to like her even more. Cause they were like, Oh my God, she's kind of a hopeless romantic.
01:35:45
Speaker
um So yeah, Carmen, Johnny's brother came to claim his body. The family's skeptical of the story. They wanted to take a polygraph.
01:35:56
Speaker
They think maybe she shot him when they were in bed together, and that's maybe why it was easier to get the drop on him. Oh. And then they stabbed him?
01:36:08
Speaker
that what they're trying say? They shot him and then stabbed him or something?
01:36:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, i don't know. I don't know if they just don't have all the information yet.
01:36:20
Speaker
Because yeah, he was only stabbed. There was no
01:36:24
Speaker
gunshots um
01:36:33
Speaker
yeah there was some weird stuff about them looking for a box of johnny's stuff that had his gun and a wedding brand and uh a wedding brand with the cryptic engraving from here to eternity rosemary and john Which i was like, is that cryptic?
01:36:50
Speaker
Was one of his wives named Rosemary? Because think he was married like three times. don't know. But they also found rolls and rolls of negatives of nude quote, well-known women in very compromising positions.
01:37:05
Speaker
End quote. Oh, that's gross. I know. And what some nudes of Lana turned up, but then she and the lawyer burned them. Um,
01:37:18
Speaker
On April 8th, they have the funeral for Johnny, and he's buried with full military honors because he was an ex-Marine.
01:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, so a lot of them seem to have a problem with being like, how could a 14-year-old kill an ex-Marine? And, like, the cops, like, basically surprise and accident. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Yeah.
01:37:43
Speaker
Not a expecting a 14-year-old to come running in the room with a knife. Yeah, like... Ugh. I mean, nobody ever fought him back, really. Yeah, exactly. gonna say he seems to be the aggressor in most situations, so you don't expect somebody, let alone ah kid, to come after you. Mm-hmm.
01:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, take matters into our own hands. Um... Yeah, the family was definitely like skeptical. His stepmother said they're not vindictive people, but they felt their son had been slandered.
01:38:22
Speaker
Like that the couple was planning to get married, which I was like, really? Okay. Sure. um And yeah, they're just having a hard time believing it, I think. I don't know. I believe a lot of it's rooted in grief and stuff like that.
01:38:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. She, the stepmother said, they're saying things that couldn't be possible. I don't believe the real truth is known. Any cold-blooded murder should be investigated. i don't believe there is such a thing as justifiable homicide.
01:38:53
Speaker
It's like, well, there's something called self-defense. and Yeah, until it happens to you, I don't think you can have an opinion. Yeah. um Back at the fort, back at the house, Del Armstrong is holding down the vet.
01:39:08
Speaker
Holding down the fort. I... Read too far in my next sentence. An industry vet who started his makeup career on the Wizard of Oz, he was up to this arduous task, which included fielding calls from visitors like ah Lana's ex-lover, Frank Sinatra.
01:39:29
Speaker
Ever heard of him? No. Oh, my God. Like, where's the rest the Rat Pack? Yeah. well yeah I guess he was kind of like her wingman for that whole affair with Frank Sinatra don't and Armstrong once said she had too short of a concentration span when it came to men moving on from them when she became bored was like okay um so yeah the press is having a field day they're implying all sorts of things like that oh yeah
01:40:05
Speaker
Johnny, Lana, and Cheryl was in love with him, and ah who knows? All sorts of bullshit. They're saying Lana's on trial for her loose morals.
01:40:17
Speaker
All the terrible things they say about women when something happens.
01:40:24
Speaker
It's always so annoying. Right. It's like, well, let's just have time to break her character. Yeah. um I liked what Del Armstrong said about the Inquest day where he said he couldn't be there. He was working on another film.
01:40:40
Speaker
But he said, i knew she was I know she was prepared. Geisler had coached her for hours. It was the most important performance of her life.
01:40:48
Speaker
Tia.
01:40:52
Speaker
um fans lined up to support and catch a glimpse of lana turner as she arrived and uh this i like this quote where the way they started off with the word severely reminded me of you
01:41:06
Speaker
what time you said one of my families looked severely related the families i was talking about i was like love the way she uses that word she just peppers it in don't remember this
01:41:22
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. It was while ago. They said she came in severely elegant in a gray silk Italian suit with her hair cropped mannishly short and entered the Hall of Records building in downtown LA and go up to the eighth floor courtroom on the arm of Jerry Geisler.
01:41:39
Speaker
but don't like mannishly short. I know, right? They're being kind of mean. And that was the Vanity Fair article. oh
01:41:52
Speaker
So thankfully Cheryl was excused from testifying due to her age and stuff. So they just read her statement. um Mickey Cohen was called and asked if he had identified the body of Johnny Stompanato. He's, he responded, I refuse to identify him as John Stompanato Jr. for the reason that I may be accused of this murder.
01:42:14
Speaker
What? They hastily excused him. Drama queen. That makes no sense. I know! What are you talking about? You're literally the daughter saying I did it Like, why would they accuse me?
01:42:30
Speaker
Yeah, you're here to say you identified his body because you knew him. Mr. Mob Boss. They're trying to lock me up! ah So Chief Anderson confirmed the identification.
01:42:46
Speaker
Then at 10 a.m. Lana's called to testify. On the stand, she spoke softly and deliberately, clutching the white glove in her hand and taking occasional s sips of water. um One quote from Lana.
01:43:00
Speaker
I said, don't you ever touch me again. I'm absolutely finished. This is the end and I want you to get out. And after I said that, I was walking toward the bedroom door and he was right behind me and I opened it and my daughter came in.
01:43:12
Speaker
I truthfully thought she had hit him in the stomach. As best as I can remember, they came together and they parted. I still never saw a blade.
01:43:22
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And yeah, and she of course told about their relationship and how volatile it was. um She said it was a humiliating ordeal that that she had to explain on the witness stand what I barely understood myself to confess before the cameras that strange helplessness that bound me to John for so long.
01:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, she's still like yeah coming to terms with like the abuse of relationship let alone a murder yeah and her daughter is being charged with and it's still the death of someone she loved even if it wasn't a healthy love it's like so many feelings um and still they're like making fun of her any chance they can there is a brief recess and she's feeling overwhelmed and faint she's
01:44:18
Speaker
holding onto Jerry Geisler for support. So they're walking out arm and arm when he stumbles and she asked who's helping who here, which was like, I love her. um But then one witness was her to scoff at her theatrics saying like, what an act she's putting on.
01:44:35
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. She just can't win. Yeah. um More witnesses are called. Details are given they're such as there were no identifiable prints on the knife.
01:44:49
Speaker
Weird. and no No blood or next to no blood in the bedroom except for several dime-sized drops near the spot of death.
01:45:00
Speaker
And yeah, that was kind of odd. Yeah.
01:45:07
Speaker
and The medical examiner was one of the last to testify. He explained how the wound was a fatal one and added that during the autopsy, they discovered Johnny was ah very sick. He had had an incurable kidney disease and likely had less than 10 years left to live.
01:45:23
Speaker
So...
01:45:25
Speaker
There's a twist. Oh, well. Which I kind of was like, wow, okay. um So, oh yeah, at the conclusion of the inquest, a Stompanado supporter stood up and yelled, lies, lies, all lies. This mother and daughter were both in love with Stompanado. was better than any of us.
01:45:46
Speaker
He was a gentleman.
01:45:50
Speaker
I'm sorry. No. I can't. I'm sure he was hot. I'll give you that. Like, whatever. like ah you in love with him, too? like He was a gentleman.
01:46:04
Speaker
Oh, my God. Yeah, honestly, I didn't look up many pictures, which is weird for me. oh There was too many husbands. like I'll have to put them all on Instagram or something. You can't be looking up all the husbands.
01:46:18
Speaker
Right? Oh. oh Okay, we are... Okay. thirty all right The LA Times ran a scathing editorial chastising Turner for her self-indulgences
01:46:33
Speaker
and saying Cheryl was not the juvenile delinquent that Lana was. ah Just so ah gross. They were like, oh look this was life magazine actually i expected better from you they printed pictures of turner turner's trial scenes in movies like the postman always rings twice and pate in place and they used the opportunity to make unfair comparisons of her to her on-screen personas oh my god If somebody's not involved in writing the script or being the director or anything, then you can't draw parallels between, really, between characters and all that kind of stuff.
01:47:14
Speaker
Oh, right. Like, they yeah, they shouldn't even have to stretch that hard because if she makes more movies like that other one that was about an actress and her emotional daughter or whatever.
01:47:28
Speaker
Oh, it's terrible. So, later that month, April 24th, Cheryl's made a ward of the court temporarily, sent to live with her grandma Mildred, with visits from mom and dad And then a wrongful death suit was filed by the Stomponato family with charges of parental negligence and false allegations.
01:47:50
Speaker
ah Saying that, what? Alleged she... Lana incited her to inflict the wound. Something like that.
01:48:02
Speaker
So she's fighting a civil lawsuit and scandals and all that stuff. Weird. Yeah. And then, oh yeah. So speaking of the movies that mirrored her life later that year in the summer of 1958, producer Ross Hunter got Lana to agree to star in a remake of Imitation of Life, a movie based on a Fanny Hearst novel which has a plot that deals with a selfish star who spoils her daughter rotten.
01:48:31
Speaker
And apparently it filled fueled more horrible rumors of sexual assault and bullshit. Why are you taking these roles that are so too, too soon?
01:48:45
Speaker
Oh, because it was a box office hit and made a bunch of money. That's probably why.
01:48:52
Speaker
um Cheryl spends 11 months in a reform school. She then gets to live with her mom again. the civil suit by Johnny's family ah was still going on.
01:49:05
Speaker
ah But Lana believed if it went to trial, she could win. But she was still more concerned about protecting her daughter's well-being after all this. So they settled out of court for $20,000. twenty thousand dollars That's just a month's work for her. Yeah, four weeks. She's like, sure.
01:49:23
Speaker
yeah I hadn't done the math before. ah So the money went to his son, Johnny Jr. Johnny III. um He probably changed his name.
01:49:36
Speaker
Right. I am. Johnny, nobody. ah Cheryl struggled to come to terms with the trauma, running away four more times in the the following decade.
01:49:48
Speaker
She then spent time at the Institute for institute for Living Sanatorium. Uh, where there, she found a friend with a fellow patient named Jonathan Winters and he helped her work through some of her issues.
01:50:05
Speaker
finally Lana, uh, for her part, married a man named Fred May. oh my God. I wrote a race horse. I think I meant a race horse. Dealer.
01:50:17
Speaker
Whoops. Got half of his job in there. She married a horse. Bojack Horseman! Whoa! I did not see that coming. Finally happy. The end.
01:50:31
Speaker
Oh my god. A centaur.
01:50:36
Speaker
racehorse. Don't worry, that one didn't last long. Then she married a guy named Robert Eaton. No! Sorry, I can't keep up anymore. I'm getting husband marriage divorce whiplash.
01:50:51
Speaker
This is husband number six. Who taught her the real fulfilling pleasure in sex. So I think that was a good one. But you don't have to marry them all. Yeah.
01:51:03
Speaker
And I'm sorry, the sixth one taught her that? That's so sad. feel bad for her life. Oh, well, she did have Tyrone. I think a few of them were good lays. um Finally, her seventh husband was Ronald Dante, a nightclub hypnotist.
01:51:23
Speaker
No.
01:51:25
Speaker
Can't even get it out. It's too ridiculous. She's like a millionaire. Why are you a nightclub hypnotist? What do you even mean? I don't what that means.
01:51:38
Speaker
He hypnotized her. I don't know.
Lana's Later Life and Relationships
01:51:41
Speaker
No, he was a thief. He was looking for her money. god. He stole a bunch of jewelry and stuff.
01:51:51
Speaker
Yeah, because he's a fucking nightclub hypnotist. What even is that? I'm a nightclub hypnotist and it's 1969, baby. Oh my god.
01:52:01
Speaker
She... Don't worry. She... see finds her someone. Eight? Number eight? What? Number eight? No, she does that is her last husband. She does not get married again. no She has a weird longtime secretary named Taylor Pero who ah kind of isolated her and kept her away from some of her other friends, which was kind of weird.
01:52:29
Speaker
But then she met young, hot Eric Root, who was her hair guy. And po then he became her bodyguard and her escort too.
01:52:41
Speaker
She's like, I don't need to marry this one. He can just be my yeah sex slave. no
01:52:49
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry. And he actually was really good for her. he had an argument with that peril guy who wasn't good for her and he quit. And then um Eric also got her to lay off the booze.
01:53:02
Speaker
So that was good. And they spent the next 14 years traveling the world and having fun. And then in a shocking twist, in April of 1985, Eric Root dropped a bomb.
01:53:15
Speaker
He said that Lana admitted to being the real killer. What? I know, right? ah Take it with a grain of salt. He wrote it in his memoir.
01:53:28
Speaker
i don't know. Deathbed confession. No. Ha ha. He said that he figured it out. Wait, what did he say? He said, with help from Ray Strait, who wrote Detective Fred Otash's biography, which who could even remember who that is at this point? He was the private eye.
01:53:47
Speaker
He says they pieced together the real events. That Jerry G. and Otash colluded to make Cheryl take the blame. That they wiped the prints off the knife and came up with the story.
01:53:58
Speaker
But Lana never replied to those allegations, as far as I know. all right have a full gordo gordo you are loving it on the other side of the mic he's like are you guys fucking done yet almost i'm on the last page now i swear to you i know my laptop's gonna die no i didn't plug it in i'm only at 22 jesus you are living on the edge know it's gonna start giving me warnings
01:54:30
Speaker
Cheryl helped her father run his Contiki restaurant chain where they made millions, then sold them in 1978. She also worked as a real estate agent in Hawaii and San Francisco. She lived with her longtime companion, Joyce Leroy, who went by the nickname Josh. Because why not?
01:54:49
Speaker
She told Cheryl once, I think it was a very brave and noble thing to go to your mother's defense. And Lana and Cheryl continued to work on their relationship um for their whole lives because it was forever fraught from the early damage in this whole thing.
01:55:04
Speaker
Yeah. um But, you know, they worked on it. And during her final years, Lana became reclusive, spending most of her time in her Century City condo, calling it her ivory tower.
01:55:15
Speaker
She obsessively followed another celebrity trial, the O.J. Simpson case. oh no predicting correctly that he was going to get off she this is cute she remained super close with carmen cruise up until the end and they would take long car drives in the cars that lana bought her i'm just like oh picturing like grace and frankie um
01:55:44
Speaker
She did get throat cancer, underwent chemo, and became extremely frail by 1992. was under 100 pounds. And she died June 29, 1995, in Carmen's arms. and then she died june twenty ninth ninety ninety five in carmen's arms She left Cheryl $50,000 and the rest to Carmen and her life and legacy inspired a book, Harold Robbins, Harold Robbins, Where Has Our Love Gone?
01:56:09
Speaker
And a character in a film noir. Oh yeah, that was LA Confidential. And Cheryl got to marry her Joyce, Josh, love of her life in 2014.
01:56:21
Speaker
And Lana once said that she was like like a second daughter to her. so yeah they were gay casey didn't figure it out right she never wanted you johnny anyway that was a weird way to end it i'm sorry i'm in too deep pull me out i don't know what anything is anymore um kelsey's laptop's gonna die because we've been here for 17 hours or two four two But it was... About two.
01:56:53
Speaker
the About two, which is a lot of talking for me to be doing. Yes. All right. Wow. That was a wild one. Right?
01:57:04
Speaker
so roller coaster. You think the woman's going to get it, and then it's no. yo Damn. And then she got married like four more times.
01:57:15
Speaker
it's It's a little exhausting. It's like, yeah, like you said, you don't have to marry all
Reflection and Closing Remarks
01:57:21
Speaker
of them. No, you don't. um Get married like... Ugh.
01:57:28
Speaker
That's like once a decade. That's a lot. I know. How many prenups? Anyway. Yeah, that's a lot of paperwork. I hope you paid your lawyer a lot. They were probably exhausted.
01:57:42
Speaker
Right? So, yes, everyone be nice to you your mothers, your daughters, and you don't have to get married. That's our but takeaway. I don't know.
01:57:55
Speaker
Oh my god. Alright. sorry Well, catch you next time. Excuse you, Gordo. We just went...
01:58:07
Speaker
I think that means he liked it.
01:58:11
Speaker
Who knows? he He was like, there was no mention of any cats. I did not enjoy it. All right. Well, anyway, we'll catch you next time for a totally different thing.
01:58:24
Speaker
and until next time, keep it cryptic. Bye-bye.
01:58:53
Speaker
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01:59:07
Speaker
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01:59:21
Speaker
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01:59:33
Speaker
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