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June 01, 2008
Name the Movie Star #1 Answer: Lana Turner
The movie star with Ronald Reagan is none other than Lana Turner.
No correct answers this week to our quiz.
The photo was taken in 1937, not long after Turner made her heart-stopping film debut, age 16, in Mervyn LeRoy's (real name, Levy) They Won't Forget.
Lana Turner in They Won't Forget.
Lana Turner, born Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner, impoverished and fatherless—her father was murdered after a winning streak in a crap game—arrived with her mother in California, seeking a better life.
Lana (pronounced: Lah-na) attended Hollywood High School. One day, in 1936, cutting typing class and sipping a Coke at the soda fountain of the Top Hat Cafe—not Schwab's—W.R. Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter asked that fateful question: “Would you like to be in the movies?”
Lana responded: “I don't know. I'd have to ask my mother.”
Lana Turner, 15-years old, a student at Hollywood High.
Wilkerson introduced Lana to Zeppo Marx, born, Herbert Manfred Marx, who left the Marx Brothers to open a talent agency. Zeppo agreed to represent the innocent and luminous teenager.
At the time, director Mervyn LeRoy was having a difficult time casting the role of Mary Clay, a teenage girl who is brutally raped and murdered in his socially conscious film about prejudice, corruption and media manipulation in the deep South, They Won't Forget.
LeRoy describes his first meeting with Turner in his informative autobiography Take One.
She was so nervous her hands were shaking. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and she was so shy she could hardly look me in the face. Yet there was something so endearing about her that I knew she was the right girl. She had tremendous appeal, which I knew the audience would feel.
Lana's small but unforgettable appearance in the LeRoy film rocketed the shy young girl to fame. Her 15 second walk down a street dressed in a well contoured-skirt, patent leather belt, tight sweater, high-heeled pumps and a perky tam, became a national sensation.
She was dubbed: The Sweater Girl, a label she hated.
Director Mervyn LeRoy and Lana Turner on
the set of They Won't Forget, 1937.
In her autobiography, The Lady, The Legend, The Truth, Turner describes her mortified reaction to seeing herself on screen for the first time:
When the lights went down, I slumped in my seat and grabbed my mother's hand. The sound track's jazzy, earthy beat magnified the image on the screen. It was a young girl—was it me?—but, my God, the way she walked!
The audience began to stir as the camera angle shifted. That walk was more than teasing—it was seductive. Her breasts and backside were not that full, but when she walked they bounced. From behind me came an audible growl, and a chorus of wolf whistles filled the hall.
“Who's the girl?” I heard someone ask, but I had tears in my eyes. I slipped down farther in my seat until I was resting on my spine. Only the brim of my new hat stopped me from sliding to the floor.
At the end of the reel, when the credits rolled up, my name was listed sixth. Lana Turner—the first time it had ever appeared on screen. “Let's get out of here,” I urged my mother, who seemed to be in a daze. A production assistant swept us out before the lights came on.
As we hurried to a waiting car, I clutched the young man's sleeve. “Listen,” I said. “Tell me. I don't really look like that...”
He cut me off with a slight smile. “Fortunately,” he said, “you do.”
LeRoy signed Turner to a personal contract. Soon, Leroy left Warner Bros. for a top position as a supervising Producer/Director at MGM, the most powerful and star-studded Hollywood studio. There, studio chief L.B. Mayer instructed his team of image-makers to reinvent the promising young starlet.
By 1943, Lana Turner's transformation into a sultry love goddess
was complete.
Sadly, behind the glamorous image, Turner's private life was a mess. She was married seven times—twice to the same man—and each marriage seemed worse than the last. Husband #1, band leader Artie Shaw, real name, Arthur Jacob Arshwasky, was physically and mentally abusive. That marriage lasted four miserable months. Turner lost her fortune to Henry Topping—husband #3—and got into trouble with the IRS over unpaid taxes. Actor Lex Barker—husband # 4—repeatedly molested and raped Turner's 12-year old daughter Cheryl.
Commenting about her numerous affairs and marriages, Lana said: “I like the boys and the boys like me.”
Turner was an alcoholic and prone to severe depressions. The most notorious chapter of her life was in 1958 when her daughter Cheryl, 14, stabbed to death Turner's abusive and violently jealous boyfriend, mobster Johnny Stompanato.
Lana Turner's best films are: The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946, in which her portrayal of Cora Smith, the beautiful and murderous seductress, is one of the most enduring bad-girl, film noir performances in movie history.
Here's Lana's unforgettable entrance in Postman Always Rings Twice.
The all white outfit and queenly turban mitigate against the powerful
eroticism of the scene. The whiteness of Lana probably saved the scene
from an all out assault by the censors. Watch John Garfield's
(real name, Jacob Julius Garfinkle) reaction shot to Lana's entrance.
He's a surrogate for every man and woman in the audience
In 1952, Turner turned in the performance of her career in The Bad and the Beautiful, playing an alcoholic small time Hollywood actress who suddenly rises to fame. Here Turner's work is subtle and touching. When Turner's character offers to sleep with producer Jonathan Shields—Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch—in order to secure a role, you feel the harsh, world-weariness of Turner's character, a doomed actress who has resigned herself to a life of diminishing expectations—where bartering flesh for work is the norm. It's as if Lana Turner, the beautiful but broken Hollywood star, has finally reached so deep within her battered psyche that she's no longer acting but inhabiting the role. It's a magnificent film, from a great script, filled with brilliant performances.
Here's the scene: “You're very generous. Too generous.”
Every time I watch this clip, tears spring to my eyes. I've worked in Hollywood for over twenty years and this scene—emotionally overwhelming on so many levels—just rings with truth.
Lana Turner, Ronald Reagan, together again, 1957.
Lana Turner: Bad and Beautiful
Hollywood Goes to War
Lillian Gish: Dying for Her Audience
Ricardo Cortez: Hollywood's Latin Lover or The Kosher Butcher's Son
Hollywood's First Western Hero: Billy Broncho, A Jewish Kid Who Couldn't Ride a Horse
Sylvia Sidney Replaces Clara Bow
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova: Desperately Exotic
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at June 1, 2008 09:26 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
Cool..... I really need to rent some classic movies and get caught up. Or modern movies. Or any movies, for that matter....
Posted by: Gila at June 1, 2008 12:43 PM
Robert, never would have guessed that is Lana Turner, wow.
I was also trying to guess a Jewish movie star, even though that's not what you said!!!
Posted by: cruisin-mom at June 1, 2008 02:18 PM
Gila:
I'm partial to the classics. But let us know what you're watching and enjoying——or hating.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 1, 2008 08:18 PM
Cruisin' Mom:
This was a hard one, unless you're a hard-core Lana fan, and there aren't too many around these days.
Hey, when I say not Jewish, you can take me at my word. I'm not trying to fool my readers:-)
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 1, 2008 08:21 PM
Lana Turner's film, GREEN DOLPHIN STREET, lead me to read the Elizabeth Goudge novel on which it was based. I've been a HUGE Elizabeth Goudge fan, ever since. Robert, why don't you look into adapting one of her books?
Posted by: Miranda Rose Smith at June 3, 2008 03:04 AM
Miranda:
Thanks so much for the tip, I'll look into her work.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 3, 2008 08:12 PM
You're welcome, Robert. Look for Gentian Hill, The Castle on the Hill, The Child from the Sea, The Dean's Watch, A City of Bells.
Posted by: Miranda Rose Smith at June 4, 2008 07:34 AM
You're welcome, Robert. Look for Gentian Hill, The Castle on the Hill, The Child from the Sea, The Dean's Watch, A City of Bells.
Posted by: Miranda Rose Smith at June 4, 2008 07:35 AM