page_title: Lana Turner
section_title: Johnny Stompanato homicide scandal (1958–62)
hierarchical_section_title: Lana Turner / Career / Johnny Stompanato homicide scandal (1958–62)
caption_attribution_description: English: Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato, c. 1957
context_page_description: Lana Turner was an American actress. Over the course of her nearly 50-year career, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a film actress, as well as for her highly publicized personal life. In the mid-1940s, she was one of the highest-paid actresses in the United States, and one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's biggest stars, with her films earning the studio more than $50 million during her 18-year contract with them. Turner is frequently cited as a popular culture icon of Hollywood glamour and a screen legend of classical Hollywood cinema.
  Born to working-class parents in northern Idaho, Turner spent her childhood there before her family relocated to San Francisco. In 1936, when Turner was 15, she was discovered while purchasing a soda at the Top Hat Malt Shop in Hollywood. At the age of 16, she was signed to a personal contract by Warner Bros. director Mervyn LeRoy, who took her with him when he transferred to MGM in 1938. She soon attracted attention by playing the role of a murder victim in her film debut, LeRoy's They Won't Forget, and she later transitioned into supporting roles, often appearing as an ingénue.
context_section_description: In January 1958, Paramount Pictures released The Lady Takes a Flyer, a romantic comedy in which Turner portrayed a female pilot. While shooting the film the previous spring, she had begun receiving phone calls and flowers on the set from mobster Johnny Stompanato, using the name "John Steele." Stompanato had close ties to the Los Angeles underworld and gangster Mickey Cohen, which he feared would dissuade her from dating him. Turner claimed she was unsure of how he obtained her phone number, but that she learned in later press that allegedly he collected the phone numbers of various Hollywood actresses, including June Allyson, Anita Ekberg and Zsa Zsa Gabor. He pursued Turner aggressively, sending her various gifts such as vinyl records, an engraved gold watch and a portrait of her that he had commissioned from a local artist. Turner was "thoroughly intrigued" and began casually dating him. After a friend informed her of who Stompanato actually was, she confronted him and tried to break off the affair. Stompanato was not easily deterred, and over the course of the following year, they carried on a relationship filled with violent arguments, physical abuse and repeated reconciliations. Turner would also claim that on one occasion he drugged her and took nude photographs of her while unconscious, potentially to use as blackmail.
  In September 1957, Stompanato visited Turner in London, where she was filming Another Time, Another Place, co-starring Sean Connery. Their meeting was initially happy, but they soon began fighting. Stompanato became suspicious when Turner would not allow him to visit the set and, during one fight, he violently choked her. To avoid further confrontation, Turner and her makeup artist, Del Armstrong, called Scotland Yard in order to have Stompanato deported. Stompanato got wind of the plan and showed up on the set with a gun, threatening her and Connery, whom he warned to keep away from Turner. Connery answered by grabbing the gun out of Stompanato's hand and twisting his wrist, causing him to run off the set sheepishly. Turner and Armstrong later returned with two Scotland Yard detectives to the rented house where she and Stompanato were staying. The detectives advised Stompanato to leave and escorted him out of the house and to the airport, where he boarded a plane back to the United States.
  On the evening of March 26, 1958, Turner attended the Academy Awards to observe her nomination for Peyton Place and present the award for Best Supporting Actor. Stompanato, angered that he did not attend with her, awaited her return home that evening, whereupon he physically assaulted her. Around 8:00 p.m. on Friday, April 4, Stompanato arrived at Turner's rented home at 730 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. The two began arguing heatedly in the bedroom, during which Stompanato threatened to kill Turner, her daughter and her mother. Fearing that her mother's life was in danger, Cheryl, who had been watching television in an adjacent room, grabbed a kitchen knife and ran to Turner's defense.
  According to testimony provided by Turner, Cheryl, who had been listening to the couple's fight behind the closed door, stabbed Stompanato in the stomach when Turner attempted to usher him out of the bedroom, killing him. Turner testified that she initially believed Cheryl had punched him, but realized he had been stabbed when he collapsed and she saw blood on his shirt.
  Because of Turner's fame and the fact that the killing involved her teenage daughter, the case quickly became a media sensation. More than 100 reporters and journalists attended the April 12, 1958 inquest, described by attendees as "near-riotous." After four hours of testimony and approximately 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury deemed the killing a justifiable homicide. Cheryl remained a temporary ward of the court until April 24, when a juvenile court hearing was held, during which the judge expressed concerns over her receiving "proper parental supervision." She was ultimately released to the care of her grandmother, and was ordered to regularly visi
caption: Turner and Stompanato in Acapulco on April 1, 1958, four days before he was stabbed to death by Turner's daughter
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "664", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "795"}