Lana Turner

It was

really like, it was like a Lana Turner thing.

It was.

He was wearing a really fetching sweater.

And now, folks, we find Jimmy Durante at home with his man creature.

And later on, Lana Turner is coming over, and I'm going to meet her.

And she'll squeeze me in her arms and kiss me and kiss me and kiss me.

That last part isn't really true, folks, but I get so tired of just reading what's on the paper.

But right now, a fascinating moment from broadcast and real-life history, where we hear a murder inquest of Johnny Stompanato, a gangster at the time who was in the employ of the infamous Mickey Cohen.

He was in a relationship with movie actress Lana Turner and reportedly treated her very poorly, to the point where Turner's 14-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane was fed up and murdered him.

The eyes of the nation were on CBS television as they broadcast the murder inquest with Lana Turner on the stand, and according to some sources, saying that she gave the best performance of her life and also looked the part with not a hair out of place.

What we'll hear next is a broadcast package prepared featuring excerpts from that inquest in April of 1958.

Central

broadcast

over the American Broadcasting Network.

Slaying last week of Johnny Stompanato by Lana Turner's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane.

It's amazing and it shows you how just MGM in 1939, how deep that roster was to be able to flesh out a cast of women like this.

Yeah, and the idea also, which was one of the things I found out, was that Joan Crawford beat out a young Lana Turner.

So after reading all the people but lana turner was a new starlet at the studio so she was going to get the part and it was even announced in the paper that she was going to get the part but um but you know joan cropper just refused to give up and really petitioned and even agreed to which is was unheard of i mean imagine a leading actress like her she agrees to audition And she changed George Cukor's mind because they did get it in their head.

Well, okay, they hate each other and this could be combustible, but if we can control it, it'll really be good.

If we can control this rivalry, it will be good for the movie.

It's amazing and it shows you how just MGM in 1939, how deep that roster was to be able to flesh out a cast of women like this.

Yeah, and the idea also, which was one of the things I found out, was that Joan Crawford beat out a young Lana Turner.

So after reading all the people but lana turner was a new starlet at the studio so she was going to get the part and it was even announced in the paper that she was going to get the part but um but you know joan cropper just refused to give up and really petitioned and even agreed to which is was unheard of i mean imagine a leading actress like her she agrees to audition And she changed George Cukor's mind because they did get it in their head.

Well, okay, they hate each other and this could be combustible, but if we can control it, it'll really be good.

If we can control this rivalry, it will be good for the movie.

There is a lot of media outreach.

now and we'll talk about that later but it's interesting i never realized this but i'm and i'm glad even more glad now that i asked you to be my first guest because i'm the opposite i'm absolutely mesmerized by the big screen i have a difficult time i mean not you know psychologically really but movies to me are a more important reality than reality like who reality movies, you know, which is why even as a child, I was drawn to, you know, romantic melodramas about women in moral crisis, you know, Lana Turner in Madam X or Joan Crawford in anything, you

know, and,

and for gay men of my generation, and I should, I don't mind self-identifying that I'm 71, you know, those classic movies, often women driven, but not exclusively, um, were part of how we were allowed to be gay and find each other.

Quite a few.

Ted Whitten, Lana Turner, Phil Harris, Charlie Rich, Vivian Blaine, Gary Crosby, and one of the great stars, Ginger Rogers.

Ginger Rogers worked with Fred Astaire.

You probably haven't seen her films, her dancing films.