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If it's eighty plus, you are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gaesy, Bundy Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good evening. From the outside. Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all. A thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. When the famous fem fetale began dating mobster Johnny Stopponado, thug for the infamous West Coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate
as Stoppinado's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that faithful night remained foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stoppinado dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt
to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie. New York Times best selling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their
family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the twentieth century's most notorious true crime tales. The book that we're featuring this evening is A Murder in Hollywood, the untold story of Tinseltown's most shocking crime. With my special guest, investigative journalist and author Ksey Sherman. Good evening, and welcome back to the program. Thank you very much for this inding you, Casey Sherman.
Hey, good evening, thanks for having me.
Thank you so much, and congratulations on your latest book, A Murder in Hollywood.
Well, I appreciate that this is my seventeenth book, so been at this for a long time, for about twenty years now. I'm very excited to launch this book out into the world.
Fantastic. Let's get right to this incredible story as you do in the right in the beginning, you introduce Virgil Turner and Mildred Turner, and you talk about Virgil Turner and in a hotel room is alias Ernie Johnson. Explain this story as you do right in the beginning of A Murder in Hollywood.
I'll talk a little bit about it, so you know. The reason why I went so far back in Lana Turner's life is because I think it really impacted our decision making throughout the course of her life. Right, And Alana was always attracted to dark men, and and I think that goes back to her father, Virgil Turner, who was a bit of a hustler. He was a World War One veteran, kind of in and out of jobs,
move the family around a bit. Finally they get to San Francisco and a little Onna Turner all she wants for her birthday is a red bicycle, and Virgil really doesn't have any money to pay for it, but he's a gambler and he thinks he can make some quick cash on the side, and he gets involved in an after hours card game that doesn't go well for Virgil. He wins the card game, but is robbed and beaten to death and it is a still an unsolved homicide. In twenty twenty four, tell us.
About his wife Mildred and what happens after his death and this foster care foster mother Julia islam.
Sure, well, I think that you know, Mildred is certainly somebody that's struggling to raise young daughter on her own, gets in a bit of trouble and has to pass her daughter off to a pretty domineering foster mother. Early in Lana Turner's life, and Lana Turner isn't greeted with adulation or love and affection. Instead, she's forced to work for her foster family doing the laundry, kind of a Cinderella type of situation there for Lana. So she's got
a very fragmented family life from the very beginning. Like I said, I think it leads to some of the decisions that she makes over the course of her life and career.
You write it's a dramatic scene that her stepmother that would routinely beat her takes her to San Francisco, and that's when she discovers that the person you write that the only person that she ever loved and ever loved her she found out about her her father's death.
Correct. That was I had the benefit of a lot of letters that Lana had written over the course of her life. She also wrote her own autobiography where she was I would say, very open to these experiences, and especially those early on in her life. So you know, I was able to paint a picture for the reader about a very troubled young girl looking for love and safety and quite frankly never found.
Her name was Julia Jean Turner, and everyone called her Judy. Let's talk about now, Mickey Cohen Meyer, Harris, Mickey Cohen and his turn in Brooklyn in Boyle Heights.
Sure, and I'm glad you mentioned that, because you know, a murder in Hollywood really focuses on the ascension of Hollywood movie star Banna Turner and a Hollywood gangster, Mickey Cohen, both were kind of rising through the ranks almost at the same time. Mickey Cohen was born in Brooklyn, New York. His family immigrated from Ukraine. His father died very early on.
I think Mickey was still a toddler at the time, so his mother moved the family all the way to the West Coast and ultimately settled in Boyle Heights, which was a Jewish enclave at the time in the early nineteen twenties. So Mickey Cohen grows up working in his mother's grocery store. His mother is making cash on the
side with an illegal still, so right there. Mickey is getting a taste of the criminal life very early on in his career and gets in some trouble, some skirmishes as a young boy, ultimately gets thrown into reform school and makes a decision that he's never going to break right. Instead, Mickey is going to try to build a career for himself in organized crime, which is what he does.
He's a pretty small guy and he's on probation from reform school you're right, and he has to meet with a counselor once a week, and the person that's assigned him is a person named Abe Roth, a boxing referee, tell us about this influence on his early life.
Sure, Abe recognized right away that although Mickey was small, he was vicious, intenacious, and incredibly tough. So Abe Roth tried to change Mickey's life if you will, get him into boxing. And Mickey was a flyweight at the time. And Mickey fought in cigarette smoked halls throughout Los Angeles
and did pretty well in the rink. And you know, the skills that he used sparring with sparring partners, he was able to utilize on the streets, taking over street corners because the street corners of Los Angeles and I think every major city at that time were very valuable
for newspaper hawkers. You know something we don't really understand today, but back in the day, there were you know, young kids on every street corner selling copies of the daily and evening news, and that's how they made their living. And Mickey certainly controlled great deal of property because he was so tough and was able to knock these kids off of their their stoop a little bit.
His reputation made it all the way to Al scarface Capone hearing about him. How does he make it to meeting as you write, his charismatic, murderous father figure al Capone.
Yeah, Mickey bounces around a little bit. He leaves Los Angeles, he wants to He's furthering his education, right then, So by doing that, he's learning from the best gangsters. And quite frankly, Los Angeles wasn't very organized in terms of organized crime when Mickey was a young youngster and a teenager.
So he went to Cleveland, you know, became a ruffian and a bank robber, then migrated over to New York City, was tutored and mentored by Onny Madden, for example, and then eventually, you know, gets to the big time, which is Chicago, which is controlled by Al Capone, and Mickey Cohen meets Al and really sees a father figure in Al that he never had himself, and really tries to mimic and copy Al's entire life, how he dresses, how
tough he is, how vicious he can be. And Mickey learned a lot from al Capone.
You're right that. At the same time, Judy Turner and Mildred moved from northern California because the doctor had told her that she had contracted desert rheumatism, and so they went to he recommended that they go to Los Angeles. Or They moved to Los Angeles in nineteen thirty six, and she had a friend there named Gladys Taylor the place to stay while she looked for a job, and soon Mildred found a job at a beauty Salon tell us about their life in Los Angeles, Judy and Mildred, Well.
I mean it's a kind of a fairy tale come true. Miller and Lana. They catch a ride to Los Angeles, and I write about how arduous that journey was. And they're really dumped out onto Hollywood Boulevard, and you know, Banna is a child or you know, a preteen and sees these big, big buildings, sees the Hollywood Land Sign and really becomes odd and infatuated with the you know, the city of make belief. And Mildred had a friend who was able to provide them a place to stay.
So Mildred goes to work and enrolls Judy at Hollywood High School with some of the biggest young stars of the day. And Judy never thought she would have a career in entertainment. She wanted to be a fashion designer. She loved clothes, and I think she bonded with her mother by pouring over these magazines that they couldn't afford,
looking at the latest styles of the day. And that was really how Lana felt like her life was going to go until she he just decided to take some change, go across the street from Hollywood High School and find herself on a stool that Cherries ice cream parlor.
Yes you say, October nineteen thirty six, she made a decision that would change your life forever. There was at this ice cream parlor a man named mister Wilkerson, and he was staring at her. What happens with the soda jerk and mister Wilkinson and Judy.
Well, Wilkerson was the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter and a real creepy guy. So the soda jerk sees Wilkinson staring at this, you know, fifteen year old girl, pretty much sexualizing her. Judy's a little afraid of the attention, but the soda jerk says, oh, it's okay. He's a big wig in this town, and Wilkerson identifies himself and
hands Judy his business card. Now it's an encounter that not only changes Lana's life forever, but changes the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of young girls who later read about Judy's discovery, Lana Turner's discovery and cobbled together what money they had got bus Fair got trained, Fair made it out to Los Angeles and sat on ice cream parlor stools, hoping to be discovered like Lana Turner was.
What does he say to her and what is her response for his initial interest in her?
Well, I think she you know, he obviously sees her as somebody who's a little older than her years and asks if she ever thought of acting before. She said no, And but she did promise that she would give his business card to her mother and their mother's friend roommate at the time, And I don't think Judy really thought much of it. She finished her Coca Cola and went
back to Hollywood High School. But later on in the day she handed the business card to the woman that was allowing them a place to stay, and the woman recognized the name right away and said, we've got to we're going to meet this guy because it could be your big break. You could be a Hollywood star, and that's what happens.
Yeah, tell us what she hears immediately though from this Henry Wilson a talent scout these he's a naive girl.
Again, you're talking about all these predators, Dan that were taking advantage of young women and men in Hollywood at the time, And I think this is something I want the readers to take a look at when they read the book. So I'm just going to summarize it this way for you. That Judy felt incredibly sexualized. And I think you know, when she was fifteen years old, before she even lost her virginity, she really lost her innocence to the Hollywood system.
Yeah, you talk about that. Initially she was asked that she had any acting experience whatsoever, and she had absolutely none, but that was not really the point. And her very first film work really capitalized on her physique and nothing else didn't.
Yeah, that's correct. I don't think they were you know, the movie producers could care less you know what her you know, acting chops were. This is the day of the studio player in Hollywood, so they could teach her how to act, but the physicality they couldn't teach. You know, she either had it or she didn't. And I would say, fortunately for Lana, or maybe unfortunately for Lana, she was she had matured, you know, much earlier than in her
fifteen years. So in her first film, the director, you know, puts her right in a tight fitting sweater and just has her walk by the camera and sexualizes her with a lens, and you know, she becomes the quote unquote sweater girl. That's how she is really discovered, and that's what she's called. After her first very small film role, she.
Meets the cream of the crop and Hollywood stars, and you say, at the time a much different attitude. This is fifty sixty years before the me Too movement even is born. But she ascends the the latter in Hollywood as a starlet very very quickly by virtue of meeting all of the Hollywood stars at that time.
Sure, and I think that when I was really startled by when I researched the book, it was the double standard that was going on in Hollywood at that time in the thirties and forties, and certainly it still exists
to a degree today. But Lana and her, you know, fellow young actors, you know, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, you know, they were all basically tortured by the movie studios, forced to work seventy hour work weeks, fed amphetamines to keep them working, put on diets of chicken broth and cigarettes
to keep them slim. So people were you know, they shake their head and wonder how Judy Garland really kind of fell off the rails in her nineteen forties while she was hooked on drugs by the studio producers when she was a preteen, you know, working on Wizard of Oz. So you know, there's blood on the hands of a lot of Hollywood executives that I certainly explore in the book. And then you've got you know, these actors at the time,
and we talk about the double standard. So one of many examples that I use in the book is a young Ronald Reagan. When I say young, he's twenty seven, twenty eight years old, and he is just blossoming as MGM's next big star, and in order to do that, he has to be seen every red carpet in Hollywood. So the studio fixes him up with fifteen year old Lana Turner, and nobody beats an eye at the age difference.
It was shocking to me that, you know, this adult who would later become President of the United States was seducing a child and nobody cared.
We didn't talk about that striking scene that relates to that where she tells this very first agent that she is only fifteen. He says, don't ever say that.
Don't ever say that again. Exactly. Age is not your friend in Hollywood. You're always lying about it. You're always telling people you're older than you are or younger than you are. And Lana learned that very early in her career.
Now, despite not having any acting experience, she rises and ascends in movie making in Hollywood and grabs some very prestigious and serious roles.
Yeah, you know, I mean she she had it. You know, the acting certainly would come, but I think that she just really jumped out of a screen. And I think, you know, young women wanted to be Lana Turner, and every young man wanted to, you know, ate or marry Lana Turner. So she was certainly building a career while the reigning Queen of MGM, Joan Crawford was looking over her shoulder, wondering when her you know, young upstart rival but try to take the throne.
You write about Lana and her active friends and Louis B. Mayer from MGM, and also the role of the newspapers themselves, the gossip columnists. Tell us a little bit about all of these acts do is together and what Louie B. Mayor would like to see and what the media is enjoying seeing from Lanta and their friends.
Yeah, well, you know, Louis B. Mayor was producing family friendly entertainment, especially you know, the Mickey Rooney film series Andy Hardy, which you know, Lana had several different roles over the course of that film. Theories about a young kid in a very small town in America just going through life and learning about love. But the reality of growing up hard and fast than Hollywood was much different.
All these young actors had a lot of money. They purchased cars, They were partying non stop at all the nightclubs because they had to have some type of outlet. They were working always seventy hours a week, so when they had a break in that work schedule, they tried to let loose and you know, and they were wild when they were young.
You write about this intersection between Hollywood glamour and gangsterism as well.
Yeah, well, I think that's something that you know, the ecosystem in Hollywood depended on the movie industry and it also depended on mobsters, and I think there was such a real unique cross section between, you know, the two so called industries that you don't really see in other major cities Chicago, New York. You know, the business people certainly didn't align themselves, at least publicly with organized crime. But in Hollywood, you know, the mobsters were as famous
as the movie stars. And I think that these gangsters, whether it be Mickey Cohen or his other mentor you know, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, you know, they ran the town. And they did so because they were opening up nightclubs and gambling dens, and the movie studio bosses were you know, hardcore gamblers that were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars at the betting tables, which meant that, you know, organized crime was taking its control over the movie industry.
Now, Bugsy is has aspirations in the movies as well, not only with this casino, but he has serious movie aspirations based on his looks. So tell us a little bit about Bugsy Siegel and those aspirations.
Sure, you know, Bugsy Siegel was sent west by the outfit to gain control over a very loosely connected organized crime landscape in Los Angeles, and Bugsy did that. He was brutal and took over all the wiring services, built up a nice, steady, major income for himself. But he was seduced by Hollywood glamour. He was an attractive guy, as you know. One of his best friends was the actor Frederick marsh and he saw that, you know, these actors were playing gangsters on the big screen, and Bugsy said,
I can do that as well. So Bugsy was trying to kind of move, you know, away from organized crime, legitimize himself and become a major player in Hollywood. He had dalliances with Lana and several other actresses. As I said, they all were interconnected. You know.
During that time, you introduced a central figure, this Jerry Geisler, attorney. He was known as a fixer to the stars. Tell us about this, how he intersects with all of these characters in Hollywood.
Giesler, Jerry Goesler, that's I pronounced it. Gesler was a lawyer who represented people like Bugsy Siegel and other mobsters, and also represented actress like Errol Flynn and Robert Mitcham who are getting constantly placed behind bars for cannabis use
for statutory rape. In regard to Errol Flynn. So imagine you know Johnny Cochrane neoj Simpson days, Jerry Giesler was the Johnny Cochrane of the forties and fifties, or I should say Johnny Cochran was the Jerry Geesler of the nineteen nineties.
Now tell us about Nicky Collen and and Bugsy and also this Greg Boutzer as well from MGM and Lana.
Sure, I mean I think that you know, they all converged together. Boutzer was a lawyer as well and one of Lana's closest confidants, and she didn't have many, so they were always kind of in and out of each other's lives. I would ask that your listeners go pick up the book and learn a little bit more about that.
Let's get to Lana's rise and some of the husbands that she encounters along the way in this rise.
Sure, well, you know, as Lana was getting more famous. Certainly she was somebody that was sought after by many of Hollywood's biggest names. You know, her first husband was Already Shaw, you know, band leader, a very famous band leader you know at the time, basically if you know the Ed Sharon if you will, of the nineteen thirties. The two of them met on the set of a movie. And you know, one of the things that I always struck me with Lana is yes, you know she was
married several times. But again the double standard. If Lana liked somebody man, she would have to marry that person as opposed to just you know, having her or having him in her life because of the societal more is at the time. So Lana was still young, nineteen years old when she marries Artie Shaw, and it's a whirlwind romance.
Lana really doesn't know what she's doing, didn't even tell her mother that this was happening, and then gets stuck in a very psychologically damaging relationship and physically damaging relationship with Ardishah.
Now you're right about Lana meeting Bugsy Siegel and her attraction to him, and why.
Well, as I've been saying, Dan, you know, she was always attracted to the dark side. You know, Bugsy Siegel reminded Lana of her father, you know, young, physically fit, handsome and a little dangerous. And I think that Lana was seduced by that. She did not have strong male presence in her life, and unfortunately that led her to make bad decisions.
Now with MGM. Louis B. Mayor is really trying to control Lana and the publicity that she has with her associations with these men, especially men like Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel and the association with the mob.
Yeah, I mean, you know, Lana had a morality morals
clause in a contract. And the example, you know, I think really strikes me most here is that going through all the FBI dossier's and files on Lana Turner, you know, I stumbled across the story event Lana had been dating an African American jazz player in New York City, and which was also you know, a big no no in the nineteen forties for sure, you know, dating somebody outside your race, so to speak, was certainly frowned upon, and Lana and her male friend were kicked out of most
tells in New York because they had requirements that you know, whites and blacks couldn't be seen together. And the FBI director Jay Garoover himself puts together a dossier on Lana and sends it right to the studio boss himself, and Lana almost lost her job because of who she was attracted to and who she wanted to be with. I think that's very sad.
You right about meeting Howard Hughes and dating him in the relationship that they form, even though they weren't much of a good fit together. And then you talk about Lana meeting Steve Crane. Tell us a little bit about this meeting and what it produces a little while later.
Sure, Steve Crane was young, handsome guy, and you know, told Lana that he was the heir of a large tobacco fortune from the Midwest and Indiana. And again Lana did not know otherwise there was no internet, you know, back in the nineteen forties. So Lana took Steve Crane at face value and married him, married him twice. Actually in anybody that wants to learn that story can read
the book. And Lana is you know, finally realizes that Steve Crane is a liar when they both go back to Crane's hometown in Indiana in a limousine that Lana's paying for, and you know, Lana realizes that Crane, you know, doesn't have two Nichols to rub together. His tobacco fortune was really just a pool haul, you know, po dunk Town in Indiana. And again it was another male in her life taking complete advantage of what she was willing to get.
You had about this dramatic scene in the book where the baby in nineteen forty three July almost dies. Cheryl almost dies, and there's a situation where Lana has to make a decision voiced by the doctors.
Well, you know, I'm gonna let your readers dive into that, but what I will say about that is that Lana and Steve Crane did have a daughter, Cheryl. It was a very difficult delivery for Lana. Cheryl almost and in fact, Cheryl was immediately taken to a children's hospital after Lana had delivered her, so Lana did not see her for several days after the delivery, but ultimately was able to bring her her daughter home, and it would be the only child that Lana Turner ever had.
You talk about this important movie The Postman Always Rings Twice, big box office movie for MGM and for Landa Turner as well, and just been edited or worked on for a few years, so it passed the Hollywood production code. Tell us a little bit about well, The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Well, it's the biggest role in Laana Turner's career opposite John Garfield. It's a gritty film noir based on a pulp fiction novel, and it was incredibly steamy. In fact, you know, Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lang, you know, remade that film in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, so for you know, the time in the nineteen forties when this came out, it was incredibly sensational, and you know, the way around the sensors at the time was always
to outfit Laana with angelic dresses and materials. She was always dressed in white, which was considered virginal by the sensors at the time, even though she was at shorts on and a very low cut gloves. The fact that you know, the costume designer addressed her in white was allowed the director to you know, get around some of the censorship issues at the time. This as an opportunity to stop for these messages.
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You talk and write about extensively about Bugsy Siegel taking over the Flamingo and the problems he has and eventually that he is wanted by the syndicate to be taken out and he is killed, and so you talk about that. Mickey Cohen, after this is suspected of having something to do with this. Tell us what happens in Mickey Cohen's life. You write about Elizabeth Short.
Yeah, Mickey Cohens certainly met a lot of people during his career. You know, he loved Bugsy Siegel, but I think the evidence points to Mickey probably having something to do with Bugsy's assassination. You know, Bugsy had overspent on the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas and the syndicate, you know, run by Charles Lucky Luciana and Meyer Lansky, both childhood friends of Buggsy Siegel. You know, there was a price
that had to be paid, and that was death. So Buggsy Seagull gets assassinated, you know, in his rented Beverly Hills home, you know, and it's one of the most sensational organized crime robouts in history, and that created a void in Hollywood in terms of who was going to take over the rackets in Los Angeles. And you know, the former flyweight boxer Mickey Cohen decided that it was going to be him, and he does so in a very bloody and violent way.
You know.
One of the things that struck Median was, you know, all of these very sensational gangland shootings and bombings. It's hard to believe it actually happened. You know, these are the things you only see in films, but it actually happened in the you know, nineteen forties, in early nineteen fifties in Hollywood, and you know Mickey was at the center of everything. Now you mentioned Elizabeth Short. Elizabeth is
a you know, a better known nickname. Unfortunately for her, she's now known as the Black Dolly murdered victim who was found basically he cut up in an LA park. And Mickey Cohen, you know, knew Elizabeth Short because as big as Hollywood looked on the outside, it's a pretty small town once you got there, and I think you you know, people were bumping into each other on both sides of the law quite a bit.
You're right about the merging bloody rivalry between Jack the Dragma and Mickey Cohen. And then where Mickey Cohen is hitting the Shoulberry's wounded, and you introduce Johnny Stoppanado.
That's right. You know, Mickey survives an assassination attempt from one of Jack Dragna's henchmen, and I write about that in the book because you know, right in the middle of the Sunset Strip is wild shooting happens. And Johnny Stompanado is a young combat veteran from the Midwest, from Illinois, and he's trying to get his leg up an organized
crime in La in Hollywood. He comes out to Los Angeles works as a bit of a hustler, almost like you know, Virgil Turner had done several years before Alana's father. So Johnny Stampanado is seducing people of both sexes, whether it's merv Griffin and Liberaci to entertainers who had to live closeted lives at the time, or some be actress that Johnny thought he could take advantage of. You know, that was his day job. His night job was to follow Mickey Cohen around and see if he could break
into Mickey Cohen's gang. And that's what Johnny Stampanado does. Nicky Cohen recognizes, you know, his craftiness right away, his toughness right away, and basically adopts Johnny Stampanado much like Buggsy Siegel had adopted Mickey, you know, years prior.
You write also about Lanta Turner's incredible wedding to Henry J. Topping, co owner of the Yankees, and her first night premiere and that was her first date.
Yeah, that was her first date. And again I think that you know, the readers of A Murder in Hollywood are going to stumble upon you know a lot of these figures. Topping was an heir of a tin fortune from you know, Connecticut in New York. Certainly you know he had millions of dollars at his disposal, and I think he once told Lana or somebody else that his grandfather had built the fortune and it was his job and his cousin's jobs to spend it. So this guy
was kind of a playboy. Lana was trying to break away from the Hollywood system and wanted to get out of her contract at MGM, but she also wanted security for her and her young daughter Cheryl, and Bob Topping, at least on the outside, could provide that. But once Lana married Topping, she realized that this was another man who was going to take advantage of her financially, sexually, and psychologically.
Tell us about just a little bit about her depression and the suicide attempt.
Well, you know again, I want the readers to read that because I think it's a turning point in Lana's life. She didn't feel like she could go on anymore, and unfortunately she made a bad decision, but her life was saved. A story was covered up in the press. Young daughter didn't even know about it. There's a film that Lana made during that time where she had to wear these you know, custom jewelry bracelets over her wrists to hide
the slits in her wrists. But her doctor basically shook her, shook her awake and said, you know, you're giving up, you know, an incredible life. You're going to stick it out for your daughter. And that's what Lana tried to do.
To talk about the next bow this Lex Barker and all of these men. They did hit her and beat her, abuse her. But now we get to these abusers going after Cheryl and Lex Barker.
Well, Lex Barker, for those who may remember him or not, he was basically Tarzan on the big screen after Johnny Weismuler, you know, made several films as Tarzan. He was young, fit, handsome, everything that Lana was certainly attracted to. They got married because they had to, you know, back at that time. Now we're talking about the you know, mid nineteen fifth, but Barker had a dark secret. Barker was a pedophile.
Barker targeted Cheryl, Lana's daughter, and over the course of several years, sexually assaulted her and Cheryl always kept it a secret because Cheryl Barker had basically convinced her that both were engaged in this illicit activity and that little Cheryl would be sent to juvenile hall if she ever told anybody.
Yeah, she doesn't wait for any explanation from him and kicks him out and then still meets a person named John Steele. Tell us about this meeting, Well.
John Steele is John Stoppanado. Now, again this goes back to lack of internet back in the nineteen fifties, and Alana did not know who John Steele was. Probably should have because Johnny Stoppanado's photograph was in all of the Hollywood rags at the time running around with Mickey Cohen. But John Steele just starts to pound her with messages
with flowers. It's really unusual. And you know what I found with this book of Murder in Hollywood was that, you know, this relationship in romance was anything but organic. You know, Mickey Cohen had survived several assassination attempts, he had survived prison for tax evasion. He gets back to Hollywood and wants to steer clear of the violence, but he still wants to make a buck By, you know,
exploiting people around him. So he uses Johnny Stompanado almost as a as bait for reverse honeytrap, meaning that stopping Outo because he's handsome and charismatic, would come on to women and men, put them in compromising positions that Mickey and his gang could film and then extort them and take them for all they were worth. And that's how the relationship with a lot of Turnery started.
You right about this plan because Colin knew that Atlanta was dropped by MGM and saw her as vulnerable.
Yes, she saw her as vulnerable. You know, Lonna was at a crossroads in her life. She was aging out of the big star roles because she was in her late thirties and she had passed the baton really to Marilyn Monroe and others. You know, Lana Turner was the Marilyn Monroe before Maryland. Marilyn basically copied her entire look
from her hero Lana Turner. But this is where I think Lana really doesn't get the credit she deserves because knowing that she's aging out, much like Joan Crawford aged out and was a which is allowed Lana Turner to ascend to the throne. Lana was doing the same thing. But Lana wanted to gain some power outside the studio system,
so she created her own production company. And in the nineteen fifties that just didn't happen, especially amongst female actors, and she was really looking to take control of her life.
What was Johnny Stoppanado trying to do originally with Mickey Cohen, but once he said he fell for her Orlando, what was he attempting to do in his life?
Yeah, Johnny stamp and I don't wanted power. He didn't want to just be used by Mickey Cohen, you know, to get some money from Lana Turner. He saw moves that Lana was making in Hollywood, and Johnny Stompanado kind of reminds me of that character Chili Palmer, who the gangster comes from New York and goes to la and becomes a movie producer. That was certainly what Johnny Stampanada wanted to do. He began acquiring film projects that he
was hoping to produce through Lana's company. But Lana was really getting tired of Johnny because Johnny was incredibly vicious physically beat her. You know, mercilessly, and she was looking for ways to break it off and certainly didn't want Johnny producing films under her production be inner because you know, the studios would look at him and say, Okay, that's Mickey Cohen's thug. This is just a front for the mob, and Lana Turner didn't want that to happen.
He was a controlling figure, but he also was interfering majorly in her work and saw that she was starring with a young Sean Connery. So there was some incredible scenes at the movie lot involving Stopponado and Sean Connery.
Yeah, I mean, you know, talk about life being stranger than fiction. Lonna Turner started and produced her first film, another time, in another place. She shot it on location in England, where the story takes place, and she cast a relative unknown Sean Connery as her young love interest. And this was an opportunity for Lanna to get away
from Hollywood, to get away from Johnny Stompanado. Johnny Stompanado, you know, somehow got a passport under an assumed name and made his way to England to you know, be controlling of Lana. And the first few days that Lana's reunited with Johnny. She's just trying to keep him happy while trying to keep her production on schedule and on budget.
But Johnny is a jealous, vicious guy, and Johnny sees these love scenes between Lana and Sean Connery and one point confronts the couple as they're walking off the set and Johnny Stompanado has got a gun. It's got a revolver and he whips it out and shoves it toward John Connery. Sean Connery doesn't blink. John Connery actually fists Johnny's arm and knocks him out cold. You know, it was a stunt that you would see in a James
Bond movie. Chan Connery really did it, and you know, beat Johnny Stompanado up and get him off the film set.
She is desperate to do something, so she she speaks with del Armstrong and he tells her that what she should do is have him deported. And so you you write about this extraordinary scene in this in this book about the phone call that she makes. Del Armstrong is there in Scotland yard. But then Johnny Stoppanado somehow, here's the conversation.
Yeah, he's on the other he's on the other line, and again, I guess you know, back in those days, you could easily listen into these conversations. And as del Armstrong was Anna Turna's best friend and associate producer on the film, was talking to Scotland Yard told him that Johnny Stampanado had illegally gotten himself into the country of a gun and that was enough for Scotland Yard to escort Johnny Stampanado to the airport and get him out
of the country. In Lana was able to finish the film and hope that Johnny was out of her life forever, but he was. Yeah.
See, she plans a trip to Mexico and because there's this no way he could find out, and then she has to make a stop along the way and tell us about Johnny stopping that.
Well, a very chilling moment, you know, in Lana's life, where she thinks she's getting away from her tormentor and he meets her in Copenhagen where she's getting a flight from Copenhagen to Mexico, and Johnny has also booked a flight on that same plane to Acapoco with Lana, and Alana realizes right there, she's never going to get rid of Johnny Stampanado. So the two wind up in Mexico, where all Alanna wants to do is relax from this
arduous film shoot. And there's Johnny Stompanado, who's threatening her, is very jealous of your combinations in Acapoco, gets himself a gun somewhere in town, you know, beats Lana, abuses her, and Lana decides at that point the only way to stem the abuse is to just give herself to Johnny Stampanado, which is what she does for the remainder of the trip. She tries to keep him happy, she tries to keep him,
you know, sexually satisfied and emotionally stimulated. And you know, while she's in Acapolco, she gets a call from del Armstrong telling her that she's been nominated for Best Actress for a film called Peyton Place, which is another major milestone in Lana's life because again, she had never been considered a very strong actress. People thought that her looks were the most important thing for her big screen image.
But she played a matronly character in this film, and she doesn't have a lot of screen time in it. But she was really emotionally connected to the character and was nominated for Best Actress. So Lana flies back to La Johnny's. On the flight, there's a very famous image of Johnny, Lana, and Cheryl on the tarmac at the airport in Los Angeles. And Johnny has been trying to
tell everybody that he's Lana's guy. He's been feeding gossip columnists all these ridiculous stories about how much they're you know, and love they are. And Lana, you know, immediately tells anybody with an earshot that she's not connected to Johnny Stampanado, that they're just friends. And then she you know, adds salt to the wound. She does not invite him to the oscars. Instead, she takes her mother, Mildred, and her daughter Cheryl, and Johnny is ready to explode.
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Well, we didn't mention that is just before this, or around this time, or previous to this, Johnny Stoppanado is making some very specific threats regarding Landa Turner's career.
Well as Johnny Stampanado is beating Lana Turner. You know she's used to the physical abuse. You know she can cover up the bruises with makeup work, so she thinks she can't. But Johnny Stompanado goes one step further, threatens to cut her face with a knife, which would ruin her career, and then threatens to not only kill La, but to kill our mother Mildred and her daughter Cheryl.
And I think that was the moment Lana's life where she knew that there was no way they couldntinue in this relationship, and the only way to break up this relationship was that if Johnny Stompanato was no longer.
There, you say no longer there, so does she speak with Cheryl, her daughter, about the situation that she finds herself in.
She does, she wants to break it off with Johnny, and I think that all culminates on Oscar Night, where
it's the greatest night of Lana's professional career. She doesn't win Best Actress, but she feels like she's owned the night, and she is spends the night dancing with her daughter, pop knobbing with Sean Connery and Cary Grant, And when she gets to her rented bungalow at the end of the evening, she puts Cheryl to bed and she gets into her bedroom and in the darkness there's Johnny Stoppanado sitting on a chair smoking a cigarette and he's enraged.
And over the course of the next hours, Lana's greatest night turns into her worst night, and she is beaten within an inch of her life. Cheryl can hear the abuse coming from the other room, doesn't know whether to call the police or not, so she doesn't. And I think at that moment, you know, Lana the next day realizes I'm going to kill Johnny Stampanao.
You talk about that. After this killing, she made four phone calls. Tell us about the four phone calls, and Jerry Giesler.
Yes, you know. Once Johnny Stampanado is found dead in the master bedroom suite of Lana's rented home at seven thirty North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, Lana doesn't call the police. She calls a doctor just to make sure that Johnny's dead. She calls her mother, she calls Stephen Crane,
Cheryl's father, and she calls a fixer, Gary Gesler. So, Jerry Giesler arrives at the crime scene in the rain and decides to orchestrate crime scene because you can imagine that Johnny Stampanado was stabbed in the app him in with an eight inch blade. That results in a very bloody crime scene. Now I've studied all the crime scene photos in the Lata Turner case. The crime scene is pristine.
You can't find blood anywhere. And I think that the precious time between Gieslow's arrival and when that police show up, the crime scene is scrubbed. Linen's are taking off the bed. Nobody could find the you know, the comforter or bed sheet that Johnny may have been lying on at the time, the bathroom is scrubbed, the walls look wet, and Johnny is lying on a white carpet, almost like he's been positioned there. And when police arrive, you know, Giesla is
going to make a decision. And I think he had already walked Lana and her young fourteen year old daughter through this. Now he looks at Johnny lying dead, and he sees premeditation because of the abusive relationship and the fact that Lana Turner had purchased a knife the day before the fatal stabbing. Now, if Lana is charged with this murder, should be charged with first degree homicide, which could result in life in prisonment, can also result in death.
The death penalty was quite real in nineteen fifty eight, and looking at primarily male jury, the likelihood is stop or Lana Turner rather would have been convicted. So what I think Geesler did, and I think the evidence backs it up, is that he took the knife of Lana's hands and placed the knife into the hands of fourteen year old Cheryl and told Cheryl, you're going to take
responsibility for this stabbing. You were breaking up a vicious rote with between your mother and Johnny, you didn't think it was going to go that far, and he walked into your knife. You didn't plunge it at him, He merely walked into it. So that was the story that Geesler embedded into the brains of Lana and Cheryl. That's the story they told police that night. It was a huge gamble because there was no guarantee that Cheryl would
not be charged with first degree office in it. And over the course of the next several days and weeks, the case suddenly goes into the court of law, where the story kind of awesomes from there.
What does Mickey Cohen when he hears news of the murder of his friend, his good friend, Johnny Stoppanado. What does Mickey Cohen think? And then what does Mickey Cohen say?
Mickey Cohen chriss bullshit. Doesn't believe for a minute young girl like Cheryl Crane could sneak up on veteran combat at like Johnny Stompanada, who fought against Japanese from World War Two and kill it. It makes sense to Mickey, and Mickey didn't believe it, and I don't think a lot of people in Hollywood believed it at the time, and Mickey, you know, spent the next several days and weeks trying to hunt down Lana Turner for revenge. It put his goons on Lana Turner's trail, and these goons
had weapons. These goons had bottles of acid or if they saw Lana Turner, they were going to splash acid in her face and ruin her career. Micky Cohen wanted revenging retribution against the woman he believed killed his friend in underling Johnny Stampanado.
What I wanted to say that was very very interesting at the time. I'm the way police handled and conducted themselves in investigations that Jerry Giesler was able to basically answered the questions that would have been put forth to Cheryl and Lanta when they were speaking to police. Initially.
Yeah, it was a different era where you know, the lawyers had much more control over the crime scenes than you know some of them do now. So the Beverly Hills Police Department and not talking the laped talking about Beverly Hills, and they weren't, you know, necessarily used to murder cases like this, So they listened to a very respectable lawyer like Jerry Geesler and he laid out the store. It was Cheryl, not Lana, and Cheryl was brought to
the precinct that night, but shocked Lona. She didn't think she would her daughter would be placed behind bars, but she was and then sent to juvenile hall while this
case kind of unraveled around her. And while Cheryl is at juvenile hall waiting to see what her future would bring, you know, Lana is ordered to testify at the official inquest into the murder or into the fatal stabbing in Los Angeles, and it became to me Lana's greatest performance because over a course of I think two hours, you know, Lana recounted everything that Jerry Geesler had told her and wanted her to send.
Tell us about the media account and coverage of this sensational inquest.
It was incredibly sensational, the biggest scandal to rock Hollywood in the first fifty years of the movie industry. So you can imagine reporters and camera people of television and print descended on Los Angeles from all over the world
to capture this real life drama and that's what they did. So, you know, going back and reading all the transcripts and seeing what was said in court, not only by Lana, but Mickey Cohen was also asked to testify and pleaded the fifth because he thought that people in law enforcement would pin the murder on him. So there's a you know, a circus element in the atmosphere around the court during Lana's testimony that I'd described in detail, and a murder in Hollywood.
You say that the jury deliberated for twenty three minutes after this inquest, after Lana had successfully testified on behalf of her daughter, tell us what the verdict was.
Well, verdict was that that was justifiable homicide, meaning the jurists believed what Lana had told them, because why wouldn't you. I mean, this is before people trusted police, people trusted lawyers. And Lana was left scott free, but her daughter was still in protective custody and eventually her daughter was released. But well, really, what strikes me now, Dan, is that Johnny's family doesn't believe the official version of the story either.
Carmine Stompanado believes that it was Lata who killed his brother, and so the family files a wrongful death suit against Laana, which would lead to a civil trial which could ultimately lead to criminal charges, and Lana does not want that to happen. And as they're going through depositions in the civil case, lawyers for the Stoppanado family very well you know, healed lawyers realize that the stories that Cheryl and Lana and even Steve Crane, Cheryl's father, they're not matching up.
They're not as tight as they were at the inquiry back in April nineteen fifty eight. So this opens up Lana to a great vulnerability because if they're able to pin this killing on Lana Turner in a civil trial, that could lead to reopening the case and putting Lana on trial for her life. So Lana settles the case and it goes away.
Originally that lawsuit was for a then it was reduced to be more successful, potentially for five hundred thousand. What was the final tally.
I think it was about twenty grand And I don't think it was the money that the Stampanado family cared about. It was somebody taking responsibility for the killing of their loved him. They loved Johnny Stampanado, even though Johnny Stampanado was ultimately evil and abusive and incredibly violent. They didn't see that side of Johnny, but a lot of certainly, as you do.
At the end of this book, you tell us a little bit about the fate of Lana in nineteen ninety five, tell us a little bit about just the rest of her life.
Well, I think you know she What I love about you know this story is she outlives all of our adversaries. Johnny's dead, you know, Mickey Cohen goes back to prison where he's beaten and you know, suffers from mental and physical injuries for the rest of his short life. Afterwards, Ana is able to resume her career, which to me was pretty amazing. So the book ends at a very triumphant moment in Lana's life with her daughter. And I'm just going to leave it there, Dan, because i want
the readers to read that. I don't want to give too much away. But I do feel like Lana rightfully is elevated in my book of Murder in Hollywood to a position as really a feminist icon, in a pioneer to the Me Too movement.
Yes, and you also talk about Cheryl and her fate, but we will leave that for the reader. But just to say that she was not negatively affected, and we could say I.
Think they had a complex relationship for the rest of Lana's life. I also think that Cheryl told the story exactly how Jery Giesler told it to her in in a long effort to protect her mother. Because there's no statute of limitation on murder dan, so at any time in the sixties or seventies or even eighties, Lana Turner could have been put on trial for Johnny Stoppanao's murder.
And I think Cheryl, who had suffered and you know, were covered and survived abuse, still loved her mother a great deal and did so to protect her.
You right, the Atlanta Turner was the stuff that dreams are made of, Hollywood dreams, and you say those dreams were shattered in the early spring of nineteen fifty eight in explosion of violence that screenwriters at the time would not even dare to imagine.
I think that sums up the story pretty succudly. Dad. You know, I've been an investigative journalist for thirty years, covered you know, many sensational cases, but you know, the story has kind of stayed with me a little bit, and I hope that readers or today's generation finds Lana Turner because she's all been forgotten by history, and this is reintroduced to her, not as a femme fatal, not
as a villain in Hollywood history. But as I said, somebody you know a herold if you will, I hope that today's generation goes back in five Turner through the pages of this book. Lana Turner had been all but forgotten by Hollywood, or at least remembered as a fem fatal or a villain in Hollywood history. But I don't
think she is at all. I think that a lot of people at det a gratitude to want to turn what she'd gone through and then what she had to do to save her family, save her career, and ultimately save her life.
Absolutely, I'm going to thank you very much, Casey Sherman for coming on and talking about your latest a murder in Hollywood, the untold story of Tinseltown's.
Most shocking crime.
For those people that might want to take a work that you rather work, can you tell us about social media and and or your website.
Sure, folks can find me on Instagram, which is Casey Sherman writes c A s E Y s H E R m A N or on x slash Twitter kcy Sherman one two three, and or just you know, go to your nearest bookstore find a Murdered Hollywood or any of my other books. Many of them have already been adapted into major motion pictures, and we're certainly hoping for the same thing with this project.
Thank you very much for this interview, and you have a great evening and good night, all right, thanks to