American Legends: The Life of Lana Turner

"My life has been a series of emergencies.” – Lana Turner

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

During the Golden Era of Hollywood, few actresses proved as versatile as Lana Turner, who got her start playing the wholesome innocent young beauty as a teenager before shifting to femme fatale roles and starring in horror classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Discovered as a result of her beauty, Louis B. Mayer immediately saw her as a potential replacement for Jean Harlow, and Turner’s earliest roles played off her sexiness, with an influence that reached all the way to Argentina, where Eva Peron sought to emulate her style. At the same time, however, Turner felt disrespected by the focus on her looks and desperately wanted to show she could be a critically acclaimed actress. That eventually occurred when she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in Peyton Place (1957), and Turner would go on to have an acting career that spanned nearly 55 years, with her final appearance coming only a few years before her death.

Throughout her life, Turner sought critical acclaim to prove that she was more than a pretty face, yet she is perhaps most famous now for living the kind of life that kept gossip rags and rumor mills in business. Turner lived fast and openly flaunted her sex life on the way to marrying 7 different men, but her most notorious relationship was with Johnny Stompanato, a shady figure with ties to the mob that ended up stabbed to death during an argument with Turner. Turner’s teenage daughter had stabbed Stompanato and claimed she feared for her mother’s life, and nobody was ever convicted, but the case generated all kinds of headlines, a fitting kind of exclamation point on the type of life Turner lived.

American Legends: The Life of Lana Turner examines the life and career of one of America’s most famous actresses. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Lana Turner like never before, in no time at all.