Lana Turner's torrid romance with mobster ended when teen daughter stabbed him
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Lana Turner’s explosive romance with mobster Johnny Stompanato came to a bloody end.
It was the night of Good Friday, April 4, 1958, when the Hollywood star’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, overheard her mother attempting to end the relationship once and for all from her bedroom. Stompanato became enraged and threatened to destroy Turner’s face, as well as harm her mother and child. The fight escalated, and a frantic Crane ran downstairs, grabbing an eight-inch carving knife.
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Johnny Stompanato was found stabbed to death at Lana Turner's palatial Beverly Hills home. (Getty Images)
The rest was a blur, according to Crane. At first, Crane thought she punched Stompanato in the stomach, hoping to stop him from striking her mother. But as he gurgled and choked, she realized he ran into her knife.
"My God, Cheryl, what have you done?" he gasped. Moments later, he was sprawled on the floor of her mother’s all-pink bedroom. The 32-year-old bodyguard to mob boss Mickey Cohen was dead. The knife had penetrated his abdomen, "slicing into one of his kidneys, striking a vertebra, and puncturing his aorta."
Johnny Stompanato's body being removed from Lana Turner's home. (USC Libraries/Corbis)
The true-crime case is being revisited nearly 66 years later in a new book by Casey Sherman, "A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown’s Most Shocking Crime." The book has already been picked up to be adapted for a TV series.
Casey Sherman's new book, "A Murder in Hollywood," has already been picked up for TV. (Sourcebooks)
Sherman’s previous books, "The Finest Hours" and "Boston Strong," were adapted into films starring Chris Pine and Mark Wahlberg.
"Like most people, I thought Lana Turner had fallen in love with a bad guy, and that bad guy ended up dead on the carpet floor of her Beverly Hills bedroom floor," Sherman told Fox News Digital. "But as I started to dig deeper, I realized there was a much bigger story to tell."
Police Sgt. Russel R. Peterson examines the eight-inch carving knife that was reportedly used in the fatal stabbing of Johnny Stompanato. (Getty Images)
Turner, a glamorous star of the ‘40s and ‘50s who was also a beloved pinup among GIs during World War II, died in 1995 at age 74. Crane, 80, is a retired real estate broker presumably still residing in Palm Springs, California. In 1988, she wrote a memoir, "Detour: A Hollywood Story," about her upbringing and the slaying.
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Cheryl Crane, daughter of actress Lana Turner and second husband, Stephen Crane, is photographed on Jan. 12, 1988, in New York City promoting her autobiography "Detour: a Hollywood Tragedy – My Life With Lana Turner, My Mother." (Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images)
Sherman said he tracked down the last living sources still residing in Los Angeles who were alive at the time of the killing. He also got access to the original Beverly Hills police case file.
"When people see this case for the first time, they just see Lana Turner falling in love with Johnny Stompanato, but the relationship grew violent and toxic over time, and it ended up with Johnny Stomapanato dead," Sherman explained. "But I was able to uncover new information that suggests and proves this was an extortion plot from day one."
"Mickey Cohen and Johnny Stompanato targeted Lana Turner as they had targeted a lot of different Hollywood types at the time," he alleged. "They wanted to put her in a compromising situation that they could use to gain money from her estate."
This photo of Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato was taken just days before he was stabbed to death. (Getty Images)
According to reports, Turner began receiving phone calls and flowers from Stompanato while on the set of her film, "The Lady Takes a Flyer," in 1957. The actress, who often found herself unlucky in love, embarked on a passionate affair.
"Lana’s kryptonite, if you will, were bad men," said Sherman. "I think that goes back to the unsolved murder of her father when she was a child. And because she never had a strong male figure in her life, she seemed to always gravitate toward danger. She made wrong decisions based on that vulnerability that she always had."
In her lifetime, Turner carried out a string of high-profile romances with stars like Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Artie Shaw, Howard Hughes and allegedly with a married Clark Gable, among others. She earned the nickname "The Nightclub Queen" by the press for her love of partying. Her marriage to actor and restaurateur Stephen Crane, whom she shared her only child with, ended in divorce.
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Cheryl Crane with her mother Lana Turner, circa 1952. Crane is Turner's only child. (Bob Beerman/Hulton Archive)
Stompanato, a former Marine with a megawatt smile, charmed the actress. But Turner maintained that, to her horror, he became increasingly possessive and violent.
"Her friends warned her," Sherman explained. "Mickey Rooney immediately identified Johnny Stompanato as a mobster who had been using the alias Johnny Steele. But he was already a well-known, notorious mobster who had worked for years for Mickey Cohen, the most violent and despicable mob boss in Los Angeles history. And Lana could have very easily become one of Mickey Cohen’s victims."
"I recount in the book that Lana’s lawyer, after Johnny Stompanato’s death, had uncovered films of Lana in compromised situations," he alleged. "Lana believed Johnny Stompanato had drugged her and put her in bed with other females and would’ve used that as extortion to get her to pay Mickey Cohen large sums of money to keep him quiet. But I don’t think Johnny ever realized that Lana would have done anything to protect her family."
According to author Casey Sherman, Cheryl Crane, right, witnessed Johnny Stompanato's violent behavior toward her mother Lana Turner. (ullstein bild/ullstein bild)
While Crane was often a witness to Stompanato’s alleged abuse, Sherman "strongly believes" it was Turner who killed her temperamental beau after he threatened to harm her daughter and mother. It’s a theory that has floated around Hollywood but has never been proven.
In his book, Sherman detailed how Stompanato and Cohen came up with "a honey trap scheme," using Stompanato as bait to lure Turner into bed. The goal, he alleged, was to stage a threesome with Cohen’s henchmen filming the deed, and then hanging the footage over Turner’s head to get loads of cash from her bank account.
On the big screen, blonde bombshell Lana Turner was depicted as a femme fatale. (Eric Carpenter/John Kobal Foundation)
According to reports, Turner didn’t go to the police about the alleged abuse out of fear it would leak to the press. Meanwhile, Stompanato allegedly physically and psychologically abused her. He taunted her with his gun, warning her he could end her career and life with a single shot.
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Lana Turner's co-star Sean Connery confronted an angry Johnny Stompanato on set. (ullstein bild/ullstein bild)
In 1957, Stompanato was so convinced that Turner was having an affair with her co-star Sean Connery that he flew across the pond as the pair filmed "Another Time, Another Place." According to reports, Stompanato showed up with a gun, threatening to kill Connery, but the future 007 icon knocked him out with a single punch. Stompanato was banned from the set.
It wouldn’t take long for Turner to have enough, Sherman insisted.
"My sources felt the real story was an open secret in Hollywood," said Sherman. "Most people did believe that Lana killed Johnny Stompanato and her attorney, Jerry Giesler, worked to cover up the crime… But that’s my theory. And I believe Lana Turner was justified in what she did."
Lana Turner appears on the verge of collapse as she testifies at the inquest into the death of Johnny Stompanato. Deliberating less than half an hour, the coroner's jury ruled that Stompanato's death, at the hands of 14-year-old Cheryl Crane, was "justifiable homicide." (Getty Images)
"When it comes to getting out of domestic violence, you have resources today," he shared. "You didn’t have that in 1957-58, which is why Lana had to rely on her instincts… I think Lana knew her days were numbered. And it was one thing to beat up and threaten Lana. But it was another to threaten to beat up Lana’s mother and child, as Johnny Stompanato allegedly did. That was retold in Lana’s autobiography… and Mickey Cohen’s autobiography. So this isn’t me theorizing decades later what they both said at the time. This is exactly what came out of their mouths."
Mob boss Mickey Cohen, center, is seen here with Carmine Stompanato, left, brother of Johnny Stompanato, circa 1958. (Los Angeles Examiner/USC Libraries/Corbis)
The case went to trial, and the press depicted Turner as giving the performance of her life. Crane was acquitted of murder with the jury ruling it was "justifiable homicide." However, Crane spent time in and out of psychiatric institutions and attempted suicide. In her memoir, Crane described how her relationship with Turner became complicated in her later years.
Still, "there was certainly love there," said Sherman.
Cheryl Crane, left, daughter of Steve Crane and actress Lana Turner, is escorted to juvenile hall in Los Angeles by policewoman Margaret Weissberg. Crane says she knifed Johnny Stompanato to death when he threatened to disfigure her mother. (Getty Images)
As for Turner, the Oscar-nominated star who once made her mark as a femme fatale, bounced back in Hollywood.
"This was a victory for Lana because she outlasted her enemies," said Sherman. "Lana continued to have trouble in her personal life. She married a couple of more times, but she was able to sustain her career well into her late 60s and early 70s… She was a survivor. And that legacy has been overshadowed over the years. On the big screen, she was seen as a femme fatale. The sweater girl. The blonde bombshell. But she was so much more than that."
American actress Lana Turner (1921–1995) in Los Angeles, Oct. 25, 1982. (Ben Martin/Getty Images)
Sherman said he attempted to contact Crane but was unsuccessful. She also didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about Sherman's book.
Cheryl Crane, left, and Lana Turner with attorney Jerry Giesler, circa 1958. (ullstein bild/ullstein bild)
"I think I know what really happened," said Sherman. "But if I could, I would sit down with [Crane] and tell her it’s OK to let it go. You don’t have to protect your mother any longer… I do believe Cheryl probably feels that Lana’s been victimized by the press and historians. I’m sure she knows my book exists… But I do believe my book will elevate her mother to a feminist icon. I hope she would be happy with that."
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