Lana Turner

LANA TURNER d1995. American actress discovered and signed to her first film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen. During the early 1940s she established herself as a leading actress in films such as Johnny Eager (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Somewhere Ill Find You (1942). She became known as one of the first Hollywood scream queens, thanks to her role in the 1941 horror film Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and her reputation secured as a glamorous femme fatale with her performance in The Postman Only Rings Twice (1946). Her popularity continued through the 1950s in films including ; The Bad and The Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957) for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1958, her daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed Turner's lover Johnny Stompanato to death. A coroner's inquest brought considerable media attention to Turner and it was concluded that Crane had acted in self defence. Her next film, Imitation Of Life (1959) proved to be one of the greatest successes of her career, but from the early 1960s her roles were fewer. She spent most of the 1970s and early 1980s in semi-retirement, working only occasionally. In 1982 she accepted a much publicized and lucrative recurring guest role in the television series Falcon Crest. She followed Falcon Crest with a two episode appearance on the series Love Boat. She made her next and final television appearance in 1991. She died of throat cancer aged 74 in 1995.