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Hollywood Studios Used to Own Their Actors and Actresses

Khalid Elhassan January 3, 2022 37 min

Clark Gable in 'Gone With the Wind'. Cultura Estadao

5. A Major Star’s Unhealthy Relationship

Year after year, Hollywood studios tried to get Lana Turner to maintain a wholesome image in order to protect their investment in her. Year after year, she resisted. By the late 1950s, with her best acting years behind her, Turner no longer cared about whom she associated with or was seen next to. In 1958, she hooked up with a new boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, a mobster with close ties to LA’s foremost organized crime figure, Mickey Cohen. On the one hand, Stompanato, a WWII Marine veteran, was a handsome hunk. On the other hand, he was a violent psychopath who often beat the daylights out of Turner, starting with the first time she tried to break up with him.

It was an unhealthy and scandalous relationship. It finally ended with a major scandal that shocked even a jaded Hollywood that was seemingly impervious to scandals. Within the span of a single year, Turner and Stompanato carried on a stormy affair filled with violent arguments, physical abuse, frequent breakups, and just-as-frequent reconciliations. On at least one occasion, Turner claimed that her mobster boyfriend drugged and photographed her in the nude when she was passed out, in order to blackmail her if he ever wanted to. The affair came to an abrupt end when Stompanato was stabbed to death in Turner’s home – not by her, but by her fourteen-year-old daughter.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.