Hollywood Royalty

Lana Turner

Lana Turner was no stranger to outstanding hardship. She was born Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner on February 8, 1921 to John and Mildred Turner in Wallace, Idaho. Lana's uneventful birth in itself was a relief- her grandmother had died in childbirth due to Rh factor complications and there was a possibility the condition had been passed to Mildred. Though her mother was spared, Lana would later discover she had inherited the disorder. Science afforded her a daughter, Cheryl, whom doctors saved with a total blood transfusion shortly after birth, but Lana's dreams for a large family were dashed.

Lana fondly recalled nights, after dinner, spent dancing and listening to records with her parents. In later years, she attributed her love for music and dance to those evenings. Her father, who spent his days working in the mines, was also an excellent card player. His skills helped to support the family through rough times. However, after a big win at a card game one night, he was robbed and murdered. Lana was heartbroken, and later learned he'd bragged about using the money to buy his daughter a tricycle- a gift she'd been begging him for.

Lana loved going to the movies. Every weekday she would save a nickel of her lunch money to put toward the twenty-five cent Saturday matinee. Her appreciation for the elaborate costumes of actresses Kay Frances and Norma Shearer carried over into her own career, and earned her a reputation for wearing some of the most beautiful costumes in film history. In fact, if she hadn't gone into movies, Lana always said she would have become a fashion designer.

In search of greater job opportunities, Lana and her mother moved out to California. One school day, shortly after their arrival, fifteen-year-old Lana went for a Coke. Despite the legend, she wasn't at Schwab's Drugstore, but The Top Hat Café, a shop across the street from Hollywood High. When W.R. Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, happened to be quenching his thirst at the same time, he caught sight of Lana. He introduced himself, gave her his card and asked her to call newly operating talent agent Zeppo Marx. This, in addition to a letter Wilkerson personally wrote, helped team her with director Mervyn LeRoy.

Leroy felt her nickname, Judy, was too plain. Julia Jean was also vetoed, so the two had a brainstorming session. LeRoy suggested Leonore, but it didn't seem to fit. "What about Lana?" she suggested. She spelled it for LeRoy and waited while he said it several times and then finally nodded. "That's it," Leroy told her. "You're Lana Turner."

Lana could relate to the role of schoolgirl Mary Clay in They Won't Forget, and found it easy to play. Though the part was relatively small, when the film was released she was immediately noticed. The Hollywood Reporter noted, "Short on playing time is the role of the murdered school girl. But as played by Lana Turner it is worthy of more than passing note. This young lady has vivid beauty, personality and charm." After the film, Lana found herself tagged as "The Sweater Girl" thanks to a tight blue wool sweater she wore in the film.

Despite the praise, Lana still didn't think she would become an actress. "I made my first movie without ever considering that my walk-on would be anything more than a one-time job," she said. "If I could have foreseen everything that was going to happen to me, all the headlines my life would make, all the people who would pass through my days, I wouldn't have believed a syllable of it!" But LeRoy cast her in his next film, The Great Garrick, and when it was finished he loaned her to Samuel Goldwyn for The Adventures of Marco Polo. During the filming of Marco Polo, Goldwyn insisted that Lana's eyebrows be shaved off and replaced with straight, fake black ones. They never grew back, and from then on she had to either paste or draw her eyebrows.

When LeRoy left Warner Bros for MGM, he took Lana with him. Her salary doubled from $50 to $100 a week. Lana was ecstatic. The first thing she did was buy a house for her and her mother to live in. From that point on, Lana's fame and salary continued to increase. After a year with MGM, it rose to $250, and, by the time she was twenty, Lana was earning $1,500 a week. She enjoyed the fresh atmosphere at MGM, and would often spend time with other young Hollywood newcomers. "We had youth, we had beauty, we had money, we had doors open to us," she recalled. If someone recognized her while she was out, she would laugh and say, "Oh, no, no. I've been told I look like her."

When the United States entered WWII, Lana spent time traveling with railroad tours that sold war bonds. She wrote her own speeches and promised "a sweet kiss" to any man who purchased a bond worth $50,000 or more. "And I kept that promise- hundreds of times," she said. "I'm told I increased the defense budget by several million dollars."

New contract negotiations with MGM in 1945 netted Lana $4,000 a week. In addition, the studio finally obtained a censor-approved script for The Postman Always Rings Twice. She was ecstatic. "Finally the part I had been hoping for did come my way." Lana obtained the part, and Postman's author, James M. Cain, was delighted that she would be playing Cora. It was a perfect fit. Even today, some of her scenes as the adulterous femme fatale are considered among the most seductive and sensuous ever made.

In 1948 Lana filmed The Three Musketeers, her first Technicolor picture. Cast as Lady de Winter, she especially enjoyed the test of playing opposite Vincent Price's Cardinal Richelieu. "I studied him, and it challenged me, and I began to try things I never knew I could do," she said. "I found my own little touches-a certain sly look, the flap of a glove, a tilt of the head." She was allowed to improvise and create moments that weren't originally in the script. The artistic freedom and exquisite costumes made it one of her favorite performances. "Turner was covered with jewels and costumed exquisitely," recalled on review. "The drama of her first appearance on screen is heightened by the effect of having her sit in a darkened carriage... When Turner finally does lean slowly forward into the light-and the Technicolor-audiences are not jerked out of their mood and back to earth. She is unreal. A proper goddess."

Lana's already celebrated career was furthered when she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in The Bad and The Beautiful. The film went on to win five Academy Awards, including best screenplay and best costumes. "It is superb theater, one of the greatest moments of despair shown in cinematic terms, and a prime example of the coordination of actress, director and cameraman which can create a perfect visual moment of dramatic poetry on the screen." Unfortunately, it was also during this time that she began receiving telephone calls and flowers from a man named John Steele.

Steele's romantic gifts and surprises eventually swept Lana off her feet. When she found out he was actually dangerous mob associate Johnny Stompanato, the two had dated for several months. Lana fought to end the relationship and regain a normal life, but Stompanato became abusive, vowing she would never leave him and live. During one such violent argument, daughter Cheryl walked in and feared Stompanato would kill her mother. In an effort to protect Lana, she attacked and fatally stabbed him with a kitchen knife. The death was ruled a justifiable homicide, and Cheryl was not incarcerated.

Despite her Oscar nomination for Best Actress in Peyton Place, Lana was aware that "the happening," as she would later refer to it, could very well cripple her career. She fought back, dealt with reporters head on and accepted the lead role of Lora Meredith in Imitation of Life. Lana gambled both her career and finances the film. She accepted a meager salary and instead agreed to work for half the profits. Lana's innate and learned acting ability, combined with pent up emotions from the tumultuous year, resulted in one of the finest performances of her career. Movie theaters reported that, during the closing scene, "even strong men are crying."

When Lana turned fifty she tackled yet another challenge- the theater. Though apprehensive, Lana couldn't pass up the role of Ann Stanley, a glamorous forty-year-old divorcee, in Forty Carats. As usual, the show and Lana were a hit. Forty Carats played in numerous cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago and Baltimore. "Ironically," she said, "live theater, the medium I had so dreaded, became the new backbone of my working life."

On October 25, 1981 the National Film Society presented Lana with an Artistry in Cinema award. Also busy with a reoccurring role as Jacqueline Perrault on TV's Falcon's Crest, she found herself immersed in almost all entertainment facets.

Lana's active lifestyle continued until 1995. On June 29th, with Cheryl by her side, Lana Turner yielded to throat cancer. Her remains were cremated and given to her daughter.
 

Josephine Baker

Humble beginnings…

She was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 3, 1906 to washerwoman Carrie McDonald and vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson. Eddie abandoned them shortly afterward and Carrie married a kind but perpetually unemployed man named Arthur Martin. Their family eventually grew to include a son and two more daughters.

Josephine grew up cleaning houses and babysitting for wealthy white families who reminded her, "be sure not to kiss the baby." She got a job waitressing at The Old Chauffeur's Club when she was 13 years old. While waiting tables, she met and had a brief marriage to Willie Wells. While it was unusual for a woman during her era, Josephine never depended on a man for financial support. Therefore, she never hesitated to leave when a relationship soured. She was married and divorced three more times, to American Willie Baker in 1921 (whose last name she chose to keep), Frenchman Jean Lion in 1937 (who made her eligible for French citizenship) and French orchestra leader Jo Bouillon in 1947 (who helped to raise her twelve adopted children).

Josephine toured the United States with The Jones Family Band and The Dixie Steppers in 1919, performing various comical skits. When the troupes split, she tried to advance as a chorus girl for The Dixie Steppers in Sissle and Blake's production Shuffle Along. She was rejected because she was "too skinny and too dark." Undeterred, she learned the chorus line's routines while working as a dresser. Thus, Josephine was the obvious replacement when a dancer left. Onstage she rolled her eyes and purposely acted clumsy. The audience loved her comedic touch and Josephine was a box office draw for the rest of the show's run.

Parisian sensation…

She enjoyed moderate success at The Plantation Club in New York after Shuffle Along. However, when Josephine traveled to Paris for a new venture, La Revue Nègre, it proved to be a turning point in her career. Amongst a compilation of acts, Josephine and dance partner Joe Alex captivated the audience with the Danse Sauvage. Everything about the routine was new and exotic, and Josephine, boldly dressed in nothing but a feather skirt, worked the audience into frenzy with her uninhibited movements. She was an overnight sensation.

Josephine's immense popularity afforded her a comfortable salary, which she spent mostly on clothes, jewelry and pets. She loved animals and at one time, she owned a leopard (Chiquita), a chimpanzee (Ethel), a pig (Albert), a snake (Kiki), a goat, a parrot, parakeets, fish, three cats and seven dogs.

Her career thrived in the integrated Paris society; when La Revue Nègre closed, Josephine starred in La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Her jaw-dropping performance, including a costume of 16 bananas strung into a skirt, cemented her celebrity status. Josephine rivaled Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford as the most photographed woman in the world and by 1927, she earned more than any entertainer in Europe. She starred in two movies in the early 1930s, Zou-Zou and Princess Tam-Tam, and moved her family from St. Louis to Les Milandes, her estate in Castelnaud-Fayrac, France.

A 1936 return to the United States to star in the Ziegfield Follies proved disastrous, despite the fact that she was a major celebrity in Europe. American audiences rejected the idea of a black woman with so much sophistication and power. Newspaper reviews were equally cruel (The New York Times called her a "Negro wench"), and Josephine returned to Europe heartbroken.

Righting wrongs…

Josephine served France during World War II in several ways. She performed for the troops and was an honorable correspondent for the French Resistance (undercover work included smuggling secret messages written on her music sheets) and a sub-lieutenant in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She was later awarded the Medal of the Resistance with Rosette and named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government for hard work and dedication.

Josephine visited the United States during the 50s and 60s with renewed vigor to fight racism. When New York's popular Stork Club refused her service, she engaged a head-on media battle with pro-segregation columnist Walter Winchell. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) named May 20 “Josephine Baker Day” in honor of her efforts.

It was also during this time that she began adopting children, forming a family she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe". Josephine wanted to prove that, "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers". She often took the children with her cross-country and when they were at Les Milandes, tours were arranged so visitors could walk the grounds and see how natural and happy the children in "The Rainbow Tribe" were.

Josephine continued to travel to the United States and during her visits, she developed a close friendship with American artist Robert Brady. Now divorced from her fourth husband Jo Bouillon, she was looking for companionship on a more platonic level. Brady felt the same and on a trip to Acapulco, Mexico in September 1973, they went to an empty church and exchanged marriage vows. Though no clergy was present and they were never legally joined, it was an important personal bond that she and Brady maintained the rest of her life. Josephine told very few people about the pseudo marriage, fearing the press would ridicule it.

Sad farewells…

Josephine agreed to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall that same year. Due to previous experience, she was nervous about how the audience and critics would receive her. This time, however, cultural and racial growth was evident. Josephine received a standing ovation before the concert even began. The enthusiastic welcome was so touching that she wept onstage.

On April 8, 1975 Josephine premiered at the Bobino Theater in Paris. Celebrities such as Princess Grace of Monaco and Sophia Loren were in attendance to see 68-year-old Josephine perform a medley of routines from her 50-year career. The reviews were among her best ever. Days later, however, Josephine slipped into a coma. She died from a cerebral hemorrhage at 5 a.m. on April 12.

More than 20,000 people crowded the streets of Paris to watch the funeral procession on its way to the Church of the Madeleine. The French government honored her with a 21-gun salute, making Josephine Baker the first American woman buried in France with military honors. Her gravesite is in the Cimetière de Monaco, Monaco.

Josephine Baker has continued to intrigue and inspire people throughout the world. In 1991, HBO released The Josephine Baker Story. The movie won two Emmys, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries (Lynn Whitfield) and Outstanding Art Direction. The movie also picked up one of three Golden Globe nominations.

Mini-Gene Marshall

Since her storybook discovery as an usherette at a movie premier in New York City, Gene Marshall's career has been the stuff of legends. With an unlikely journey rivaling those of Dorothy Gale and Alice in Wonderland, Gene traveled by rocket into the Hollywood firmament with a series of indelible movie performances unsurpassed in her generation. From featured player to star of her first film Blond Lace, Miss Marshall's beauty and genius were captured on films as diverse as The King's Daughter, Love After Hours and Midnight Gamble. Perhaps most remarkable was the levelheaded grace with which Miss Marshall accepted a lifetime of awards and accolades spent before the camera.