Lana Turner’s 7 Husbands: Abuse, Betrayal and a Shocking Murder
According to Turner, post-marriages she found God and became ‘very close’ to Him
Oscar-nominated actress Lana Turner—born Julia Jean Mildred on February 8, 1921, in Wallace, Idaho—truly had everything it took to become an unforgettable film star. From her looks, talent, and beautiful blonde hair it makes total sense why she went on to become so famous.
Though if you were to ask her about her stardom, Turner would say, “‘I am not just a manufactured something, a ‘star’ from Hollywood’s golden age. I am a real, live, breathing human being, with faults and good points like anybody else.”
And one of those faults was her run of marriages. Throughout her career, Turner was married eight times to seven different men, and most brought with them layers of abuse, assault and even murder. Keep scrolling to learn how those things came to be, and what Turner said about her seven husbands.
Lana Turner’s first husband: Artie Shaw
Born in 1910, Artie Shaw was a composer who married Turner in 1940. He was 11 years older than her and had already been married twice before.
The two met on the set of Turner’s film Dancing Co-Ed in 1939 and, according to the actress, Shaw “stirred me.”
“Artie would paint me a romantic dream with a white picket fence around it.”
Shaw and Turner eloped when the actress was just 19 years old. The marriage only lasted four months, though, with Turner claiming that Shaw “literally flew into rages.”
“He was a very intelligent man, but he didn’t treat women well.”
Following their divorce later that same year, Shaw remarried five more times to people like Ava Gardner and Doris Dowling before passing away in 2004 from natural causes. He was 94.
The scandal around Joseph Stephen Crane
Like several other celebrities, Turner once married the same man twice.
She and actor Joseph Stephen Crane married one another in July 1942, but after learning that he was still technically married to Carol Ann Kurtz, the two got an annulment less than a year later.
Flash forward to March 1943, when the two got married again and welcomed a daughter in July 1943.
Her daughter, Cheryl Crane, would eventually stir up a lot of trouble for the couple after she was charged with stabbing and killing Turner’s abusive boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, in 1958.
Cheryl was just 14 years old at the time, and her parents had already been divorced for 13 years.
“I picked the knife up off the floor. The door flew open. Mother stood there, her hand on the knob. He was coming at her from behind, his arm raised to strike,” Cheryl wrote in her memoir Detour: A Hollywood Story. “I took a step forward and lifted the weapon. He ran on the blade. It went in. In! For three ghastly heartbeats, our bodies fused. He looked straight at me, unblinking. ‘My God, Cheryl, what have you done?’”
Following a trial and brief jail stint, Cheryl was soon released after the court decided that her killing was a “justifiable homicide”
“It was a humiliating ordeal to explain on the witness stand what I barely understood myself, to confess before the cameras that strange helplessness that bound me to John for so long, “ Turner said. “More than once, I nearly broke down on the witness stand from the mixture of agony and shame, of grief and relief that I felt about John’s death. But all my emotions were secondary compared to Cheryl’s release—that was what mattered now.”
After the trial ended, Cheryl still caused a lot of trouble, first by frequently running away and, then, by trying to end her life a couple of times.
Seeing no other option, Crane and Turner checked Cheryl into a mental hospital and, after a short time, she began to improve emotionally.
Cheryl is now 81 years old and lives with Joyce LeRoy in Los Angeles, California. Crane on the other hand, sadly died in 1985 from anemia. He was 68 and had been married three other times.
Henry J. Topping Jr.: the socialite marriage
New York City socialite Henry J. Topping Jr. married Turner in April 1948 and remained with her until December 1952.
Many details about the couple’s relationship remain a secret, but while they were together, Turner and Topping did let people know that they got married at William R. Wilkerson’s home in Beverly Hills and honeymooned in England.
Following their split, Topping never married again and died at age 54 in 1968 from a heart attack.
Lex Barker and the darkest chapter in Turner’s life
Turner’s fourth husband was none other than actor Lex Barker—best known for his work as Tarzan in the late 1940s and early 50s.
He and Turner got married in 1953 and right away things went south, when Barker allegedly started abusing Turner’s daughter, Cheryl.
In her memoir, Cheryl claims that Barker sexually abused her, raping her when she was only 10 years old.
After the attack, Cheryl said she “pulled Raggedy Ann and a teddy bear from the toy trunk and propped them beside me at a table, then set out tiny teacups. For a long while, a late day, softened into twilight, we had a very nice tea party, chattering away all manner of tales…me and my friends.”
Encouraged by her friends, Cheryl then told her mother what was happening, and Turner immediately went over to Barker and held a gun against his head before kicking him out.
Barker and Turner officially divorced in 1957. Following that, the actor married twice more before he died of a heart attack in 1973. He was 54.
Frederick May and life after the trial
From 1960 to 1962, Turner was married to a man named Frederick May. Since their relationship was short, details about it remain private.
What we do know, however, is that May was the first person Turner married after Cheryl’s trial, although his thoughts on that whole ordeal remain unclear.
Just like the details of their relationship, information on May’s life post-divorce is a mystery.
Robert P. Eaton and the betrayal that ended it all
MGM producer Robert P. Eaton was 10 years younger than Turner when they got married in 1965.
Even so, she once claimed that Eaton was “charming, handsome, adored me, carried me around on a satin pillow, wooed me, really introduced me to beautiful physical love that I had never known before.”
During their marriage, Eaton also helped manage Turner’s company, Eltee Productions, and helped produce the film Madame X (1966), which was the actress’ last leading role.
“Lana was proud of the way I was accepted (by her movie star friends) because I was still a young guy,” Eaton once said.
Tragedy soon struck the lovebirds, though, when Eaton hired a man named Harold Robbins to help write the TV show he and Turner were producing. Just a few years before that, Robbins wrote the bestselling novel Where Love Has Gone, which was loosely based on Cheryl’s murder trial.
Furious, Turner quickly quit the TV show and divorced Eaton.
Following their split, Eaton’s personal life was kept out of the spotlight and it is unclear if he ever remarried or if he is alive.
Ronald Pellar: Turner’s final marriage
Turner’s eighth and final marriage was to hypnotist Ronald Pellar. They met in 1969 and were married three months later
“He called himself a doctor, although of what I’m not exactly sure,” Turner said in 1984.
Similar to a lot of her relationships, details about Turner and Pellar’s tryst are relatively unknown.
Following their split, however, Peller never remarried and died in 2013 at age 83. His cause of death remains unknown.
How Lana Turner found peace after love
For the next 22 years, Turner decided to remain single. She released a memoir entitled Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth in 1983 and even claimed to have found God.
“’I’m very close to God. I read the Daily Word and I have learned to meditate,” the actress said in 1984.
She also claimed that, following her splits, she learned to laugh.
“’If I don’t laugh at least three times during the day, I’ve had a bad day. I’ve got to have a minimum of at least three good laughs,” Turner said in that same 1984 interview. “I wouldn’t have survived without my sense of humor and thank God I have always been able to laugh at myself.”
Turner tragically died in 1995 from oral cancer. She was 74.
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