MissGoddess

Regarded by some as one of the best films noir, and by many to be Lana's best performance, as the classic femme fatale, "Cora", in *The Postman Always Rings Twice* .

With Spencer Tracy in *Cass Timberlaine*

For MGM's prestigious remake of *Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde* , Lana was originally cast in the part of "Ivy" but sensing herself still unequal to such a role, she reportedly asked that she switch with Ingrid Bergman. The chemistry between Lana and Tracy was exciting enough to warrent a more defined reteaming in the Sinclair Lewis melodrama, *Cass Timberlaine* (one of my favorite movies).

Now add a dash of sophistication to poise.

A little more poise creeps in and the hair lightens to her trademark blonde.

Lana in her fatefully titled first movie, *They Won't Forget*

Lana learned her craft first in supporting roles, MGM carefully graduating her to more important parts until she could carry a picture on her own. Here she is with Lew Ayres in one of the very successful Doctor Kildaire series.

Publicity photo for Ziegfeld Girl, a movie that helped put Lana on top of .the "heap".

Lana's humble beginnings were a part of publicity the MGM machine generated to kick her career into high gear, hence pictures like this one.

Lana throws a party at the cafe where she was "discovered".

Lana is poured a soda by Manuel Hernandez at the very counter where it all began.

One of Hollywoods brightest stars of the Golden Age and a true glamour queen, Lana Turner's name is virtually synonymous with the kind of glittering star power only a studio like MGM could manufacture out of a soda-sipping teenager. Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner was born in Wallace, Idaho on February 8, 1921, to Virgil and Mildred Turner. Her beginnings were the stuff that star myth making is made of, being humble and marked by a tragedy that would haunt and eventually repeat itself in her lifetime. Julia's father was a charming but apparently feckless man who seldom held down a stable job, and loved to gamble. One night he won a packet in a poker game that took place in the San Francisco Chronicle building, and was found murdered in its back alley the next morning, the winnings he'd stashed in his left sock stolen. The only real suspects were the other players in the poker game but they all kept silent and the murder was never solved. Turner claimed to have had visions of her father the night before he died and the next morning, before her Mother could break the news she blurted out that her father was dead. Lana married seven times looking for a replacement for Virgil, culminating in the most tragic of her unions with Johnny Stompanato, who was fatally stabbed in an altercation with Lana and her daughter. By the time Lana had enrolled in Hollywood High she had developed an eye catching figure so that the Hollywood Reporter's Billy Wilkerson knew he'd found a good bet for stardom that day she skipped class for a Coke at the Top Hat Cafe across from the campus. Her first name was changed to Lana and Mervyn LeRoy cast her as the innocent rape and murder victim in *They Won't Forget* and "The Sweater Girl" was born (get this: in Spanish, Lana means "wool"). Her tenure at MGM during it's most profitable years would take her to the very top of motion picture stardom and she would be paired memorably with it's biggest leading men, including Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Robert Taylor. While Lana's sometimes scandalous private life, which included a failed suicide attempt in 1951, tended to overshadow her career, she always maintained her poise and possessed a resiliency and a sense of humor that was rarely on public display but can be gleaned from various quotes: * I find men terribly exciting, and any girl who says she doesn't is an anemic old maid, a streetwalker, or a saint. * I planned on having one husband and seven children, but it turned out the other way around. * The thing about happiness is that it doesn't help you to grow; only unhappiness does that. So I'm grateful that my bed of roses was made up equally of blossoms and thorns. I've had a privileged, creative, exciting life, and I think that the parts that were less joyous were preparing me, testing me, strengthening me. * The truth is, sex doesn't mean that much to me now. It never did, really. It was romance I wanted, kisses and candlelight, that sort of thing. I never did dig sex very much. * (from 1983 Good Morning America interview) I am so happy because I am at peace deep within, I am contented. There is nothing that I want. I am not searching anymore and that used to be my trouble I was always searching, searching and usually I thought I could get it through a man, well it turned out that I didn't. I just got a lot of trouble.

I have not been able to access my Private Messages for the last two days, and I apparently have two unread ones.

*Remember the Night* with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray.

*Marsha Hunt* Starring in The Kid Glove Killer And in Raw Deal, here with John Ireland

I struck gold for you, Bronxie Gal! Not only do I have *Helen Walker* , but just as you requested I have Helen giving Ty Power a clutch from Nightmare Alley; enjoy!

Frank, Marsha Hunt is an actress you may want to keep a bead on, she was a *very* interesting woman (excuse me, IS a very interesting woman because she's still with us! A poster in another forum I belong to goes to the same church as Miss Hunt and says she's very much with us and a very gracious lady. She lives in Sherman Oaks, Ca, where she is also the honorary Mayor!). Marsha came from a fairly well-to-do midwest family and always had an interest in politics, which got her into hot water when she was eventually blacklisted in the 50s. However, she doesn't seem bitter and remembers her Hollywood days fondly, as recollected in at least one book she published that I have. Though most of her career was spent as a contract player in supporting roles, she occasionally got a shot at a lead. Her intelligence and poise are almost always on display, especially when playing assured types like the forensic scientist in the excellent B-mystery with Van Heflin, *The Kid Glove Killer* , the criminal psychiatrist in Robert Taylor's *The High Wall* (you'd like those two) or her talent was flexible enough to play the dimmest of Jane Austen's Bennett sisters in *Pride and Prejudice* with perfect aplomb. In the melodrama *Smash Up: Story of a Woman* , Marsha got to play what is ostensibly a w-i-t-c-h (I don't know how to spell) but delivers an unexpected, frail human twist. A very underrated, versatile actress, I'll be adding her picture to my Noir Gallery. Here she is, when she appeared with Eddie Mueller for the Noir City film festival at San Francisco's Castro Theater

Ha ha! Very well, I now have heard the flip side on 3:10 to Yuma, thanks CigarJoe---I'm going to take everything with a grain (bag) of salt then, especially regarding plot points. Those things don't always bother me if the characterizations are strong enough to interest me. I'm not sure they will, but I'll give it an honest chance.