June 26, 2006
Lana Turner ...
So this Thursday there's going to be a Lana Turner blog-a-thon (I love my new film-site friends) ... and That Little Round-Headed Boy has posted his piece early.
I love it - a great review of Somewhere I'll Find You a movie I have not seen, starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner.
I remember reading Detour when I was 14 years old. I had an after-school job in the local library and I read all KINDS of inappropriate stuff while working there. I didn't JUST read the Betsy-Tacy-Tib stories. I was also delving deep into salacious Hollywood biographies. I read Carroll Baker's detailed descriptions of quivering extra-marital sex with Ben Gazzara. I read stories of James Dean's bisexuality, and (on the flipside) his openness about his virginity. I read Shelley Winters' 2-volume autobiography which pretty much chats openly about every guy she screwed. (I love those books to this day.) I read the book about Edie Sedgwick - which - please. I had no business reading that. Drugs, sex, burning hotels, madness ... But I loved it all. Anyway, I had heard of Lana Turner by that point - just by osmosis - I had heard about how she was "discovered" and all that ... I had also read Lana Turner's autobiography - which you truly cannot do any better, if you are looking for salacious fascinating reading. She had a LOT to apologize for - I mean, good Lord, her daughter killed her gangster boyfriend! With a KNIFE!!!! Horrors. But anyway, her autobiography led me to Cheryl Crane's side of the story - which is actually a terrific book. I've read it since. It is a tell-all, it's horrible, it's a true crime book, whatever - but if you're interested in this stuff, and in what was going on psychologically in that house that led up to the 14 year old taking a knife and stabbing the slick gangster who was beating up her mother ... that's the book to read. It's horrible. But great!
I need to think up a post about Lana. Postman Always Rings Twice is, of course, a classic - that everyone's seen - but still. I think it's worth revisiting. And she's really good in it - the chemistry with Garfield is nearly unbearable - How they got all that past the censors is a mystery. It's almost uncomfortable to watch - and he is great.
There's also a campy side to the film which makes it even more enjoyable and also completely RIDICULOUS. Like: her first entrance is ludicrous - and yet when you see it, even though you want to laugh - you are also stunned dumb - just like John Garfield is. She's the wife of a country-diner owner? A small-town girl? A simple housewife?
And she's wearing a white turban and white short shorts?
Uhm ... Lana? What's goin' on?
It is so ridiculous and so AWESOME.
I look forward to reading everybody's posts.
But go read TLRHB's post. I need to check that film out.
I think I'll end with the poem by Frank O'Hara:
Poem
by Frank O'Hara
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
Oh, I can't wait to read everything.
I will always remember her for Imitation of Life.
I love that movie.
The part where Sarah Jane runs after her mother's coffin, screaming "I'm sorry, Mama, I'm sorry".....Oh My God. I bawled for hours!
De - hey you! I'll make sure to link to everyone's posts. I forgot you were an old-movie buff!!
Posted by: red at June 26, 2006 1:54 PM"I planned on having one husband and seven children, but it turned out the other way around."
I love that quote from her. Is there a starlet from that era that Artie Shaw wasn't married to for at least fifteen minutes?
Posted by: Emily at June 26, 2006 5:07 PMHey Sheila! Thanks...I really look forward to it.
I am always around. I might not comment as much but I read you everyday. As a matter of fact, instead of going alphabetically, I'll cheat and go directly to the r's! ;)
I love that quote, Emily ... hahahahahaha She was such a ... well. You know. She loved the boys.
Posted by: red at June 26, 2006 5:53 PMI certainly don't fault her for that, but getting married 8 times...I mean, at what point should a girl not step back, take a hard look in the mirror in deep reflection and say to herself, "cookie, you really suck at this marriage crap"?
Posted by: Emily at June 26, 2006 6:43 PMEspecially when you pick a man so evil that your teenage daughter is forced to stab him to death.
Uhm ... maybe take a break from the dating scene, Lana?
And Emily - her autobiography is just so awesome (in that "oh God, this is kind of bad, but I love it" way?) . You can tell she wrote it - because it's not well-written. But it's very chatty - she talks to the audience as though she is SURE that we are all fans - and it's filled with gossip and drama and sex and details about her wardrobe ...
It's amazing no one has done a biopic of this woman. Charlize Theron should do it.
Posted by: red at June 26, 2006 7:55 PMWow. Perfect casting call there.
Posted by: Nightfly at June 26, 2006 8:53 PMShe always reminded me of Lana except she seems more ambitious, and definitely smarter.
But there's also that hugely violent event in Theron's past - it somehow sets her apart from other starlets. I think she could a great Lana.
I totally have to read her autobiography, Sheila. I even have a copy somewhere. It always ends up at the bottom of the pile for some reason. I promised myself light, fun reading for the summer, so maybe I'll dust it off. Then I can write a long post about it, pissing off all the "but there's important stuff going on in the world" people, which is quickly, and quite irrationaly, becoming one of my favorite things to do.
Posted by: Emily at June 27, 2006 9:22 AMemily - hahahahaha It's like you and I are tormented by the same folks. Once upon a time, in 2002, we wrote angry impassioned political posts ... and no one has been able to recover or adjust their expectations. That was 4 years ago, people. Let's talk about Lana Turner and her cashmere sweaters now.
Yeah, and the prose of the book is like:
"I sat at the counter, sipping on my strawberry fizz soda. I was, contrary to all the rumors, not wearing a tight sweater, but a lovely angora sweater set with a pearl pin." Like she's constantly addressing "all the rumors" as though people are literally AGONIZED over whether or not she wore a cashmere sweater.
It's totally awesome.
Posted by: red at June 27, 2006 9:34 AMre: Artie Shaw and starlets....Judy Garland was dating Artie Shaw..she was 18(i think) and deeply in love...until she woke up one morning and read in the newspaper that he had married her school mate Lana Turner...she was crushed..Judy was always considered the pudgy, non-pretty one and her classmates were girls like Lana and Liz Taylor..poor little Judy..the pretty mean girl stole her boy..and Artie Shaw..what a schmuck!!!...and by the way Sheila..thanks for the poem..u know how much i love it!
Posted by: mitchell at June 27, 2006 11:47 AMMitchell, hon - I miss you. Lots to tell you!
Let's try to talk soon, okay?
Lana we love you get up. HILARIOUS! You're the reason I even know that poem!
Posted by: red at June 27, 2006 11:50 AMyes..we need to catch up very very soon!!!
Posted by: mitchell at June 27, 2006 11:56 AM