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"That's how the blackest period of my life began," she
wrote. "It started with flowers and an innocent invitation for a
drink, and it was to end with screaming headlines, in tragedy and
death."
He called himself John Steele and he had the wavy hair and
olive-skinned good looks of a movie star with a physique to match. For
some reason he told Lana he was five years her senior, when in fact it
was the other way around.
Stompanato had already lived a life of adventure by the time he got
to Hollywood. A Marine war veteran, he converted to Islam when he
married a Turkish woman. He spent time in China after World War II,
telling people he ran nightclubs although he was really a government
bureaucrat. Johnny's childhood had been troubled, he had been in
military school, and he apparently continued down the same path as an
adult.
"[Sir Charles] Hubbard was in the United States looking for
investments when he took John to California as a companion in
1948," wrote Cheryl Crane in her autobiography, Detour.
"During the next two years Hubbard gave him $85,000. John told
the IRS he had 'borrowed' the money, but the agency suspected that he
was blackmailing Hubbard."
When Hubbard ran into trouble for a marijuana bust shortly after
arriving in California, Johnny dropped him and took a job as a bouncer
at one of Mickey Cohen's nightclubs. His size, personality and style
got Mickey's attention. Before long Stompanato was pulling in $300 per
week as Cohen's bodyguard, Crane said. Stompanato was Cohen's moneyman
and twice when he was arrested he was found to be carrying more than
$50,000 cash. Having a flunky carry all the money was typical in the
syndicate. Since the top guys were often harassed by police and
arrested on trumped-up charges such as vagrancy, it would be difficult
for a flower shop owner like Mickey Cohen to explain why he had so
much cash. Since bodyguards are less likely to be arrested and
searched, they carried the weapons and money.
Despite his connection with Cohen, Stompanato was still a
small-time hood and could be described as a gigolo. He was always on
the arm of a beautiful, older woman and he was dependent on them for
his livelihood. He was married at least two more times before he met
Lana Turner, but nothing lasted more than two years. The evidence that
he was a gigolo comes from court records: In the course of his divorce
from actress Helen Gilbert (the teacher in the Andy Hardy series), she
testified, "Johnny had no means. I did what I could to support
him." The police knew this and made a note of it in his dossier.
"When the victim's money is dissipated, he becomes interested in
another woman. Usually he frequents expensive nightspots to meet
wealthy female types," a detective wrote.
Looking back, neither Turner nor her daughter had much good to say
about Stompanato. After all, Cheryl Crane stabbed him to death and
Lana testified that she was frightened for her life. However, she must
have seen something in Johnny, because her relationship with him
lasted longer than any other he had in Hollywood. If he had not died,
there is no telling how long it would have gone on. Lana recognized
this herself.
"I believed the lies a man told me, and by the time I learned
they were lies it was too late," she wrote years later. "I
was trapped, helpless because of my fear for my own life, for Cheryl's
and my mother's."
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