WHAT WENT WRONG - Out of Frame: Lana Turner & Johnny Stompanato (ft. Hollywood Crime Scene)

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Lana Turner made a name for herself as one of Hollywood’s most sought after femme fatales in films like ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’, but her personal life may have been more scandalous than anything she portrayed on screen. Turner was a true rags to riches story - complete with an iconic discovery at a soda shop counter - but her life was an extremely difficult one, full of married men, debauchery, and abuse. However it was her relationship with mobster Johnny Stompanato that would haunt her - and her daughter - for the rest of their lives. This week, Lizzie is joined by Desi and Rachel from Hollywood Crime Scene to break down one of Old Hollywood’s most infamous homicides. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to what went wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone one with the plot as crazy as the real-life crime that we're going to be talking about today. Was it a crime? I don't know. Maybe that's part of the conversation that we can have. When we were covering The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I very briefly recounted a story about Sean Connery, involving one of his earliest co-stars, Lana Turner. And I asked you, listeners, if you would be interested in a deeper dive into Lana and the very infamous case that she is associated with. And we got a resounding yes. So that episode is finally here. And we have some very special guests who are going to help me dive into this, expert witnesses, if you will. We have Rachel Fisher and Desi Jettiken from the podcast, Hollywood Crime Scene, which is great if you enjoy what went wrong, especially. if you've enjoyed some of these out-of-frame episodes, which this will be, you will definitely enjoy their show. So welcome Rachel and Desi. Hi. Hi, Lizzie. Thanks for having us. Of course. I'm very excited to talk about this. You covered this case back in 2018 on your show. Was that right? Yeah, it was an early episode for us. I want to say it was a mother's day episode. Is that right? I think so. We used to be a lot more out-of-pocket in the early days of Hollywood crime scene. Well, I really enjoyed it, and I thought that you all would be great to come on and talk about this because it is a very interesting case, especially when you dive into Lana's history and backstory.

But before we get there, can you tell listeners a little bit about your show? Sure. Hollywood crime scene is a podcast or we discuss all things. Hollywood, Los Angeles, celebrity scandals, crimes, weird pop culture. We even go into the paranormal because Hollywood is. very haunted. We talk a lot about history. We also have some crossover with you. We do go into behind the scenes of movies. We've done a few of those episodes. And we also do crimes that inspired movies as well. So we'll kind of look at how it differed from the original material or the truth of this story and how the fictional movie came out. So we'll go into that as well. Love that. Yeah, some of my favorite episodes have been our movie versus reality, like our four-part epic Titanic series.

Ooh, amazing. I haven't listened to that yet. I will have to. Titanic itself, the behind-the-scenes, James Cameron, is he a criminal? I don't know. I love him. He's terrifying.

Well, we talked about it. Great. Okay, I will definitely listen. Okay, so we have a lot to go through. So I do want to get started. I will do a trigger warning here at the top. We are going to be talking briefly, although it will be included about sexual assault.

And obviously, because of the nature of this case, we will be discussing murder. or justifiable homicide, but it is a death. So let's jump right in. What is both of your experience with Lana Turner? Have you watched any of her movies? Are you familiar with at least like what she looks like or anything? Yeah, I mean, she's in one of my all-time favorite movies, imitation of life.

So I kind of knew her from her really melodramatic roles. Obviously, I've seen The Postman Always Rings Twice. So I probably have seen sort of her bigger, iconic movies. And we've discussed this on our show, but we were both kind of Hollywood Babylon girls growing up. So I knew about the crime as well. I think that's definitely part of her whole deal. Like if you know her, you probably know about this incident

because it was a major crime. Like, I mean, probably one of the first big Hollywood murders. So, yeah, that's my kind of experience with her. Yeah, like Desi said, I loved the book, Hollywood Babylon when I was a kid. And I watched a lot of black and white movies. I still love them to this. day. So obviously I saw Lana Turner movies. Our love of old Hollywood definitely informed starting our podcast in general. Hollywood's full of crime. That is one thing that we've definitely

learned. Same. You know, I think I was most familiar with her, unfortunately, just through this crime. And I was not particularly familiar with a lot of her films. I did watch a few. Postman always rings twice. It's probably one of her most famous performances. I know it was one of her favorites as well. So listeners, if you want a reference point, that's a good one, especially because she plays what would become the classic film noir femme fatal in that. Interesting adaptation, the things that they chose to change from the book to the screen, but we don't have time to get into that here. All right. So let's dive in. So on February 8, 1921, in Wallace, Idaho, a little girl named Julia Jean was born to John Virgil Turner and his wife, Mildred. Now Julia would go by the nickname Judy

for now until she would, of course, later change her name to Lana. We are getting ahead of ourselves for the purposes of simplifying today's story, I'm going to call her Lana from here on out because it would get very confusing. John had met Mildred after returning from World War I. He'd traveled West looking for mining work and met Mildred, who was then 16, out dancing. Lana, aka Julia, was born just one year later.

After Lana arrived, John opened a dry cleaning shop, but the business went belly up and he returned to mining. So her family was really quite poor when she was growing up. But according to her own memoir, She had very happy memories of both of her parents, although when she was six, they packed up everything. They owned into a car and headed to San Francisco. Eventually, they landed in Stockton, California.

And in this very small, Stockton house, Lana would frequently hear strange, unknown voices drifting up from the basement. And she finally insisted that her father explained what was going on, so he took her downstairs. And there she saw a copper vat with rubber tubing coming out of it. And he said, don't you dare tell anybody. obviously she was too young to know what this is, but what do you think her dad was up to in the basement?

Making meth. He was making the 20s version of math. Yes, he was making moonshine. Yes. They didn't have pseudothed available. Yes, he was operating a moonshine still. And again, she was just a kid. She did not realize how illegal this was,

so she did tell a friend who, of course, told their parents, and sure enough, the cops showed up and arrested her father. Now, he thankfully was released with just a fine. and a slap on the wrist, but he did bail shortly thereafter. Mildred told her daughter that he had to go traveling to sell insurance and also, I guess, stop infinitely for cigarettes along the way because she and John had separated, although they never officially divorced, as far as I know. Mildred had a very difficult time making enough money for herself and her daughter to survive on. At times they literally lived off of crackers and milk, I think this is really important to remember

as we get into Lana's activities later in her life that, you know, come off as very very extravagant and glamorous that this is where she came from. Right. John did stop in to say, hi, kid, every once in a while. And when Judy was nine years old, he was in town, thanks to a traveling craps game that was taking place in the basement of the San Francisco Chronicle, which is wild. He was a gambler, essentially a professional gambler. And I don't want to paint him in the worst possible light.

He did love his kid. In fact, he actually won pretty big at this craps game and told everyone there that he was going to use the winnings to buy his daughter a bicycle, and then he stuffed all the money in his left sock, and he headed out. Lana never got that bicycle because the next morning, he was found dead. Oh, no. He had been bludgeoned to death with a blackjack, and sure enough, his left sock was empty. Damn, I don't remember any of this from our episode. I don't remember what we talked about. You know why? Because early on, we didn't go into the backstory as much as we do now. Yeah, you're right. Your episode was great because it focused a lot more on the actual crime.

Then we will talk about that quite a bit here. But I think what I'm going to do a little bit more is kind of go into like her history and sort of the Hollywood side of it as well. Yes. So your episode is a great companion piece to this. Now, no one was ever charged for his murder, but she later said, quote, I know that my father's sweetness and gaiety, his warmth and his tragedy, have never been far from me. That and a sense of loss and of growing up too fast. Now I should mention our main sources for today are Lana, the Lady, the Legend, The Truth, which is the title of her autobiography. Good for you, Lana. Detour, a Hollywood tragedy, which is the memoir that Cheryl Crane, her daughter wrote, which is really excellent. 48 hours presents Vanity Fair Hollywood scandal and then a couple of other Vanity Fair articles as well as many other interviews and retrospectives.

Now, naturally, this really shook up the whole family. Mildred felt like she was not able to care for Lana appropriately at this point. Remember, Mildred is very young. She's 17 years older than Lana. So she sent her to board with a Catholic family. But as things in Lana's life have a way of doing, that situation turned abusive pretty quickly. The mother in the family would reportedly abuse Lana when chores weren't done to her liking. Turner later said of this time, quote, I was a scullery made, a cheap Cinderella with no hope of a pumpkin. She's got some great quotes. Quite a way with words. So as soon as Mildred discovered what was happening to Lana at the home, she yanked her out and did her best as a single mom. I actually think your use of this as a Mother's Day episode was appropriate. There's a lot of mommy stuff happening. It's very complex. Yeah, for sure. Listen, you could have done Mommy Dearest and you didn't. So I think that, you know. We did that later. Yeah, for a different Mother's Day. Yeah, because I think we did that in 2019. That might have been around Mother's Day. I'm not sure. It would have been. been very on the nose. I don't remember. I like it. I watched it with my mom, so there you go.

Nice. Yes. Yeah. So the two would often escape to the movies, which inspired Mildred to frequently jazz up the very few dresses she owned. This rubbed off on Lana who would study Vogue and etiquette books. I mean, they were dirt poor, but they looked great. That's all that matters. Yeah. Well, they did what they could. Being a single mom during the Great Depression took an enormous toll on Mildred's health. She did develop a pretty severe respiratory illness, and a doctor told her her best bet was too. What did they always tell you to do back in the day when you had smoke? Well, yeah. Or move to a drier climate. Yeah. You know what? I'm an idiot because my great grandfather literally moved to Los Angeles for the climate. That's just what they did. They literally

were like, try your best in Los Angeles. Good luck. Right. That is exactly what they told her to do. So in 1936, Lana and Mildred landed in L.A. They were staying with Mildred's friend and Lana was enrolled at Hollywood High. And that's where my great grandpa went. Really? Yes. They just dropped all the kids, the sick kids. They'd move from, you know, wherever Ohio, Montana, and they just drop them right off at Hollywood High. Colds were cured. Yep. Colds. It is dry. Or it used to be. Now it's humid and horrible. So she didn't really care for schoolwork, though, and she frequently cut class, which is what she was doing on the day that she was sitting at a soda counter at the Top Hat Cafe when she noticed a guy staring at her. He got up, he came over, and said he was W.R. Wilkison, founder and publisher of the Hollywood reporter.

And then, of course, he asked her if she'd like to be in the pictures, to which she was like, literally never crossed my mind. She said, I have to go ask my mom. Her mom did eventually say yes. Billy Wilkerson, by the way, total scumbag. Oh, I believe. Who? He's staring at young girls at the soda counter. What are you doing at the soda counter in the first place, sir? You're a grown man. Her mom did say yes, and Wilkerson followed through and, connected Lana at this point still Judy with actor-turned agent Zepo Mark. Now, he asked her how old she was. She said 15, and what do you think he said to that? Yippie. Close enough.

Close enough is almost right. He said, in Hollywood, you should never say that again. He said, from here on out, you're 18. Okay. Yikes. So with zero acting training, she nabbed her first actual role in They Won't Forget, directed by Mervyn Leroy. But before the movie came out,

Mervyn was like, you need a new name. And so she's like, how about Judy Jean? And he's like, no, no, no, your last name is fine. It's your first name that's hot trash. And so he opened up a book of name, started looking under the letter L. And then as she wrote in her memoir, quote, out of nowhere, a name came into my head

as clearly as though God had decided to speak to me. Of course, Lana Turner had officially arrived. I gotta say, she nailed it. It's a good name. Really good. And I like that she picked it. One thing that always made me laugh was that her name, whatever, I guess she was going by Judy, wasn't considered cool enough or glamorous enough.

But that's what they gave Judy Garland because her name is Frances. I know. But you know what's funny? My daughter's middle name is Francis. I actually love that name. And my granny was Francis. But they were almost contemporaries, I believe. Long Turner may have been slightly older, but not much.

And it's interesting because Judy Garland was seen as sort of like the ugly duckling of MGM when they were there pretty much simultaneously, I believe, and Lana obviously was trotted out as this sex symbol. Hollywood didn't treat either particularly well. No. No. Now, her part in the movie was very small, but much to Lana's surprise, a whole bunch of the marketing was focused on her thanks to her sweater. Do you all remember this? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So by the standards of the time, it was a pretty tight sweater, I guess. And I guess there was a very specific and gross reason for this. In the film, Lana plays a young woman who's murder sparks the trial that the film follows. It all takes place in the deep south, basically a lawyer, I believe played by Claude Raines, decides to target a man from the north

as the main suspect, since that might boost his career more. It's based on a novel that was loosely based on the real Leo Frank case. But the thing is, in the book, it's pretty clear that the woman was sexually assaulted before being killed. Now, thanks to the Hayes production code, which we've talked about quite a bit on the show, they could not explicitly say that. So here's what director of Mervyn Leroy said instead, quote, it was very important that the girl in our story have what they call flesh impact. She had to make it look like it was a sex murder. You'll notice we never use the word rape and the screenplay. We couldn't say things like that in those days. I figured that a tight sweater on a beautiful young girl would convey to the audience everything

we couldn't say outright. Did it, Mervyn? Yikes. I don't know about that. That's disgusting. It gets grosser. Much to Lanna's surprise, Warner. brother started pushing her in that tight sweater skirt and heels as the publicity image to promote the film. And then both the press and public started calling her the sweater girl, a phrase that stuck to Lana for years and actually became such a staple in popular culture. There was a movie called Sweeter Girl in 1942. It's a comedy. It is bizarre that that's connected to this movie, which is about her, like brutal murder. Or that they're marketing it with her

sexuality is crazy. It's really strange. It's very strange. Yeah. So Leroy continued to Cass Turner and when he left for MGM, he took her with him. And reportedly he was somewhat protective of her so she was at least temporarily shielded from some of Hollywood's top-notch

predators, but that didn't last very long. Her star was on the rise and as L.A. came out of the Great Depression, she was really living it up out on the town. And wouldn't you, after this life? Absolutely. But her personal life started to make MGM very nervous. One day, notorious creepo, Louis B. Mayor, called both Lana and her mother into his office, where he begged Lana with tears in his eyes to please calm down. But then he reportedly jumped up and said,

the only thing she cares about is this, pointing down at, I believe, his genitals. Gross. No, no one cares about your genitals, Louis B. Mayor. Put them away. Mildred, her mother was understandably horrified and yanked Lana out of his office ASAP. Then Lana starred opposite bandleader Artie Shaw and calling Dr. Kildare. These glamorous girls and dancing co-ed, I believe those were all in the same year. She'd also done at least one Andy Hardy movie with Mickey Rooney. But she super did not get along with Artie Shaw. She actually told the press she thought he was the most egotistical person she'd ever met.

Lana, trust your instincts. But she didn't. A few months later, they met again. She was heartbroken, having just learned that one of her first loves, Greg Boutzer, was seeing other women and already managed to paint a very different picture of himself this time. He took her out to dinner, spun her the story of a stable life, marriage, and a family. And do you know what happened next, the next day? They got married. As one does. They flew to Las Vegas and got married, but surprise, surprise, he was, in fact controlling and abusive and the marriage lasted about four months. Unfortunately, Lana had gotten pregnant, which she only discovered after they had separated, but not legally divorced. She turned to her talent agent for advice, and he was swift to remind her about MGM's morals clause, which forbade having children outside of wedlock. So she had two options. She could get back together with Artie, or she could end the pregnancy.

And she chose the latter, which really wrecked her emotionally. Now, in 1941, she landed one of her biggest roles yet in Ziegfield Girl, which was the first first. time she was really starting to be taken seriously as an actress. But MGM just kind of kept trotting her out as their go-to sex symbol and not really thinking of her for meteor roles, which really frustrated her. That same year at 20 years old, she starred opposite Clark Gable and Honky Tonk. They were a huge financial hit together. They turned out three more films over the next, I believe, decade. Meanwhile, Lana hit it off with another guy named Steve Crane. They met at a Hollywood nightclub called Mocombo that had real parrots and cockatoos in.

side. That's how you know your dates legit. I mean, this was a hot club. Like, it does sound kind of awesome, I have to say. We always want to go to these places. We're always like, oh, bring it back. Yeah, this is one of the clubs on our list is the Macombo, obviously Cocoa Grove. Billy Wilkerson actually owned some of these clubs. Interesting. Well, that seems like a way to feed a lot of his own publications as well. Great. Yes. So Steve said that he worked in the tobacco business. and that he was fresh off of a divorce, but he was open to love. And so naturally, what happened next, guys?

They got married. They got married. They jetted off to Las Vegas and got married. Lana, stop, stop doing this. She's one of the original, like, lovers of marriage. Like, she had a ton of marriage. Yeah, I know, we got to stop. It's hard to watch.

It is hard to watch. There was, however, one little tiny problem, which is that old Steve Parrot Crane was not actually legally divorced from his wife. Uh-oh. Even worse, the terms of his pending separation stated that he could not remarry for at least one full year following the divorce, which was a pretty big problem for MGM's big star. But not to worry, Crane explained they could fix it, or rather Lana could fix it, with money.

And she was already bankrolling a lot at this point. She was pissed, and she even accused Crane and his ex-wife of setting her up, which is not out of the realm of possibility. but just as she was about to escape another shitty relationship, she discovered she was again pregnant. This time, though, she said, F you all, I'm keeping the baby, and I'm still ditching the man. And the pregnancy was extremely difficult because of RH incompatibility. So Lana was RH negative, and the child was RH positive, and this can cause the mother's body to basically attack the fetal blood cells. Yeah.

It was made more difficult by the fact that Crane really desperately wanted her to take him back and wanted to have a family, and so he would not leave her alone. Louis B. Mayor, of course, kindly reminded her that an unmarried pregnant actress was box office poison and demanded that she marry Crane, but she stuck to her ground. She said no. However, mid-pregnancy, she found out

that Steve Crane was on suicide watch after having swallowed an entire bottle of barbiturates, so she immediately went to see him. She did agree to marry him, and on Valentine's Day of 1943, they made it actually official and legally binding this time. They did get married. In July of that same year,

Lana's water broke and she labored for 18 hours during which time her husband got bored left to watch a boxing game. Come on, Steve. Isn't 18 hours a little long, though? It's long, but you know what? I'm the one pushing. You're just sitting there. My husband's listening to this call. If he had left when I was in labor, I would have somehow gotten up off that table. Epiduril be damned and killed him. Exactly. So Lana gave birth to her daughter, Cheryl, alone. Oh, my God.

And just to keep things interesting, shortly after Cheryl was born, another woman showed up claiming to be Crane's sidepiece. And we do not know whether or not that was true. I do want to specify. But Lana was like, I have had enough. And she filed for divorce. I would have kicked that woman in the face. The woman. Like you said, epidural be damned.

Well, I would have kicked both of them because it's rude. Because how dare you come by my hospital bed? Like, yes, you want to blame the man for having the affair. Yeah. And we also don't know if he did. you know, it's not hard to believe, but we don't know what that woman's motivations were. Lana was a star at this point, and as we will learn, she was quite a target for money schemes. Yes. Yeah. So as her personal life was crumbling, her professional life was full steam ahead,

because at 1946, she starred in The Postman Always Rings twice, which we mentioned. It was one of her favorite roles. It proved to be both a critical and commercial hit. And the amount of work that she was getting did take a toll, though, on her ability to be there for Cheryl in her early years. She really wasn't round. It was very hard for her being a single mother working, and I think she did come to regret this decision. Lana's fame was also bringing more and more unsavory characters into her life. She and her mother, Mildred, were the targets of an extortion case at one point, which did prompt Lama to prompt Lama, which did prompt Lana to buy a gun. However, the unsaviriest character of all was working his way up the ranks of L.A.'s criminal underworld. So let's talk about old Johnny Stomponado,

which, as you all pointed out, is his real name. That is not a nickname. It's an incredible name. I mean, if you get that name, you kind of have to be like a mob guy, right? Well, his family wasn't. His father was Johnny Stompanato Sr., and he was, all by all accounts, a nice guy.

Well, I'm just saying. It's like he... It does sound like it's from a novel or something where someone's coming up with it. It's a parody name. It is like, it's so over the top. He's stomping people out. Stompinato. He did. So he was born in Woodstock, Illinois, the youngest of four children. His mother did very sadly die shortly after he was born. His father was from Italy. And the Stompanato family were actually very well liked in the area, which I think was unusual for Italian immigrants at the time. His father had overcome a lot of stereotypes. I should say they were very liked except for Johnny Jr., who neighbors reportedly called the devil behind his back.

Oh. Yeah, this was not new for him. He was sent away. a military school in Missouri after getting not one but two girls pregnant. He did serve in the Marines and traveled to China where he met a Turkish woman who had been actually raised in China. She was named Sarah. They fell in love, Stompano converted to Islam in order to marry her. He moved back to the U.S. with her. He did show signs of PTSD. Again, he already had issues before. I'm sure it was not good, whatever happened to him when he was in the Marines. And he was, of course, itching to travel again. Sarah got pregnant.

She had their child. Johnny showed very little interest in the kid, though, running off to Hollywood shortly after he was born to pursue a dream of making it in some capacity. I don't really know as what. However, it turned out that cross-country travel and a whole new life are pretty expensive. So Stompinado turned into a con man. Now, somehow he managed to cross paths with Sir Charles Hubbard and heir to a massive English fortune. Hubbard was looking for investments, and Stomponado managed to winkle $85,000 out of Hubbard. What? Yes, over the course of two years,

which he used to buy his way into the hangouts of the rich and famous. Now, later he would tell the IRS, I'd just borrow the money, but everybody was pretty sure he'd blackmailed Hubbard. This is the thing about Johnny Stompanado is I think it's very easy to write him off as just like a brute.

This guy was smart. This guy was smart. He was obviously very charming, given the people that he ends up being involved with. He's scary. He's dangerous. He's very dangerous, yes.

Because you don't expect it because you think he's a brute. That's right. And he's very handsome, too. He's doing stuff. Oh, yeah. Yes, he's a mover. Now, when the Hubbard Tap ran dry,

Stompanato turned into, I believe, a bit of a jiggleo, a casual jigolo. This guy would have loved being an influencer. Like, why wasn't this guy? If he was around in 2026, he would have thrived. He would have had like some very grifted,

businesses, hustles going on online. He's got a supplement to sell you, certainly. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, he hung out in fancy lounges and even worked as a bouncer in a nightclub owned by Mickey Cohen. So, who was Mickey Cohen? He worked under Bugsie Siegel, mob boss who created Las Vegas. Cohen stepped up and took over Siegel's operation after he was killed and naturally needed some extra muscle behind him during such a tumultuous time. So this is when Johnny Stomponado stepped in as essentially Mickey Cohen's bodyguard. Stompanado comes in. He's like, all right, the hottest gangster in America is dead. Right. Now it's my turn. I'm going to pick up where Bugsy Siegel left off. I'm going to rub elbows with the Hollywood elite. And now it's my turn to be the hot guy. Yeah, Stomponado was very, very focused on Hollywood. As we'll learn, Mickey Cohen was too. And like, we know Mickey Cohen, obviously, we know Frank Sinatra was, you know, involved in.

all of this. A lot of people in Hollywood did have connections to the mob, but it is interesting how much Stompano in particular, like, really did have a fascination with Hollywood. Well, I think because Mickey Cohen wasn't hot. Yeah, so he had only one way he could kind of be involved with Hollywood. But I think Johnny Stompano actually thought he was like a star. He was hot. Yeah. So I think that he kind of felt like, hey, I could also do this, right? You're right. Mickey Cohen was not hot. I just looked with a picture of him. I mean, no offense. I'll say offense, but he wasn't a notoriously great guy. No, he's a bad guy and he looks like a bad guy.

He does look like it. He's got a great suit, but yeah, it looks like a bad guy. Yeah, he was a bad guy. Yeah, for sure. So this gig also, though, dried up when the feds, of course, nailed Cohen for tax evasion and threw him in jail for five years. So Johnny jumped from gig to gig until he finally realized to your exact point that the easiest way for him to make money was to prey on wealthy women because he's very hot. So speaking of, Lana Turner also owed the IRS an enormous amount of money in back taxes, but that did not stop her from tripping the light Fantastique all over town.

Eventually, she decided to marry again this time to Henry J. Topping Jr. air to a tin plate and steel fortune, and this time she wanted to do it big. No more flying to Las Vegas. But when Louis B. Mayor received an invite to her big fancy engagement party, you'd think he'd be thrilled, but you'd be wrong because Henry Topping was also still married to his wife. Come on. And at this point, MGM literally had a clause in her contract that said no more married men. Lana caught a stop. So she did cancel the engagement party, but she was getting pretty tired of Louis B. Mayer interfering in her personal life. She signed on to play the Contest de Winter in The Three Musketeers, but she was pretty pissed to learn that she'd basically been demoted. So she quit. And MGM was like, well, you're going to have to repay $400,000 in pre-production costs. But she held out, insisting.

if you make the role bigger, I will rejoin the production, which they did. Now, she went ahead and got married to Topping, but that whole situation was absolutely shredded by the media. She got pregnant. Sadly, it was a stillborn baby, and her marriage to Topping disintegrated. She hired a PI who confirmed that he was cheating on her. At this point, she attempted suicide. It's very sad. She was saved by her manager, who stopped by to do a wellness check. And the next day, newspapers ran with the headline, Lana suffers sluress. slashed wrist and shower fall. God.

This is how they used to write about horrific incidents. They were vicious, but also looking at things like the Perez Hilton era of, you know, it's different, but it's the same, you know. I hope we're better, but I don't know. I mean, yes, obviously the Perez Hilton and the TMZ, but this would be in like the LA Times. They would run a headline like that, where it was just very non-delicate language. Yeah, 100%. So obviously the marriage to topping also fell apart and ended. She was back to work only a few days after this attempt on The Mary Widow.

She followed that up with Vincent Minnellys, The Bad and the Beautiful, which was nominated for six Academy Awards, although zero of those nominations went to Lana. She was reportedly devastated about this and again wound up with yet another garbage abusive man, Lex Barker, aka TV's Tarzan. Now, according to Cheryl, he repeatedly assaulted her. And again, she was a child at this point. Without Lana's knowledge, when Lana did find out, she immediately ordered him out of the house and divorced him. But again, they didn't report this to the police. And as far as we know, it comes down to her wanting to avoid bad publicity,

which is going to happen again and again here. And it's never worth it to not report this stuff. Meanwhile, Johnny Stomponado, now going by the alias, John Steele, had racked up several Hollywood girlfriends and a couple of wives. who had bankrolled him. Sounds like a porn star name. Yeah, well, that's intentional, for sure. He set his sights on Ava Gardner, who was still with Frank Sinatra at the time and was a friend of Lana Turner's.

Sinatra found out what was happening and hit up the recently paroled Mickey Cohen to do something about it. But much to his surprise, Cohen was like, no, my loyalty is to Johnny Stompanato. Wow. This was because you guys nailed this. Cohen needed Stomponado. He had tried to get back into nightclubs after being released from Prince. but he couldn't get a liquor license as a felon. So the two had been luring Hollywood A-listers into compromising positions and blackmailing them.

Reportedly among their victims were Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Carrie Grant, Rock Hudson, and Spencer Tracy. Damn. Yeah. And then news broke that MGM was not renewing Lana Turner's contract after 18 years and she was devastated, but Cohen and Stompinato saw an opportunity. They came up with a classic honey trap plan. arrange a sexual encounter, secretly film it, and then use the footage to extort Lana. While filming her next movie, John Steele, aka Stompinado, started calling Lana incessantly.

She didn't know him. She didn't know who he was and told the operators to screen her calls, but he wouldn't stop. He sent bouquets of flowers, reportedly so many they couldn't even fit in her dressing room. And he was like, we have a mutual friend. And she agreed to meet him. Lana. Lana, don't. Now this is my favorite. fact I learned in the entire episode. When they met, he showed up carrying a silver platter of her favorite dish, which was, I shit you not, vermicelli with clam sauce. Vermicelli. I cannot imagine the most sexy romantic gesture being showing up with a pile of pasta and clams. Now, I like linguine and clam sauce as much as the next girl, but like, it's clams on a silver platter. And she was

like, absolutely A plus John Steele. I mean, she doesn't really have a lot of great guys to kind of like, you know, leave an impression. So this probably really really. stood out the fact that he even gave her anything. Like, I don't put it's claim. It is sad, but. Maybe strawberries would have been. I mean, it's a cliche, but would that have been better on a silver platter? Piece of pie?

You know what? Maybe I'm wrong. Clam sauce is delicious, so she might have had a point, but. I like clam sauce, too. I don't know. I think another pasta might have been better. What's wrong with linguine? It's a classic for a reason.

Yeah, it's linguine and clam sauce. Come on, guys. So he showered her with gifts, pretty much all of which were bankrolled by Mickey Cohen, obviously secretly, and she felt like she'd never been treated this way before. And the two started going out all over town. Now, you would think that surely someone would have recognized him as Mickey Cohen's bodyguard and, like, number two, especially since at this point he'd blackmailed a large portion of Hollywood. But he solved that problem just by threatening anybody who might recognize him. And that worked on almost everyone, with one exception, Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney.

Oh, God. You know what? Mickey Rooney took a lot of shit in our Breakfast at Tiffany's episode. Deservantly so, but I'm glad to see him get some redemption here. He was good friends with Lana Turner, and he evidently didn't care that Stomponado was threatening everyone. He was going to tell Lana Turner who she was really dating, and so he did. He went to her apartment, and he warned her that John Steele was not his real name.

It was Johnny Stomponado, and he told her he is not just involved with the mob. He works for Mickey Cohen. Now, Lana did reportedly try to end the relationship at this point, but Stompinato pursued her relentlessly. She wrote in her memoir, quote, his consuming passion was strangely exciting. Call it forbidden fruit or whatever, but this attraction was very deep, maybe something sick within me, and my dangerous captivation went far beyond lovemaking. In fact, the sex was nothing special. People have analyzed my attraction to John by pointing out that my father was an occasional gambler and that he was murdered.

The connection seems obvious enough, but I can't say for sure that it's valid. The sex wasn't even good? That's the most disappointing part of that. I don't know. I get what she's saying. And I appreciate that she's acknowledging that she was taking him back over and over again. There was a toxic cycle happening here. I mean, yeah. Anyone who's been in any kind of domestic abusive relationship knows, I mean, you take them back. You take them back and you take them back. Right. Even when it makes zero sense. It's a hallmark. Of course. And it didn't take long for Somponado to turn violent. One night he was. climbed up her fire escape, broke in, and assaulted her. And again, she was too scared to call the

police for fear that the bad PR would impact her casting in a new film. Now, by this point, it seems like Stompinato had pretty much done away with the initial plans to extort Turner because he saw her as a ticket out of the mob and into a legitimate Hollywood career. And also, like, I do think they were pretty entangled with each other. There was no way he was going to let her go, even though the more she learned about who he really was, the more she did seem to try and distance herself, although again, she was taking him back over and over. Well, it's also scary, I think, to be with someone in the mob. Yes, 100%.

Beyond just an abusive relationship, this guy has connections that could really... Yes. Yeah, so it's like a multiple reasons why. Oh, yeah. It's, I mean, it is the toxic relationship of it all. It's that cycle. It's the fact that there is something, you know, where I think she was also pursuing him because of kind of like the excitement of that, which sounds... I'm not blaming her. at all. But then on top of that, 100%. She's scared of him.

She's scared at the people that he is associated with. Absolutely. But then also, she's in a very bad position because she doesn't want anybody to know that she is with him anymore. Because of the, everybody else knows that he's with the mom. So she started her own production

company around this time, which did keep her too busy to notice that Stompano seems to have taken an unusual interest in her 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl. He apparently bought her her own horse, also paid for by Mickey Cohen. Lana's production company Lantern Productions launched in 1957, and it was a big deal since it was headed not only by an actor,

but obviously a woman. She loved it. She worked really hard to develop new projects, all while Stompinato was constantly sending her screenplays that he could help her produce, and she was like, no, no thank you. Her first project would be another time, another place. It was going to shoot in London,

and Lana helped cast a young, unknown Scottish actress, also model truck driver and lifeguard as her love interest in the film who was it shon connery shon connery yes she jetted off to england to film and unfortunately johnny stompanato followed her now she did eventually tell him he needed to stay away from the set but he refused and was also getting pissier and pissier about her rejecting his pitches he kept showing up and one day while lana and sean were filming a love scene he overheard a p a say it looks like those two have had plenty of practice And I think also he was like convinced from the beginning that they were having an affair. By the time the scene wrapped, Lana and Sean walked off set and were met with an enraged Stomponado who screamed, you keep away from her and pointed a gun at Sean Connery's chest.

And Sean Connery, who is also a piece of shit himself, but in a legendary move, he grabbed Stomponado's wrist, twisted his arm behind his back, disarmed him, spun him around, and punched him in the face. This is when John Connery famously said, stay in your lane, Stomponado. I mean, it is an incredible move. Yeah. Security guards had to break up the fight. Stomponado runs off set, embarrassed, and then Lana Turner goes and reports him to the Scotland yard and gets him deported. Incredibly embarrassing.

Now, she was understandably concerned that he would retaliate and that he may hurt her mother or her daughter since he had threatened to do both at this point and would continue to threaten. When the film wrapped, she decided to take a trip to Mexico, keeping the details of her itinerary completely under wraps, and yet somehow Johnny Stompano still found her and forced his way onto the trip where he continued to emotionally and physically abuse her as well as threatening her with a gun that he purchased on the trip, which he initially said he got to protect himself from the iguanas. Aguanas? Yeah. Do you need a gun for that? That wasn't the best excuse, you know, of like why you need to buy that.

It's not, you could have done better. I think iguanas are cute. They're not notoriously fast or aggressive, so... No. Whatever. He wasn't fooling anyone. But she had a very brief, happy moment when she learned that she'd been nominated for an Oscar for Peyton Place.

That was dampened, though, by Stompanado insisting that he be her date to the ceremony. And she was like, no way. She said she could not be seen with him because of his mob connections, especially not at the Oscars. He was so mad that at one point leading up to the ceremony, he reportedly held a razor to her face and threatened to disfigure her. Still, she did not give in and instead took her daughter to the ceremony, where she did lose to Joanne Woodward. Now, up until this point, she had kept the physical abuse a secret, but it all bubbled up and she told her mother everything. And this is not hearsay,

by the way. Her mother called the Beverly Hills Police Chief, who knew exactly who Johnny Stompinado was, and he basically said, listen, I believe you, but it needs to be Lana who files the complaint herself, and she should do it ASAP. She did not. On Good Friday, April 4th, 1958, Stompinado had been following Lana around for the day and he was at her house on North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills when she learned from one of his former classmates that he had also lied to her about his age. He was not 43, as he had said, he was more like 30, and Lana at this point was 37. So I think this was a major, like, ego blow. She'd had it. It became a massive fight in which she said, we are completely done for good.

No takebacks. This is it. The fight escalated and Lana went upstairs to her room trying to get away from him. Now what happened next has a few different versions, but it is agreed that Stompano followed her into her bedroom where the fight continued. Her daughter, Cheryl, was also in the house. Just a few minutes later, Johnny Stomponado was dead. But before we talk about how that may or may not have happened, let's talk about what Lana did do right after, or what we know, at least. Four calls went out from her house.

We believe the first to her mother, the second to her person. the second to her personal doctor, John McDonald, the third to Steve Crane, though I believe this call was made by Cheryl. And finally, to an attorney named Jerry Giesler, who had quite the history of defending Hollywood actors on trial, including Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin. Gisler arrived on the scene and called up a PI named Fred Otash. Meanwhile, Lana's personal doctor, John McDonald, declared Stompinado dead.

Now, two hours after the incident had happened, police officers arrived on the scene. And when they did, they found a couple of odd things. One, there was almost no blood on the rug where the body lay. His body also looked like it may have been moved. The bathroom walls were damp as though they may have been scrubbed, and there were no identifiable fingerprints on the knife. So let's talk about what is said to have happened in those two hours.

The leading version of events supported by both Lana Turner's memoir and Cheryl Crane's memoir, as well as their testimony both on the scene and later during the coroner's inquest is. Cheryl, Turner's 14-year-old daughter, had heard the fight getting worse and became genuinely afraid that Stompano might hurt or kill her mother, that she heard a direct threat. She ran to the kitchen, got a knife, ran upstairs. According to Cheryl's memoir, quote, the door flew open, mother stood there her hand on the knob. He was coming at her from behind, his arm raised to strike. I took a step forward and lifted the weapon. He ran on the blade, it went in.

For three ghastly heartbeats, our bodies fused. He looked straight at me unblinking and said, my God, Cheryl, what? have you done? According to Lana's memoir, quote, what she saw was me sitting on the pink marble counter and John coming toward me his arm upraised with something in his hand. She didn't grasp the fact that he was carrying clothing on hangers over his shoulder, just that upraised threatening hand and what appeared to be some kind of weapon, and he was right in front of the door, his body unprotected. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cheryl make a sudden movement. Her right arm had shot out and caught John in the stomach. I thought she'd punched him. There was a strange

little moment, locked in time, as each stood looking at the other. So when police arrived, Cheryl was booked and held on suspicion of attempted murder, and by the next day, the news hit the stands, and it was huge. Lana spent the next day talking to police and lawyers. Cheryl was taken to Juvenile Hall. Mickey Cohen, who identified the body, told a reporter, quote, Johnny's been around for a long time. But if what they tell me is true, he made no effort to dodge the knife, it just doesn't gel with me.

When I heard how Johnny was killed, cold chills went through me. It's a fantastic way for a man like Stomponado. to die. Cohen also slipped Lana Turner's love letters to Stompano to the press, which ran all over the front page the day after the murder. It should be noted that these letters were noted missing from Stampanato's apartment by a maid, and the place had been broken into. Mr. Cohen, of course, denied anything to do with that.

Yeah, he said Sampanado had given him the letters, you know, before somehow, and that he was only releasing them to show how in love the two of them were, but it's like, no, you were doing everything you could to obviously make her look terrible. It didn't work, by the way. That's great because this is a classic tactic to paint, oh, because the victim in the domestic abuse situation sometimes said they loved her abuser. Right. And this is also why, at least in my case, why women don't come forward. One of the many reasons why, because it's like, well, I always took him back. I wrote him love letters. I profess my love to him.

If he was so bad, why would I do that? And honestly, I've been saying over the course of this episode, like, you know, she was taking him back. I'm doing that, I think, subconsciously because I know we will get comments of people saying, like, you are so on her side of this. You know, she was also into him.

They were together. And so I'm like, well, you know, I probably should mention that. But it's like, yes, she did. But to your point, this was obviously a vicious cycle. There is zero question that he was abusing her physically. and emotionally. Like, we know that. That is a fact. Right. And it's like, thankfully, nowadays,

we have so much more knowledge about what abusive relationships look like and how they function and how victims sometimes react. We have a better understanding of like, there are no perfect victims, and it doesn't make the abuse any less. But there still is people out there, unfortunately, who will blame the victim and say, well, why did you go back to him? Why did you go back to him? Or why did you say, you know, you said you loved him. Yeah. And that's totally what he was trying to do here. It's kind of a miracle it didn't quite work the way that he wanted it to. I'm shocked it didn't work back then. And so that is good. It is, I mean, it ends up turning on her eventually. But the initial response to this, I think actually was not as negative towards her. But this is also, like, to your point, it's exactly why she didn't report.

a lot of this stuff is because she didn't want the PR that inevitably would have come her way, and as we will see, does come her way eventually. Right. Lana hit out away from the press until the coroner's inquest, which was set for a week after the stabbing took place. Cheryl stayed in juvenile hall while it was being decided if she would stand trial for murder, but they did know she would not face the death penalty, which California did and does have, even though executions are currently paused, because she was only 14 years old.

Now, can neither you explain what a coroner's inquest is, because I actually didn't fully understand this. Yes. They have like a separate inquiry with the coroner, the medical examination. They explain the cause of death, the manner, what happened. Yes. So it is, I believe it takes place when there is question around what exactly happened in terms of the death and like whether it's kind of in cases like this where it's very uncertain as to like what actually happened. It's sort of a... Is it a homicide? Is it self-defense? Right. Not everything gets an inquest like that.

Right. And also not everything goes to trial. So, like, part of what they're trying to decide here is, like, does this go to trial? I believe a coroner's inquest is a public fact-finding legal inquiry. It's to determine how someone died and when. And whether or not that merits a criminal case. Exactly. Not every state has these, I don't think, but California does.

and they do sometimes have juries, as this one did. The coroner's inquest was a total media circus with everyone trying to catch a glimpse of Lana Turner. Cheryl was excused from testifying. She did submit a statement, which was read out. That's because she's a minor. Lana, however, testified for over an hour. You can see pictures of her on the stand.

She's obviously very upset. Her testimony matched her daughter's statement. It also matched the statements that they gave at the time of the crime. She wrote in her 1982 memoir, quote, 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. But she did, she did it. Like I do have to say I respect Lana Turner for the way that she got up there and really put it all out. It's very brave. Yeah. I can't imagine being a victim

of abuse on a witness stand and having the defense attorney tear you apart to shreds. The thing is, it's her daughter, and I think that at the end of the day, she did at this point at least put her daughter over everything else, even though obviously there were situations earlier where she didn't handle that well, like in terms of not reporting Lex Barker. But yes, she does what she can here. Right. After only 25 minutes, the jury returned and did declare it justifiable homicide. It was. Yes. He had it coming, just like the song says. Yes. But I mean, also like it was, If what they're saying is true, then he was threatening her mother, and he was scary. He could have killed her.

A hundred percent, he probably would have killed her. I mean, that's maybe not in that moment, but anyway. He would have eventually. At some point. Like, statistically. I believe that as well. He would have eventually. So the daughter was protecting someone from being killed.

Yeah. Now, for Lana and Cheryl, this was hardly the end of the ordeal. because not everyone bought that this was so cut and dry, especially not a journalist named Casey Sherman, who wrote a book about it titled A Murder in Hollywood. And he proposed that it was not Cheryl, but Lana, who had murdered Stompanado. And he was hardly alone.

Who cares? Well, I guess because they're saying there was a bit of a switch-em-up. Right. I understand that all there's scheming and stuff, but I would just be like, dude, who fucking cares at this point? Well, Stompano's mob contacts cared. They said they had a hard time, believing that their sort of ultimate tough guy had been taken down by a 14-year-old girl.

Yeah. His brother also demanded a full investigation, including a lie detector test for Lana. I don't believe they ever did that. Also, rumors swirled throughout Hollywood that maybe Lana had done it, and she'd done it because she discovered Stomponado had been abusing Cheryl, or even worse, she'd done it because she was jealous of Cheryl's supposed relationship with Stompano. Come on. It's all so gross, and I believe eventually Fred Otash, the PI, who was on the scene, made

some very salacious comments claiming that he made. have helped cover up the murder and move the body and the knife afterwards, and Lana did commit it. Now, I'm not saying there aren't some strange inconsistencies about the crime scene and what they found. I don't know. We'll get to what we all think in a minute, but according to Esther Williams, a champion swimmer, who of course became one of MGM's biggest stars, she had a dressing room next to Lana Turner. She said, quote, we all heard the different versions of the murder. It was the number one topic of conversation in 1958. No one will ever know the entire truth. The bottom line is there have always been cover-ups here because Hollywood protects its own. But Casey Sherman's theory was at least

not one of the more salacious one. He did theorize that Lana had killed Stompinado in self-defense and in order to protect her family, specifically her mother and her daughter. He goes on to suggest that that fourth phone call to Jerry Gisler is the critical one, that he could have advised her that she may face the death penalty if convicted of murder, and that the prosecutor would certainly look at all their previous fights as motivation for premeditation. So perhaps Gisler rallied Cheryl, Lana, and Mildred, and I guess in this scenario also Lana's personal doctor, because they were all there, and devised an airtight plan that Cheryl would take the blame because they knew she would not face the death penalty and would almost certainly get off

for justifiable homicide. I don't believe this at all because I don't believe for a second that Lana Turner would make her daughter take the fall for something like this. That's the thing. There's no world where she would do that. I agree with you. Cheryl has, of course, vehemently denied this. She told CBS is 48 hours, quote, what mother would do this to her child to make her child live through her life knowing that she's killed somebody

and have to live with it? Who would do that? Not my mother, not the woman I know. I agree. There's no way. There's no way, especially because it's not a guarantee that she would get off

or that this wouldn't go to trial. I don't believe that she would do that. To put your kid through a trial for a crime you know that you committed? No. There's no way. She was not a bad. mother. I mean, she was not a bad mother. I mean, emotionally, she's not, like, she does have

an immense amount of love for her daughter. Yes, I agree with you. Like, she did Lana Turner make a lot of bad choices? Absolutely, she made a lot of bad choices. I don't think this is one of them. But I just knowing what we know about her relationship with Cheryl, I don't think that that would happen. I agree with you. I think it's completely unbelievable. I'd buy it more if they said Lana's mother. did it to get her off. That would be a more believable, but I guess they couldn't. I think part of the problem is, and I guess Esther Williams kind of touches on this, there clearly was a commiseration between the fixers and the studios and whatever, the doctors and lawyers making a plan of what they were going to say. And I think that's led to a lot of people thinking something bigger happened

than maybe what actually happened. I'm with you. I think Cheryl did it. And one of the big reasons that I think that is the case is that third phone call to Steve Crane. The fact that she called her dad immediately and also that he showed up immediately because he came, not just to whisk her away, but to find out what was going on, that says to me that she was likely involved, especially because he was in a custody battle with Lana Turner at the time. They were not on good terms. And I don't know. Like if Lana Turner did it and then she like comes up with a plan and goes to get her daughter

and is starting to fill her daughter in and like, here's what we have to do. That doesn't make sense to me that your daughter runs out of the room and calls her dad. Like I... Right. This is a knee-jerk response. Also, just the murder itself. It makes sense that Johnny Stomponado would have been caught off guard by a 14-year-old daughter. Like, he would have been on the defensive and possibly able to dodge a knife if Lana Turner was holding a knife because they were already fighting.

Yeah. But it just makes sense to me. logistically. Like if she comes up and surprises him. Right. I'm not even going to speculate. It's possible that it happened slightly differently than the way that they told the story given the fact that, you know, it did seem like his body may have been moved, et cetera. That's fine. I understand that. But I think she did it. I think she did it because she was afraid he was going to kill her mom. And I support her. Yeah. Yeah. Following Stomponado's death, the press really at this point started to turn on Lana. the LA Times ran a piece saying Cheryl isn't the juvenile delinquent Lana is.

Steve Crane and Lana Turner were, as I said, involved in a fierce custody battle. Cheryl was temporarily handed over to Mildred's care during this time. Stompano's ex-wife, Sarah, the first one, filed a wrongful death suit against Lana Turner and Stephen Crane seeking over $750,000 in damages. And according to CBS's 48 hours, Eric Root, Lana's hairdresser, many years later, drunkenly told a friend that Lana had told him she'd killed Stomponado. Quote, if I die before you, I want you to tell the world. Cheryl pushed back and said, you're just milking your ties to Lana for attention. And to push book sales, if someone's selling a book, let's not believe what they're spilling at that point. The scandal would, of course, follow them for the rest of their lives.

Cheryl struggled massively with what she and Lana referred to as, quote, the paragraph, aka the paragraph in every single article about either of them that always referenced the stompedado death. She battled depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and survived two suicide attempts. But thankfully, things did start to turn around for Cheryl when she began working for her father at his hugely popular restaurant, the Lua. She would eventually become VP of his hospitality company. She did also rebuild her relationship with Lana Turner, which had become quite fractured, understandably. After this, the two became close friends again by the early 80s and remained so until Turner's death. Cheryl was with her when Lana died.

Cheryl came out as a lesbian. Actually, I believe when she was quite young, a teenager, which both Lana Turner and Stephen Crane reportedly were very accepting of, which was quite unusual. She's been with her longtime partner and wife, Josh Leroy, for many, many years. And when Lana Turner died in 1995 of throat cancer at age 75, every obituary did indeed contain the paragraph. But the LA Times noted that, interestingly, the unpleasant publicity did not affect Ms. Turner's career.

That's true. She went on to have some of her biggest roles. after this. And the obituary ends with a quote from Lana Turner, and so will we. She said, quote, I would like to think that in some small way, I have helped to preserve the glamour and beauty and mystery of the movie industry. Yes, maybe not in the ways that you had hoped, but yes, you did. So we'll end it there. Any final thoughts on this? Great retelling of the story. Obviously, like we mentioned up top, we didn't used to do as deep of dives in our earlier episodes. So it was really interesting to hear about Lana's upbringing. It really definitely helped

put into context what her life looked like as an adult. Yeah, why she keeps falling for these guys. And her choices and her money issues. And so that was interesting. I still, my opinions about this case haven't changed. I still think it was justified. He was going to kill her mother. I think it's an interesting look at it the way crime sort of affects everyone who's sort of, you know, looking at it from the outside. And it still happens today where it's like you almost want it to be something bigger than it was. I'm thinking of like the Lindsay Clancy, like a lot of the online sleuths right now. They don't want it to be the basic story of what happened, which is like an everyday tragedy. They want it to be a conspiracy. And it's like it's already so tragic. Like, do we don't really need to be? make it worse than it is, but it's like this human nature aspect of it that just wants it to be something else. And I think that's kind of an early case that sort of, you know, is still happening today in these crime cases that kind of take over the public consciousness. It's kind of disturbing. It is disturbing. You're right. At Lindsay Clancy, that case is a perfect analogy of,

like an example of what's happening right now. I mean, there's a ton of conspiracy around that case. And like you said, it's like we see this tendency, like, and we see it a lot because we're privy to everybody's opinions now because of social media where it's like, no, it's not always. Sometimes it's Occam's razor. Like, sometimes it's just the thing and the thing is upsetting enough and tragic enough. There doesn't have to be some big conspiracy. Like, that's just what happened. Yeah. And we have, we've definitely done quite a few cases where the crimes and,

ended up having a lot of conspiracy around them. And we've concluded that, like, no, what happened is what happened. Yeah. Yeah, it's like with Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, I think what happened is what happened. And it's sad. And it's not to say that there weren't people who were culpable, but do I think there was a CIA cover up of her death? No. Yeah. And I think what I said earlier about the studio is always meddling no matter what creates this illusion that maybe something else is being covered up when it really was just their M.O. for any case involving a celebrity to come in and kind of make it a little tidier than it was and maybe just planning out what everyone was going to say. Even when it's a truthful statement, they probably wanted everyone to be on the same page because,

as we all know, in a traumatic situation, you might not remember things exactly the same way. Right. Yeah. In fact, you usually don't. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you both so much for joining me for today's episode. Where can listeners find you? You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts, Hollywood Crime Scene, and you can also find us on tour currently. We're going to be in Austin and Atlanta next. And then after that, Philly and New York. So I can find the link to all those dates in our Instagram bio if you want to see us live. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having us. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer, post-production and music by David Bowman.

This episode was researched by Laura Woods and edited by H. Conley.