Lana Turner - Personal Life

Personal Life

Turner was well known inside Hollywood circles for dating often, changing partners often, and for never shying away from the topic of how many lovers she had in her lifetime.

Turner habitually married, marrying eight times to seven different husbands:

• Bandleader Artie Shaw (1940). Married only four months, Turner was 19 when she and Shaw eloped on their first date. The sudden marriage was highly publicized, and there was even talks of MGM releasing her from her contract. She later referred to their stormy and verbally abusive relationship as "my college education".
• Actor and restaurateur Joseph Stephen Crane (1942–1943, 1943–1944). Turner and Crane's first marriage was annulled after she discovered that Crane's previous divorce had not yet been finalized. After a brief separation (during which Crane attempted suicide), they re-married to provide for their newborn daughter, Cheryl.
• Millionaire socialite Henry J. Topping Jr. (1948–1952). A brother of Dan Topping, owner of the New York Yankees, and a grandson of tin-plate magnate Daniel G. Reid, "Bob" Topping proposed to Turner at the 21 Club in Los Angeles by dropping a diamond ring into her martini. Although worth millions when they married—the ceremony occurred three days after Topping was divorced from his third wife, actress Arline Judge, who had been previously married to his brother Dan—Topping suffered heavy financial losses due to poor investments and excessive gambling. The couple's marriage resulted in a church trial for the officiant because the marriage took place less than a year after Topping's divorce from Judge.
• Actor Lex Barker (1953–1957), whom she divorced. In a book written by her daughter Cheryl Crane, Crane claimed that Barker repeatedly molested and raped her, and that it was after she told her mother this that they divorced.
• Rancher Frederick "Fred" May (1960–1962), who was a member of the May department-store family.
• Robert P. Eaton (1965–1969);. A movie producer, he went on to write The Body Brokers, a behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywood movie world, featuring a character named Marla Jordan, based on Turner.
• Nightclub hypnotist Ronald Pellar, also known as Ronald Dante or Dr. Dante (1969–1972). The couple met in 1969 in a Los Angeles discotheque and married that same year. After about six months of marriage, Pellar disappeared a few days after Turner had written a $35,000 check to him to help him in an investment; he used the money for other purposes. In addition, she later accused him of stealing $100,000 worth of jewelry.

She later famously said, "My goal was to have one husband and seven children, but it turned out to be the other way around."

In 1982 Turner released a memoir, in which she stated that she had two abortions and three stillbirths. She said she was an alcoholic and had attempted suicide.

She was a lifelong Democrat and strongly supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential election.