Cheryl Crane

Cheryl Crane (born July 25, 1943) is the daughter of the actress Lana Turner and her second husband, actor-restaurateur Stephen Crane.

At the age of 14, on 4 April 1958, Cheryl apparently stabbed her mother's gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato to death. [1] This was ruled a justifiable homicide: she was deemed to have been protecting her mother. It has been hinted that Turner's screams during intercourse alarmed her young daughter, making her think that Stompanato was hurting her. He was well known for his sexual endowment and Turner was well known to seek well hung lovers.[2] Stompanato was well known to have been abusive, extremely jealous of Turner, and had previously pointed a gun at actor Sean Connery, her costar in Another Time, Another Place, only to have Connery take the gun from him, beat him, and force him from the movie set. [3] [4]

Following Stompanato's death, Crane was made a ward of the State of California and sent to a home for problem girls, from which she escaped in 1960. She was recaptured and then released in 1961. In 1969, Crane was detained by the Los Angeles police when three half-grown cannabis plants were discovered in the back seat of her car.

Years later, Cheryl publicly revealed her lesbianism to her mother, who accepted the news well. She said she regarded Cheryl's partner Jocelyn "Josh" LeRoy "as a second daughter".

In her autobiography Detour: a Hollywood Story (1988) Crane discussed the Stompanato killing publicly for the first time, and admitted to the stabbing. She further alleged that she was subject to a series of sexual assaults at the hands of her mother's fourth husband, actor Lex Barker.

She currently lives in the Palm Springs, California area.

References

• Lamparski, R. (1970) Whatever Became Of...?, Ace Books, New York.

External links

• The Death of Johnny Stompanato at The Crime Library