Turner Case Gives Geisler Challenge
Hollywood v The case
jf Lana Turner's 14-year-old
Jaughter provided a new chal
lenge to Jerry Giesler, Holly
wood's most famous attorney
snd regarded by many as one
of its finest courtroom per
formers. The portly, balding Giesler
will represent Cheryl Turner,
who killed her mother's form
er gangland boyfriend,
Johnny Stompanato, Friday
night in Beverly Hills.
Giesler, who has figured in
many of the most spectacular
court cases in filmland his
tory, had little to, say about
Flights of Fancy
Wherever your flight of fancy
takes you, you'll never be bet
ter dressed than you are when
your feet are cradled in dalsan
Flights. Ask for a test flight,
very soon.
Available Only at
Johnston & Stewart
Main & Central
Medford
the Turner case, except that
he regarded it as "justifiable
homicide" and "there is no
justification for a trial."
Giesler's career as one of
the West's leading criminal
attorney has spanned nearly
half a century. During that
time he has gone to court and
won cases for such clients as
comedian Charlie Chaplin,
director Busby Berkeley, and
actor Errol Flynn.
The attorney also has rep
resented such prominent act
resses as Marilyn Monroe and
Bette Davis in divorce cases.
But he once was quoted on the
subject of divorce as saying
divorces were too easy to ob
tain. Word Is Law
Giesler's word was law for
the stars he represented, even
to the point of having them
remain silent. When he gave
that advice to actress Shelley
Winters, she paid him the tri
bute "He can out-act any actor
in town."
Giesler has a standing rule
"never to refuse an anony
mous phone call. I never per
mit my switchboard to ask
who's calling while I'm on a
big case.Sometimes you learn
information that is extremely
valuable.
"It's the breaks you get that
have a lot to do with a law
suit."
Giesler's list of clients reads
like a who's who in Holly
wood. But he also has rep
resented such notorious char
acters as the late Bugsy Siegel
when he was charged with
Huntington Youth
Dies From Injuries
Boise HP) Lloyd Eugene
Faircloth, 18, Huntington,
Ore., died in a Boise hospital
Sunday of injuries suffered
Saturday afternoon when a
Jeep in which he was a pas
senger left Fox creek road 15
miles east of Huntington and
overturned.
Three other teen agers in
the Jeep, one of them the vic
tim's sister, Elizabeth, es
caped serious injury.
State police said the vehi
cle went over a 20-foot embankment.
murder and the late great
attorney Clarence Darrow
when he was charged with
taking a bribe while defend
ing accused saboteurs of a Los
Angeles newspaper building.
There have been accasions
when Giesler decided against
court trials, including the
case of producer Walter
Wanger, when the latter was
charged with shooting agent
Jennings Lang. Wanger went
to jail.
As he said of other cases,
Giesler said one reason the
Wanger matter didn't come to
trial was that "no good could
have come of a sensational
trial over a small sentence."
In other cases, however,
Giesler used all his courtroom
techniques to win cases for
Berkeley accused of man
slaughter after a 1935 auto
accident and Chaplin,
who faced a morals charge.
In the Chaplin case, feel
ing was high against the
comedian before the trial. But
when the jury returned a ver
dict acquitting Chaplin, the
crowd in the courtroom
cheered.
DISTRAUGHT Actress
Lana Turner sobs as she
arrives at police station in
Beverly Hills, Calif., where
her daughter, Cheryl, 14,
was booked for murder of
Lana's underworld boy
friend. Johnny Stompanato.
- m L
$$$$ BONUS ALLDWANGE OFFERED $$$$
S IIVE BETTER
FOR YOUR OLD STOVE OR WATER HEATER
DURING
e
is
ft.
$25 for Your Old Stove or Range
$20 for Your Old Water Heater
p ?,LA 1 4P
For any type of water heater, traded for
a new, quick-recovery electric water heater
for home use, Reddy offers COPCO
customers a $20 bonus allowance, in addition
to the regular dealer's allowance!
For any old range or stove, traded for
a modern electric range, Reddy offers
COPCO residential customers a
$25 bonus allowance, in addition
to the regular dealer's allowance!
Need better Home Wiring? Reddy's Wire-On-Time Plan fs still in effect.
Finance additional or improved home wiring through any electrical dealerr
No down payment, collateral, or co-signers. Payments as low as $5 a month.
An Electrical Dealers in the COPCO
Service Area have complete details.
GOOD FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY.'
THE CALIFORNIA OREGON POWER COMPANY
A Western Cempaey earned oM operated ky Western People
OTP
Bad Luck Dogs Star,
Throughout Career
Hollywood OP) Lana
Turner, moviedom's original
sweater girl who was billed
for years as "the most flaming
siar since Clara Bow." has
been dogged by personal mis
fortune during her 21 years
in the Hollywood limelight.
At 38, Miss Turner has been
married five times, to four
husbands. She has had sev
eral broken romances.
She lost several children
through miscarriages during
two of her marriages. Her
only child, Cheryl, who stab
bed Johnny Stompanato to
death last night, ran away last
year and then a few months
later suffered a broken back
in a fall from a horse.
Miss Turner was a Holly
wood high school girl of 17
when a friend of producer
Mervyn Le Roy saw her sit
ting on a drugstore stool sip
ping an ice cream soda. She
was taken to a studio, given
her first part and soon bally
hooed by Hollywood press
agents, as a "sweater, girl."
Born In Idaho
Born Julia Jean Turner on
Feb. 8, 1920, in the little
mining town of Wallace, Ida.,
Miss Turner changed her first
name to Lana for her movie
career. Her father, Virgil
Turner, was a mining man.
He died when she was 9, and
her mother, Mildred reared
her alone.
While still a school girl,
Lana made her first public ap
pearances, as a high school
cheer leader. She wore a
tight sweater and her hair
was red.
She showed the same cheer
leader sparkle in her film ap
pearances in her first movies,
"They won't forget," "The Ad
ventures of Marco Polo,"
Loves Finds Andy Hardy,"
and "Two Girls On Broad
way.
Early in 1940, she appeared
in a moive with band leader
Artie Shaw.
"He is the most egotistical
man I ever met," she said. "I
hate him!"
"Within a few - weeks, she
had eloped with Shaw.
"Love is similar to hate,"
she explained at the time.
"Ask any doctor."
The marriage lasted until
September, 1940, when she
won a divorce from Shaw
after testifying in court:
"It was fight, fight, fight,
fight, all the time. And often
he wouldn't even talk to me."
Two years later, Miss Turn
er married Stephen Crane,
then a tobacconist, after an
evening of dancing. Soon
after, the newlyweds discover
ed his divorce from Carol
Kurtz of Indianapolis was not
final. Lana got an annulment.
Reweds Crane
Crane pleaded for her to re
marry him. When she re
fused, he took an overdose of
sleeping pills. He recovered
and they were remarried on
March 14, 1943. Their daugh
ter, Cheryl, was born July
25, 1943, and she divorced
Crane on Aug. 21, 1944.
Four years later, Lana was
married again, to the thrice
divorced millionaire sports
man Henry J. (Bob) Topping.
This time she did not elope.
The wedding ceremony took
place at the home of publisher,
William Wilkerson, the man
who had discovered her on the
drugstore stool 11 years
earlier.
The marriage lasted only
four years, during which Miss
Turner suffered several miscarriages.
A year after she divorced
Topping, she married actor
Lex Barker in Italy, in 1953.
They were divorced last June.
Miss Turner charged Barker,
a former screen Tarzan, with
extreme cruelty," which in
cluded using profane language
and once strikng her in the
face at the breakfast table.
MAIL TRIBUNE, Mtdford, Oregon, Monday, April 7, 1958 7
Curious Flock To
Lana Turner's Home
Hollywood OP) The
curious flocked to actress
Lana Turner's home in Bev
erly Hills Sunday to stare
at the front of the fashionable
home where the film star's
boyfriend was killed.
Amateur photographers
snapped pictures of the house
while others sat in parked
cars discussing the stabbing
of Johnny Stompanato, 32,
by Lana's 14-year-old daugh
ter, Cheryl.
A boy on a bicycle yelled
to another, "what are all
those cars doing here?"
The other answered, in a
voice loud enough to be heard
inside the house, "Lana Tur
ner lives there. Her little girl
stabbed a man.
A car carrying a couple
and two children pulled up.
The man looked at a news
paper and said, "Yeah, this
is the house."
Brakes screeched as motor
ists rounded a curve and were
confronted by the parked
cars and idling people. There
were several near collisions.
Stompanato Rated High
With Wealthy Women
Hollywood HP) Johnny
Stompanato, handsome man-about-Hollywood,
"had a way
with wealthy women," a po
lice intelligence officer said.
A one-time bodyguard for
mobster Mickey Cohen, the
32-year-old Stompanato had
been arrested only once
and that time he won his case
on appeal. A judge once re
ferred to him as. a member
of Cohen's "Band of 40
Thieves."
Police intelligence said
they never had any com
plaints that Stompanato had
borrowed sums of money from
wealthy women and failed to
return them, but "he had a
way of advancing from a Ford
to a Cadillac without work
ing." The Cohen associate was
arrested in 1949 on a va
grancy charge when he was
found on Hollywood's Sunset
Strip sitting in a parked Cad
illac. It was the same area
where ' Cohen had been
wounded and one of his
henchmen killed a few days
previously.
He was sentenced to 60
days and fined $250, but an
appeal in 1950 freed him on
grounds of insufficient evi
dence. Stompanato was the son of
a Chicago jeweler. He gradu
ated from school in Wood
stock, 111., where a brother,
Carmine, still lives. His par
ents are dead. Police in Wood
stock said Stompanato, who
had no record in their com
munity, had been back to
visit his father several times
before he died.
Indonesian Rebels
Man Machine Guns
Singapore (IPI Indonesian
rebels manned machine guns
overlooking the beaches of
Padang today in expectation
of a Jakarta government in
vasion aimed at wiping out
their shrinking position in
centarl Sumatra.
United Press Correspond
ent Robert Udick reported
from the rebel capital at Bu
kittinggi that rebel troops ful
ly expected at least four gov-rebel-held
port.
He said revolutionaries
ciad in green jungle uniforms
were -melting into the forests
along the coast to try to de
fend against an invasion
which could crush the whole
rebellion against the Jakarta
government.
Murder Charge Due
In 'Thrill Slaying'
North Hollywood
Formal murder charges were
expected to be issued today
against an 18-year-old drama
student who confessed to the
"thrill-slaying" of his teen,
age girl friend.
Cary Jon Johannesson, a
theatrical arts major at Val
ley Junior college, was jailed
Friday after he directed po
lice to the nude body of 15-year-old
Phyllis Meltzer of
Reseda in the seat of his dis
abled hot-rod.
The youth said he "got a
thrill out of choking a girl"
as he recounted how he
strangled his girl friend fol
lowing a quarrel in his parked
car on a remote "lovers lane."
r
3
I
mm
STORE
YOUR
O COATS
O JACKETS
O STOLES
The fine eare we give those furs
of yours actually keeps them beau
tiful ever so much longer. This is
more than storage . . . much more.
It includes expert cleaning and
glazing repairs if needed stor
age in modern vaults at scienti
fically controlled temperature and
100 insurance against damage
by fire, theft or moths.
IN NU-WAY
CLEANERS
Bonded Storage Vaults
$00
Including $100 Insurance
FOR
ONLY
for
each fur
Additional insurance may
be purchased if desired
Call us today for bonded pick-up service!
Your Charge
Plate Store .
H. D. CHRISTENSEN
m-w
601 E. Main St. Phone SP 2-9169
Free Parking - Right at the Door!
I!
nn
71
4
WITH
Firstomatic is a
plan designed to
help you build x
savings account
more quickly, eas
ily and conveniently.
if
f
m aw
V
m
Firstomatic lets
you "bu'y"a savings
account as
you buy many
things, with
planned, monthly
installment, earning
up to 3 interest.
many A
inn
4
Firstomatic works
with a combination
of checking and
u-. savings accounts.
l J You deposit
vour paycheck m
your checking ac-
r" count, then First
L National does your
savings for you, trans
ferring your regular
savings deposit
automatically:
7
To start your
' Firstomatic
savings, see any
teller or officer at
your nearby First Na-
tional Branch. It s sim
ple, easy and quick to
get your planned, First
omatic savings program
starred ...so do
I it no w!
AUTOMATIC
SAVING
Savings deposits mad
on or before April 10
earn interest
from April! st!
NATIONAL DANK
MEDFORD BRANCH
mrs uuo otieoM rooinai
jDnninm iniuM