Cheryl Crane
Cheryl Crane (born
July 25,
1943) is the daughter of the late
actress Lana Turner and her second husband, Actor-restaurateur Josef Stephen Crane. At age of 14, on
5 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. [
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, 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 "as a second daughter".
* Lamparski, R. (1970)
Whatever Became Of...?, Ace Books, New York.
*
E! Online - Lana Turner & Cheryl Crane*
The Death of Johnny Stompanato at The Crime Library
