Lana Turner Quotations

How long I had been asleep I don’t know, but suddenly I was sitting up straight in the darkness. Before me was a vision so intense that it seemed to be alive. I saw a huge medallion of shining gold, and on -- it was embossed the face of God, a shimmering countenance, comforting, benign. A voice said, Your father is dead. I was filled with awe but also with a strange sense of peace as I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

When I awoke in the morning, my mother and Julia Hislop were whispering in a corner. They didn’t have to tell me why. I already knew that my father was dead. And when the feeling of peace wore off, the surprise at having known intensified my sense of loss and sorrow. Although I was only nine, I could imagine what death meant. I knew he was gone forever.

It was all beauty and it was all talent, and if you had it they protected you.
-- on Hollywood.

While I was still in my first year at MGM, I tested for the role of Scarlett O’ Hara in Gone With the Wind. I had read the book and knew perfectly well that I could never play the role. That George Cukor himself was doing the test made it all the more embarrassing, for I knew of his importance as a director. I felt completely out of my league. I prayed for the test to be finished, just so I could get out of there. Years later, much to my horror, many of the tests for the show were shown on TV, mine included!  Needless to say, I wasn’t the slightest competition for the lady who eventually got it.

Hedy was at the height of her beauty, with thick, wavy, jet-black hair. With that stunning widow’s peak, her face was magnificent. We all looked up and there she was at the top of the stairs. She wore a cape of some kind up to her chin, and it swept down to the floor. I can’t even remember the color of the cape, because all I saw was that incredible face, that magnificent hair-and a huge diamond. The most fabulous solitaire diamond on her forehead, just at the tip of her widow’s peak. She was enough to make strong men faint.
–- about  Hedy Lamarr.

When I came back home Artie and Phil were smoking what they called reefers. I’d heard of marijuana, of course, but I’d never seen it before. It was associated mainly with jazz musicians. Artie and Phil offered me some, and I said no.

It wasn’t that I fell in love with Artie that night. I wasn’t even physically attracted. But here was a wonderfully intelligent man, far more talented and famous than Greg (Greg Bautzer a lawyer Lana had been seeing) would ever be, who took me seriously. And underneath it all I can see, looking back, was the desire to get even with Greg.  After the ceremony we went out to an all-night diner for coffee. Suddenly I realized that my mother had no idea where I was. The taxi drove us to the telegraph office, and I wrote out a message: Got Married In Las Vegas. Call You Later. Love, Lana.
-- on her elopement with Artie Shaw (after only one date).

Like me, he had been married before. But when he (Artie Shaw) proposed eloping to Las Vegas, though my inner voices were telling me to delay, I didn’t want to listen. An amazing man, handsome and cultivated and clever, loved me. And I passionately wanted him too.

One evening I made up my mind that it was time for a serious talk. I told Stephan that I couldn’t take it anymore, that the marriage was over and I wanted a divorce. He slammed out of the house in a rage. When he came back he said that he refused to let me divorce him. We were stalemated for a while because he wouldn’t move out. Once he locked our bedroom door and grabbed me by the arms, threatening to shake some sense into me. He kept shouting that I couldn’t divorce him, that I had to think of our child.
-- on her marraige to Steven Crane.

I rarely lie, but this time I did. I made up a story on the spot, though I was shocked to think of it afterward. I told Stephan that I was in love with another man. Who? he asked, but I said it didn’t matter. When he persisted I came up with a name. A second bold lie, the handiest name I could think of. It’s John Hodiak, I said.

I never dated Mickey Rooney, that adorable nut. He had unmistakable talent, and he knew he was a star.

How I admired and feared him. But at the same time I couldn’t help liking him. . . .He enjoyed teasing me because I blush easily. But he kept me on my toes, and I loved doing scenes with him.
-- on Lionel Barrymore.

I’d never seen anyone so beautiful and elegant, except at a distance. Although she had a delicious sense of humor, she still occupied a pedestal, and I was quite in awe of her. Someday, I told myself, I would be like her.
-- on Paulette Goddard.

But more important to me than money, was as always, the love I longed for. And finally I found it, if only for a moment. The man was Tyrone Power. I had always been attracted to him but I kept my distance because he was married. Then he and his wife Annabella separated, and one night he invited me over for drinks. What an evening! All we did was talk and listen to music, but for hours on end. We discovered we had similar thoughts and feelings, much the same values and tastes. Before he took me home he held me in his arms and kissed me, and my heart started beating faster. This was a man I could love.

My career was a hollow success, a tissue of fantasies on film. Cheryl loved my mother, and they were both comfortably endowed in my will. I had never before felt or believed I could be in such a dark hole mentally, physically, and worst of all spiritually. All the good in my life-my mother, my child, my work, my friends-was blotted out by the dead feeling that nothing really mattered. I hadn’t heard that suicide was a cry for help. To me it meant putting a big stop to the pain and anguish. There was none of that I’ll show them. Boy they’ll miss me when I’m gone nonsense. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I was aware that everyone would go on and survive, but I knew I definitely could not. I wanted out.

In a trance I opened the cabinet and took out the bottle of pills. Methodically I downed them one by one. Then I thought I would take no chances of being revived. So I took out a razor blade. I didn’t hesitate for an instant. With one sharp movement, I sliced across my wrist. There was no pain at all. I saw the blood spurt out and that was the last thing I knew.

I woke up in a darkened room at the hospital. Only one light was on, where somebody was working on my wrist. The pain was terrible.

Always before in moments of crisis I called on that power we call God to help me through. This time, having lost faith in others and my faith in myself, I had lost my hope in God too. Now that hope returned. I really believed that He hadn’t wanted me to die.

I just want to  be remembered as a sensitive woman who tried to do her job, that's all... I would like to think that in some small way I have helped preserve the glamour and the beauty and the mystery of the movie business.

Never look back is my philosophy.

Whoever started the idea that we (stars) are public property? We give the public performances, glamour, and a dream. But we are all human beings, and we should have moments that are our own. If I were just an ordinary working girl and someone asked me some of the questions I've been asked, I'd say, 'Get lost, Buster!' But I just take a deep breath and try to answer. I resent stupid questions, but I can't do anything about the Lana Turner image? I've lived with it too long.

You know those little toys they have for children, the ones that bounce back when you hit them? That's me.

There were girls who were prettier, more intelligent, and just as talented. Why didn't they make it? It's a question of magic. You have it or you don't, I guess, and the lucky ones have had it.  

The thing about happiness is that it doesn't help you to grow; only unhappiness does that. So I'm grateful that my bed of roses was made up equally of blossoms and thorns.

Honeymoon first, and if it lasts, then marriage. I like that.

Whether someone is straight, gay, or neuter has little to do with employability in my business.

Getting close isn't enough. They want to count your pores.

The truth is like surgery, it cuts, but it cures.

I want a man who has the brains to be satisfied with only me.

Left to my own devices, I'd starve to death-- I can't boil water.

How does it happen that something that makes so much sense in the moonlight doesn't make any sense in the sunlight?

MGM prepared us for stardom but not for life.

When you accept God, you're never alone.

No one I've ever met has more power than Louis B. Mayer, and that includes the president of the United States.

I have never broken up a home.

I can't face the day or an audience without vodka.

I would rather lose a good earring than be caught without make-up.

Humor has been the balm of my life, but it's been reserved for those close to me, not part of the public Lana.

I'm so gullible. I'm so damn gullible. And I am so sick of me being gullible.

It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

My life has been a series of emergencies.

On meeting President Roosevelt:

He didn’t wait for an aide’s introduction. He just extended his hand and said You are Miss Lana Turner.

All I could say was, Yes, Mr. President. He gave me a long look that seemed to take in everything. What made me do it, I don’t know, but I pulled back my coat so that he could see the lovely dress I was wearing.

My, he said. you are a beautiful young woman.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I understand you are all going dancing.

I believe so, sir.

As he smiled, his eyes twinkled at me. Then he said, Oh how I wish I could go with you.



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