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Lita Milan Profile
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Photo gallery |
| (Iris Lia Menshell) |
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| 33 | is born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, the younger of two girls. Her Hungarian father, Al, is a New York fur salesman; her Polish mother’s a homemaker. |
| ? | is raised in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn; she lives at 1302 Newkirk Avenue and attends PS 217 |
| Early 40s | at the age of eight she signs up her girlfriend Joan and herself for dancing lessons at the Casa Del Rey. They both belong to the same club, and she is always the most popular girl in the group. |
| 53 | begins dancing in Las Vegas |
| May 54 | is the slave girl in East Indian dancer Shan Varr's routine at the Thunderbird Hotel, Las Vegas |
| June 54 | is discovered for Columbia's Rough Company. The press heralds "Mexican Beauty Born in Brooklyn" and claims she was educated at schools in various European countries. |
| December 54 | is on the cover of Night & Day |
| c. 55 | her parents are very much against her going to Hollywood, and she leaves without their permission |
| July 55 | is featured in Photo |
| August 55 | with fellow "Baby Star" nominees Gloria Rhoades, 23, and Helene Stanley, 23, she's pictured getting a word of advice from Ginger Rogers |
| End October 55 | she and 14 other actresses are chosen as "WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1956" by a group of veteran actors and actresses, including Ginger Rogers. The other Baby Stars are Ina Poindexter, 23, Covington, Tennessee; Barbara Huffman, 21, Tucson, Arizona; Fay Spain, 21, Phoenix; Violet Rensing, 24, Berlin, Germany; Dawn Richard, 18, Los Angles, California; Donna Cook, 18, Los Angeles, California; Norma Nillson, 18, Los Angeles, California; Phyllis Applegate, 22, Los Angeles, California; Del-Fin Thursday, 20, Honolulu, Hawaii; Jolene Brand, 21, Baldwin Park, California; Roxanne Arlen, 21, Detroit, Michigan; Jewell Lain, 24, Indianapolis, Indiana; Doreen Stevens, 21, Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Barbara Marks, 22, San Diego, California. |
| June 56 | is seen at the Pen and the Pencil with Ralph Meeker |
| Summer 56 | attends acting classes with friends Fay Spain and Dawn Richard |
| ? | Kirk Douglas tries to touch her during a rehearsal on a sofa |
| 57 | has a fling with Steve McQueen while filming Never Love a Stranger |
| May 57 | a TV critic tells: "I don't often have anything good to say on behalf of 'The People's Choice,' but tomorrow's show has several obvious attractions, all of them belonging to Lita Milan, a young lady who tries to have her way with Jackie Cooper and largely succeeds." |
| the press tells she speaks French, Italian and Spanish |
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| November 57 | she and fellow newcomers Fay Spain and Inger Stevens are discovered after having their chance on NBC-TV in Albert McCleery's "Matinee Theater" |
| Christmas 57 | together with Johnny Grant, Fay Spain, and Valerie Allen, she's off on a USO tour of Europe. In Rome the girls look for men to marry. |
| January 58 | is seen at Jacks at the Beach with Lee Hyatt |
| 58 | has a passionate affair with Paul Newman during the filming of The Left Handed Gun |
| meets playboy-general Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Martinez, a.k.a. "Ramfis" Trujillo, Jr., son of Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo y Molina, for the first time when he enters the Mocambo with Kim Novak, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Porfirio Rubirosa. She thinks "he is Mexican, with his whiskers and his shiny blue hair." |
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| May 58 | has a furious feud with fellow actress Joanna Barnes over a white mink stole won by Joanna as a door prize at a benefit with tickets given to her by the early-departing Lita. “I never intended keeping it,” snaps Joanna, “but when I got an insulting letter from Lita, I turned the matter over to Warner Brothers to handle.” Angrily Lita replies, “I had to find out from friends that the fur had been won on my tickets. I don’t care about the stole. It’s quite horrible and I wouldn’t wear it, anyway. It’s just the principle of the thing. If Joanna doesn’t turn it over, I plan to hire an attorney to take legal actions against her.” |
| 15 July 58 | tagged the "Woman in Red," she is seen boarding Trujillo's yacht, Angelita, at San Pedro, California. He's 29; she's 24. |
| 16 July 58 | is suspected of running off with Trujillo while scheduled to begin a movie. Clad in a skin-tight red dress, she didn't get off before the boat departed. |
| there are reports that five hours later she's noted running down the gangplank, weeping with two of Trujillo's aides in pursuit. When they catch up, she sits down and weeps even more copiously. Trujillo watches from the deck. |
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| a spokesman for producer Edward Alperson tells that she called director Roger Corman via ship-to-shore radio Tuesday night from the four-masted Angelita. She requested that Corman skip her scenes in I, Mobster until her return. Susan Cabot is called into action and takes over her role. |
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| 17 July 58 | leaves the Angelita in San Diego, California, and is flown northward in a chartered plane. Alperson says he will file a damage suit against Trujillo if it can be proved that he took her on a journey against her will. Dockside observers, however, agree she boarded the Angelita without assistance just before it sailed. |
| ? | tagged the "Lady in Green," she takes another yacht trip with Trujillo |
| 21 July 58 | she and Trujillo show up at the Ensenada, Mexico, office of Justice of the Peace Miguel Santos Torres to ask for information about performing a wedding ceremony. Torres tells the couple this is impossible unless he has proof of divorce. Trujillo is reported to have recently secured a Mexican divorce from his Dominican Republic wife, Octavia Ricart, the mother of his six children. A week before he also proclaimed his love for actress Debra Paget. |
| 22 July 58 | is reported back from Ensenada returning for work, still an unmarried working girl. What happened between her and Trujillo that might have changed their plans is unknown. "Miss Milan breezed into Hollywood Monday, told her producer she was back and was unmarried." |
| 23 July 58 | abandons the Angelita in San Diego, California / Ensenada, Mexico, and is driven 220 miles to Los Angeles by one of Trujillo's aides in a rented car. Her departure brings a sudden halt to rumors that Trujilo was planning to marry her. "The general has no intention of getting married," she says. |
| 24 July 58 | is quoted saying that Trujillo is really a misunderstood "charming, delightful boy." |
| Late July 58 | says she keeps her figure because of her mirror: "Each morning when I get up, I look in a full-length mirror. I either eat or don't eat that day depending on what I see in the mirror." |
| is a surprise twosome with actor Steve Cochran at Art Williams’ Eldorado third anniversary party |
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| 27 July 58 | Trujillo charters a four-engine, 60-passenger Western Air Lines plane for "slightly under $10,000" to fly her and a party of five to Acapulco, Mexico, where he's vacationing aboard the Angelita. An airline spokesman says the plane carried her, Dr. Louis J. Betz, Dr. and Mrs. Vincent de Paulo, and three other men. The general paid with a check. |
| 2 August 58 | returns to Hollywood from another secret flying trip to visit Trujillo. She says she doesn't know when she’ll see Trujillo again. The general is en route home, but, she says, "That boat has a slow engine on it." She claims: “The girl I read about in the newspapers isn’t me. To me, that girl is a freak. I’m not flighty and I don’t get involved in scandals. I’m just adventurous - but I don’t mean a female adventuress. And I still don’t feel that I was involved in anything sordid.” |
| 5 August 58 | columnist Dorothy Kilgallen tells: "Lita Milan's friends report they haven't seen her or heard from her in months, but they don't know whether the actress is really 'missing' or just planning a publicity stunt similar to her headline - making 'romance' with Rafael Trujillo, Jr., when he visited California some months ago..." |
| 12 August 58 | completes her part in I, Mobster and leaves for the Dominican Republic |
| August 58 | moves into a new house in the Hollywood Hills. The press wonders if Trujillo made the down payment. |
| 17 September 58 | her agent confirms that she left sometime last month for the Dominican Republic after completing her part in I, Mobster |
| 21 September 58 | the press reports her forwarding address as "Cuidad Trujillo, Dominican Republic, care of General Trujillo" |
| March 59 | her friend, fellow actress Fay Spain, goes to the Dominican Republic to meet her but misses her because she is out cruising. Earlier Fay went to Cuba to try to meet Castro, but she failed there, too. |
| August 59 | her business manager, Mike Grande, begins to worry as he hasn't heard from her in several months. He recently leased out her Los Angeles home for a year. Eventually she cables Grande that she was ill the past several months but will depart from the Dominican Republic in a week for New York to visit her parents. |
| February 60 | columnist Walter Winchell tells: "Lita Milan gave up her coast home to dwell 'permanently' in the Dominican Republic. Trujillo's son Rafael is that daffy about her..." |
| 60 | marries Trujillo |
| Summer 61 | is the official wife of Trujillo and pregnant in Cuidad Trujillo. With his current lover, a Paris Lido showgirl, and her mother, Trujillo stays at his house in Boca Chica. |
| ? | lives with Trujillo on an estate at Maurice Barrès 82, in Neuilly sur-Seine, near Paris, France |
| ? | is reported having 80 fine coats, 600 pairs of shoes, and 4,000 pieces of jewelry |
| ? | her first son, Ramsés, is born. In 2000, she will tell author Mario Vargas Llosa that her son opposes the common opinion about the Trujillo family and is interested in Dominican culture. |
| Early 62 | moves with Trujillo to Madrid, Spain |
| February 62 | the press reports that "in knowledgeable quarters it is said that she and Rafael have had it" |
| c. 63 | her second son, Ricardo, is born |
| June 63 | lives quietly with Trujillo in Madrid, Spain. They have two sons. |
| November 64 | resides with Trujillo and their infant son in a Madrid hotel suite. Trujillo shuns the Madrid nightclubs and devotes himself to raising racing horses and polo ponies at the family stables with his brother-in-law, ex-General Jose Luis Leon Estivez. |
| 28 December 69 | becomes the widow of Trujillo, who dies at age 40 at a Madrid hospital of pneumonia contracted on Christmas Eve, the aftereffect of a devastating car crash eleven days before. A doctor flown from the States fails to save his life. He’s survived by their two sons, two sons and four daughters by his first wife, his mother, a younger brother and a sister. |
| 29 December 69 | attends Trujillo’s burial ceremony in Madrid |
| Late 70s | her father is accosted by a thief while in an elevator. When he resists, he is knifed and dies subsequently. The suspected killer is later shot and killed on a New York City bus while attempting to escape from a similar robbery attempt. |
| ? | becomes the darling of the Madrid yellow press |
| February 98 | attends the presentation of Valle Inclán at the Casino de Madrid together with the Duchess of Alba and other socialites |
| August 00 | her son Ramsés is reported living in Marbella, Spain. He composes boleros for the guitar. He’s interested in fine literature and speaks Japanese fluently. |
| 03 | resides in Madrid, Spain |
| ? | is reported liking to quote Satre |
| 05 | confesses that when talking to writer Llosa, she thought the author would ignore Ramfis’ soft personality, but now she can’t deny that Trujillo attended tortures and murders. He had psychological treatment in New York and Brussels. |
| Sources: Joan Gottlieb, Humberto Corado, Carmen Rigalt, Raul del Pozo, The Last Playboy - The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa by Shawn Levy, La Fiesta del Chievo by Mario Vargas Llosa, Trujillo - The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator by Robert D. Crassweller, The Berkshire Eagle, The Newark Advocate, Tri-City Herald, Stevens Point Daily Journal, The Daily Gleaner, Mansfield News-Journal, Panama City Herald, Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Frederick Post, The Hammond Times, The Vidette-Messenger, Indiana Evening Gazette, Long Beach Independent, The Holland Evening Sentinel, The Times Recorder, The Sun, Albuquerque Journal, The Kerrville Times, The Lima News, The Oneonta Daily Star, Nevada State Journal, Charleston Daily Mail, Parade, The Progress, The Port Arthur News, Eye, Adam, pro.Corbis.com | |
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| Links: Filmography | |