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Johnny Stompanato Profile
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| 19 October 25 | is born in Woodstock, Illinois |
| ? | attends Woodstock High School |
| ? | enrolls at Kemper Military Academy in Booneville, Missouri |
| 43 | leaves the academy to enter the United States Marine Corps and serve in WWII |
| 46 | marries Sarah Utish, a Turkish girl, in China. He converts to Islam for her. They return to Illinois. |
| c. 47 | his son, John III, is born |
| ? | his wife walks out on him and remarries in Hammond, Illinois |
| ? | moves to California, where he starts working as a bodyguard and moneyman to Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen |
| 48 | Frank Sinatra asks Mickey Cohen to have Johnny stay away from Ava Gardner. Cohen tells him that he never mixes between men and their “broads” and that Sinatra should go back to his wife and kids. |
| 48 | marries 33-year-old actress Helen Gilbert |
| 49 | divorces Gilbert. She testifies: “Johnny had no means. I did what I could to support him.” She will later marry the owner of Victor’s Restaurant on the Sunset Strip. |
| October 52 | severs his ties with Mickey Cohen and starts steady-dating Helene Stanley, a former 20th Century-Fox starlet |
| December 52 | as her manager, he presents Helene with a big, fat star sapphire |
| 53 | marries 24-year-old actress Helene Stanley |
| 55 | divorces Stanley. She will marry a Beverly Hills physician in the late Fifties. |
| October 56 - January 57 | is off to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he tries to secure a sales franchise from a Danish manufacturer of dairy equipment. He also travels to Sweden and Brussels, Belgium. |
| ? | is arrested seven times by the LAPD for charges ranging from vagrancy to suspicion of robbery |
| February 57 | is off to Uruguay and Brazil |
| Summer 57 | gets Lana Turner’s phone number from Mickey Cohen. She recently split from her husband, actor Lex Barker. With her young daughter, Cheryl Crane, away at Ojai’s Happy Valley School, he and Lana start a torrid affair. |
| 58 | follows Turner to England, where she is filming Another Time, Another Place. On the set, he confronts leading man Sean Connery and tells him to keep away from Lana. Connery answers by decking Stompanato. |
| spends eight weeks with Lana at her expense in Acapulco, Mexico |
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| April 58 | their romance is apparently over, at least on Lana’s part |
| 4 April 58 | after a violent argument with Lana, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabs him in the back with a ten-inch butcher's knife in her mother’s bathroom at North Bedford Drive 730, Beverly Hills. He is 32 years old. When Cheryl’s arrested, Lana calls in attorney Jerry Giesler. |
| there are rumors that the reason for the murder was jealousy between Lana and Cheryl for the love of Stompanato. Cheryl is found guilty of homicide and transferred to the El Retiro Institution at San Fernando Valley. Despite security precautions, she escapes twice. |
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| 8 April 58 | his body is shipped back to Woodstock, Illinois, for burial. The coffin is covered with a flag, due to his service in the military. |
| is buried at Oakland Cemetery, Woodstock, McHenry County, Illinois |
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| Sources: Lana by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, www.findagrave.com, Picturegoer, The Hollywood Reporter, "Alex Gordon" in Science Fiction Confidential by Tom Weaver, www.crimemagazine.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Find A Death Crime Library | |