Introduction: In this article, the first of two parts, James Pylant describes the misfortune and heartaches in famed actress Lana Turner’s personal life, including seven marriages and divorces. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.

Movie star Lana Turner, who died at age 74 on 29 June 1995, appeared in more than 50 films during her four-decade career. She received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for Peyton Place (1957), adapted from the scandalous best-selling novel. Yet the actress’s real-life scandals rivaled her melodramatic screen roles, with seven headline-making marriages and divorces.

Her family tree, too, had its own dramatic turns.

Lana was either led to believe, or came to assume, that her father was originally from Montgomery, Alabama, when in fact he was a native of the Volunteer State (Tennessee). After his death, she apparently had no contact with the Turner family and made no mention of them when discussing her background in her autobiography.

Although mother and daughter were close, Lana admitted that there were secrets that her mother never revealed. “Yet she was all the roots I had.” (1)

Lana – born Julia Jean Turner on 8 February 1921 in Wallace, Idaho – was the only child of Virgil M. Turner and Mildred Frances (Cowan) Turner. Her parents were wed in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, on 5 January 1920.

Paternal Roots

As a young man, Virgil worked as a miner. He was born on 11 September 1894 in Mount Pleasant, Maury County, Tennessee. (2) The 1900 federal census reported five-year-old Virgil Turner in the household of his father, Joseph Turner (born June 1871), a miner, in Maury County. Virgil’s mother, Nettie (born May 1875), worked as a cook. In Lewis County, R. J. Turner and Nettie Quillin were married on 28 June 1891. He died in Webb City, Missouri, on 20 September 1926 at age 56. His death certificate stated he was born on 28 June 1870 in Alabama, the son of Madison Turner. Nettie (Quillin) Turner outlived her husband by 36 years, dying on 17 April 1962 in Webb City. Her death certificate states she was born on 14 April 1876 in Centerville, Tennessee, the daughter of Lafayette Quillin.

Lana knew little about her father’s family background. “His ancestry was what my mother called Low Dutch,” she said. It was not until years later that the actress learned that it referred to Holland’s lowlands, rather than what she had assumed – humble origins. (3)

Virgil M. Turner (also known as John Virgil M. Turner) was found dead in San Francisco on the morning of 14 December 1930, the victim of a robbery and murder. At the time, he and his wife were estranged. Curiously, Virgil also used the alias Ernie Johnson.

Julia Jean isn’t mentioned until the last paragraph of this article:

Turner and his wife, who were married 11 years, have one child, Julia Jean Turner, [age 9], living with friends in Stockton [California].

Tomorrow’s Part II article touches on Lana’s maternal roots, including early deaths, scandal, and her kinship with other celebrities.

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Note on the header image: Judy Garland (left), Lana Turner, and James Stewart on the set of “Ziegfeld Girl,” 1941. Credit: MGM; Wikimedia Commons.

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(1) Lana Turner, “Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth” (Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1983), p. 17.
(2) Virgil Turner (Webb City, Mo.), no. 24-5-19-A, “U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918,” online database with images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 17 December 2024), which stated he was a miner.
(3) Lana Turner, “Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth,” pp. 9-10.