Quintessential rags-to-riches blonde lead of the 1940s and 50s, allegedly "discovered" while playing hooky from school and sipping a soda at Schwab's. Although full-fledged stardom took several years, Turner's future was assured when she played an innocent but naturally sexy, sweater-clad teenager whose murder rivets a small town in "They Won't Forget" (1937).
A popular pinup during WW2 and packaged as "The Sweater Girl", Turner's glamorous poise and elegant blonde beauty assured her success in a series of sudsy soapers and light romantic baubles. Her personal life was torridly publicized, particularly her love affairs and eight marriages to seven different men (Steve Crane was not completely divorced at the time he married Turner, and so the actress, pregnant with their daughter Cheryl, had to marry him a second time). Among her husbands, some of her best-known unions were with bandleader Artie Shaw, sportsman Bob Topping and cinematic Tarzan Lex Barker. In 1958, between Turner's superb performance as a repressed and repressive mother in "Peyton Place" (1957) and her similar and equally memorable role in Douglas Sirk's masterful weepie, "Imitation of Life" (1959), her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed to death Turner's then-boyfriend, gangster Johnny Stompanato, after he threatened Turner. Though Crane was acquitted on grounds of justifiable homicide, the fiasco included public readings of Turner's heated correspondence with the deceased, which only served to heighten her oversexed image.
As one of the ultimate embodiments of Hollywood allure, Turner dressed the set in many of her movies, but rose to the fore when cast well and when a strong director guided her performances. Rarely appearing in comedy, Turner, at once kittenish and womanly, indolent and inviting, conveyed a slick, glossy brand of glamour which commanded a loyal breed of fans for over twenty years. She was at her best in roles in which men's desires and her own ambitions and passions lead to unhappiness. Memorable characterizations in Turner's career include her aspiring showgirl in "Ziegfeld Girl", her mentally unstable gangster's moll in "Johnny Eager" (both 1941), her murderous temptress in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), her alcoholic movie star in "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952, in a role based on Diana Barrymore) and her suffering mother in the over-the-top soaper, "Madame X" (1966). Turner appeared in only a handful of films after the mid-60s but did very occasional stage work and also appeared on TV, notably on a season of the nighttime soap, "Falcon Crest."