This LAPD mugshot of gangster Johnny Stompanato dates from today in 1952, when he was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery. Stompanato was an Illinois boy who joined the army and after his discharge fell into the west coast gangster lifestyle. He quickly became well known to the cops. Beverly Hills police chief Clifford Anderson described him as “one of the most successful wolves in Hollywood,” which was a polite way of saying he was a pimp, blackmailer, and boy toy for a series of wealthy women, who he often shook down for cash. By the time these images were made he was living the high life as a connected subordinate to top tier mobster Mickey Cohen.

After numerous scrapes, liaisons and adventures, plus an arrest in 1956 for violating the White-Slave Traffic Act, aka the Mann Act, Stompanato met actress Lana Turner. It was the spring of 1957. Turner had just survived an ugly divorce involving a husband who molested her daughter from a previous marriage, and her movie career had taken a hit when MGM had declined to renew her contract. But she was still one of the biggest names in Hollywood, and Stompanato thought he’d finally found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Turner was rich, connected, beautiful, and wild. And she was drawn to him because he looked good, had a bad reputation, and was known to be a dynamo in bed.

Stompanato was accustomed to being physical with women, and, while Turner put up with the abuse, her daughter Cheryl grew less and less inclined to stand by and watch. One April night in 1958 Stompanato was allegedly roughing up Turner, when Cheryl—fourteen years old at the time—grabbed a knife and stuck Stompanato in the chest. Either by intent or lucky aim, one of the toughest and meanest wiseguys in Hollywood ended up cold on the floor, and the case became the tabloid sensation of the decade. Turner’s daughter was eventually acquitted at trial of murder charges on the grounds of justifiable homicide. The photos below provide a chronology of the events and aftermath of the night that brought Johnny Stomp to his end, and you can read a bit more about the killing at a previous post here.