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This is a copy of a
wonderful photograph sent to the webmaster by Marvin C. Robinson. The story
Marvin has to tell is fascinating not only because of the link to Lana but
also because he was part of history being made at the end of WWII.
"There
was something magic about the golden age of the stars that is missing in
todays film fare. The reason I fell in love with Lana - at the time I was a
15 year old boy and she was my heart throb - was the movie 'Honky Tonk'
which she starred in with Clark Gable. In my estimation one of her greatest
movies. At the time, 1942 or 43 I lived in nearby Dallas, TX and that movie
ran for 13 weeks at the downtown Dallas Tower Theater and after its downtown
run, it came to our neighborhood theater where I was learning to be a
theater projectionist. I got to see her 13 more times as we ran this movie
Saturday, Sunday and Monday. In those days of theater projection we used
carbon arc lamps for projecting the picture on the screen. Recently I
visited a friend up in one of today's projection booths and it is amazing
how the technology has changed from yester-year.
I joined
the Navy and service as electrician on a destroyer called the USS Waldron. I
maintained a 36" searchlight on the #2 smoke stack of this ship. I also
became the shipboard projectionist and showed 'Honky Tonk' again out in the
South Pacific, in the rain I might add.
Then I wrote to Lana's Hollywood address and requested she send us apicture
and when we received it we ordained her as the USS Waldron DD699 Pin-up
Girl. That picture - dated April 1945 - hung in our electric shop all
during the war and when I was discharged in 1946 I took it with me and have
treasured it all these years. It has the inscription "To
the Electricians Mates of the USS Waldron DD699. Best wishes always. Lana
Turner". You will note that her public relations staff penned on
the picture. I would like to think Lana did it herself, but that is not
likely.
The Waldron was our ship and I am one of the original crew who put this ship
in commission June 8th 1944 and served on her throughout the war during the
kamikizi attacks in the spring of 1945 and we escorted the USS Missouri into
Tokyo Bay for the surrender 2 September 1945." |
