Bob Crutchfield, who worked as Senior Vice President TV Publicity at Lorimar Productions between 1980 and 1986.
"Very good friend of Jane's," he commented.
Lana Turner was the first one who came to his mind. I have mentioned that, preparing for our interview, I have watched one of the Lana Turner interviews from the early 1980's, which is available as a video clip on the Internet.
“I am sorry. I almost threw up on the floor,” he expressed his disdain about what the late actress had said back then. “I loved her saying: ‘Oh, that was just publicity — we [Jane and I] loved each other, we were the best of friends. That [the feud] was just done for publicity.’” Bob imitated Lana’s way of presenting that statement — and then lowered his voice and emphasized: “Jane loathed her. First of all, she was not flattered that they brought her in.” He referred to the producers' decision in season 1 to “spice up” the series. Family Reunion (episode 12 <1.12>) was the last episode CBS had original-ly ordered — their first order of the then - new series included 13 episodes, i.e. the original pilot (The Vintage Years) plus twelve episodes.
Bob pointed out that Jane was insulted that Michael Filerman, who co-ran the show at the time, insisted on bringing Lana in to bolster the ratings. “Jane said: '
What's the matter? Is there something wrong with the ratings of the show? Am I not a big enough star that you need to bring in a, you know, Hollywood legend?!'
He also mentioned that Lana oftentimes was not too secure with her lines. “I had to be very careful because I was supposed to be polite to Miss Turner as our guest star. On the other hand, if Jane caught me talking to her, I would get the cold shoulder for a day or so. It was not a happy relationship with Lana at all,” Bob emphasized and made it very clear that, when Angela said “goodbye” to Jacqueline in a season 2 scene — forcing her to leave the Tuscany Valley — it was not acting.
“That’s all very interesting,” I said, “because when you see the publicity photos that were taken of the two actresses…”
“Oh, I set them up!” Bob laughed.
“From those pictures, particularly the ones from their first day of shooting in Malibu Creek State Park where the Gioberti Family Cemetery was staged, you'd never guess that they didn't get along…” I continued. “They look as if they were having the time of their lives, with a warm welcoming for Lana…”
It was a difficult situation to get Lana and Jane relaxed enough for a publicity shot.
Since it was so complicated to get pictures of the two of them together, Bob explained: “A lot of the ones that you probably saw were shot by our staff photographer during filming with a blimp on his still camera so it made no noise so he could shoot while they were actually doing the scene from another angle. So they wouldn’t be posing for him.” He left no doubt that Lana made it very difficult to work with her on the set.
I had to admit, however, that — despite all the evil things Michael Filerman did to the series, — hiring Lana Turner was quite a clever move behiring Lana Turner was quite a clever move because it brought a lot of publicity to the show, and her storyline plus its aftereffects brought a whole new dynamic to the series, in particular because she perfectly fit into show
“ONE REASON WAS THAT LANA WAS ALWAYS A BIGGER MOVIE STAR THAN JANE WAS,” BOB REPLIED, “BECAUSE LANA WAS ONE OF THE MAYBE HANDFUL OF FIVE MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR MOVIE STARS THAT WERE IN HOLLYWOOD IN THE OLD DAYS, AND SHE DIDN 'T DO TELEVISION. SO THERE WAS A LOT OF CURIOSITY TO WATCH HER. BUT WE WEREN’T HURTING THAT MUCH IN THE RATINGS WHEN THEY PUT HER ON.”
You can read the entire interview
View attachment 47908
