Jean Wallace:
The Big Combo (1955), Allied Artists Pictures
For a little background, first take a look a Fab Fifties Fan's great post on Barbara Payton from a couple of months ago:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5112
We are also familiar with gangster Mickey Cohen and his bodyguard (and buddy) Johnny Stompanato from several previous posts:
www.allstarpics.com
Jean Wallace was right in the middle of all this noirish craziness. In 1941, she marries actor Franchot Tone at age 18.
Mutiny On The Bounty Trailer (1935)
After two kids together, she attempts suicide in May, 1946 by swallowing some pills. A couple of months later Wallace and Tone have separated. They divorce in 1948. At the divorce proceedings, it comes out that Wallace has been carrying on with Johnny Stompanato. Stompanato, as we know, ends up being stabbed to death by Lana Turner's daughter in 1958.
www.blondeepisodes.com
Wallace spends 1949 by stabbing herself with a butcher knife and being arrested on a DWI, wearing only a coat, panties, and slippers.
In 1950, Tone gets custody of the two kids and starts running around with Barbara Payton:
www.mattsko.wordpress.com
In the next two years, Jean Wallace marries actor Cornel Wilde and Tone goes on to run afoul of Payton's other boyfriend, Tom Neal:
www.people.famouswhy.com
Wallace and Wilde make The Big Combo in 1955. They hang on together until their bitter divorce in 1980. She dies at age 66 in 1990.
Oh, and what about our buddy, Mickey Cohen. He went on to be convicted twice of tax evasion and spent years in prison. He died in his sleep in 1976.
Out on bail in 1962, poor Mickey has lost his bullet-proof Cadillac and house in Brentwood. Here he is at his rented house in the Valley, with his new ride.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thed...key-cohen.html