Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
There's something I haven't told you before. What? What? Camellia. Season 5. Dr. Dante. A production of Campside Media. Oh. Dr. Dante.
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My name is Ronald Dante and I'd like to thank you for inviting me into your subconscious to assist you through the magic of self-hypnosis. This recording is like having your own personal hypnotist with you at all times. If you try to track the legend of Dr. Ronald Dante, you'll hear some wild stuff. There were people that believed that Dante could mesmerize you with his eyes alone.
I've heard stories of comedians, lawyers, famous Hollywood actors who were afraid to look the man in the eye for fear of being hypnotized. But his voice really is where the power lied. As you're concentrating on the sound of my voice and on relaxation, your legs are growing very, very heavy too.
Your arms are growing very, very heavy, three. And if you were lucky enough to see a Dante hypnosis show live, there'd be no mistaking that you were watching a master.
Dante would step on stage, tall, dark, Vegas handsome, curly hair permed to perfection, suit pressed, nails manicured, immaculate. He'd take the mic out of its stand and begin. Everybody, of course, can be hypnotized, I'll be people. That is everybody who basically wants to be. Hypnosis is an extent of concentration and imagination. We have them both.
Hypnotism shows tend to be unpredictable. It's hard to tell how a group of subjects in the throes of hypnosis might react night to night. But while the shows all feel different, sometimes smooth, sometimes debaucherous, the framework is always the same. And the skills the hypnotist leans on are always the same. All of hypnosis, remember, above all, is self-hypnosis.
A hypnotist is only a guide. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm going to ask you some volunteers when I do hope we have as many as possible. Don't be bashful, whoever you are. As the hypnosis hopeful filed up to the stage, he'd watch them closely. I'm going to give you a little test. The test will show me several things. How well you concentrate, how well you can use your imagination. He'd watch how they listen, how they respond to his touch.
Sometimes he'd glance at their fingernails to see if they were a nail-biter, a subgroup famous for their susceptibility. Then Dante would make a judgment call, sending many from the stage back to their seats in the audience. "It does not mean that they were sent back, that they cannot be hypnotized. It only means that for one reason or another this is not the right time or the right place." If it was the right time or the right place for you and you remained on stage, he'd turn to face you and begin the induction.
He'd ask you to look into the stage lights, to slow your breathing, to focus on his words and his words alone. And he has you. You hand over the keys to your whole being as his voice becomes your world.
Disconnecting you from reality as he brings you to a new place. Suddenly, you're an artist. You're a dancer. You're a singer. Now you're hot. Unbearably hot. Now you're cold. You do anything he asks you to do for as long as he asks. Until he's done with you.
I love you all. Did you love these volunteers? Were they not gorgeous? Thank you so much, lovely people. Bye-bye.
The ability to capture a stage and an audience on your own is something I've studied and sought after for most of my life. I'm a solo performer myself, and the difference between people who can capture an audience and those who can't is a strange X factor. There's no recipe for it, but performers are constantly trying to bottle it, and you know it when you see it.
The first time I picked up a photo of Dante on stage in his prime, immediately, unmistakably, I could see it. His stage presence. In any image of Dante, at any stage in his life, his star power leaps off the page.
Like this one image of Dante holding a mic stand like he's Elvis, staring into the middle distance, eyes wild, possessed, as a row of subjects in their 1960s horn rims slump toward each other in the depths of hypnosis. I first learned about Dante from a filmmaker named Bradley Beasley, who spent a lot of time with Dante and conducted several of the interviews you'll hear in this series.
And once I dug in, like Bradley and so many people before me, I was captivated, consumed by a simple question: Who is this guy?
As I spent the past year combing through everything I could find about him, what became abundantly clear is that Ronald Dante, more than anyone I've ever seen or heard of, understood human desire. He could spot what people wanted, what their dreams were, from a glance, from a tick, from the shortest of conversations.
He would stand there always ready to swoop in and be the person, or at least seem like the person, who could make your dreams a reality. The skills that made Dante a great hypnotist were the same skills Dante would use in his other career too, as a con man.
His ability to read people, be charismatic, have poise under pressure. He honed these skills in the nightclubs and used them to climb to the top tier of a strange and impressive series of industries. Tracking the many incarnations of Dante will take us through yacht clubs, the Ivy Leagues, the courtroom dramas, trailer parks, theme parks, and prison cells. But
But before he would ascend to the dizzying heights of Hollywood, the cutting edge of the beauty industry, and the top tier of academia, before he would prove to be one of the most dynamic con men in American history, first, he needed a ticket to the game. A ticket he would buy one night in Hollywood, when he walked into a club, approached one of the most famous women in the world, and made her his.
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Dr. Dante. You are always in control. You're always aware of what is happening, so at all times, you will always be protected. Remember that. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. The following interview is being videotaped at the Dade County Public Safety Department, Miami-Dade County, Florida.
And sir, would you identify yourself? My name is Ronald F. Carver III. In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. Arriving in Miami, I proceeded to do certain things that I considered to be necessary to the crime that I planned to commit. I was looking for a hitchhiker, potential victim. But instead of becoming his victim, I became his confidant.
one of the people closest to him, as he recounted and was tried for his horrific crimes. From Orbit Media and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to My Friend the Serial Killer. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts.
If somebody says the right words, promises the right things, anybody can become a victim. Since the early 2000s, millions of handwritten letters were landing at people's doors all across America. She truly believed that this was going to save her mind from going further astray.
into the depths of demand shut. I'm investigative journalist Rachel Brown, and I'm going to tell you the story of a scam unlike anything I've ever seen and the shape-shifting mastermind who evaded capture for more than 20 years. We never in our wildest dreams thought that these schemes were at this scale. They'd been without water for two months. All they wanted in return was whatever it was that Maria Duval was promising them.
We open in a disco on a rainy night in Hollywood in 1969.
In 1969, disco hadn't officially arrived in America yet. But this was Hollywood, where everywhere you looked was the future. The Daisy Club, it's a little private club in Beverly Hills. It was a quiet night.
It was raining. From across the bar, Dr. Ronald Dante spotted a woman sipping a vodka. If you were to see this woman in any context, you would squint your eyes and think, she looks like somebody. Like a somebody. Regal, almost. Her whole life and career was built upon her looking like a somebody. She was discovered as a teenager sipping a Coke in a corner store when a man asked her straight up,
"Would you like to be in the movies?" So they put her in a minor role in a film as a teenager. And when she was on screen wearing a tight sweater, the men in theaters were rendered into cartoon wolves, eyes popping, slapping the table, howling at the piece of meat before them.
For the rest of her life, she was known as the Sweater Girl. So they gave her bigger roles in bigger movies. And by the end of the 1940s, she was one of the biggest stars in the world. The woman who would be Marilyn Monroe before Marilyn Monroe. This was Lana Turner. And on this rainy night at this disco, like so many men before him, Dante noticed her.
when his manager turns to him and asks, "Do you know who that is?" And I said, "No." And he said, "That's Lana Turner." One song later, Dante was confidently striding toward her, making his move, crafting his angle in the time it took him to cross the room. He asked her, "Would you like to dance?" Lana looked him up and down to do a quick calculation of her own. Handsome, nice suit, warm smile? Yes.
She takes his hand as he glides her to the dance floor. She just came back from a racetrack, she says, and she pointed out with two other people that she came there with. Two other people who were likely thinking...
Oh, Lana. Not again. Of the many things Lana Turner is known for, being the Sweater Girl or Madam X, she's perhaps best known for her many failed marriages. She had a solid half dozen of them by the time she met Dante. ♪
There was Artie Shaw, a jazz musician slash complete asshole. I knew the third day that it was not a marriage. Then Stephen Crane, husband number two, who, whoops, forgot to mention that he already had a wife. That was a bad scene. Third was Bob Topping, a kind man, until he drank. That was a mess. Fourth, Lex Barker, a fellow actor, man enough to play Tarzan in the movies, not man enough to be married to someone more successful than him. So then that fell apart.
Husband number five was Fred May, a good man. This one, she blames on herself. And that was very stupid on my part. And then there was ex number six, Robert Eaton, who, if you can believe it, also happened to be in the same disco the rainy night that Lana met Dante for the first time. They'd only been divorced for less than a month, and Lana was still raw about it. She caught him cheating on her. And now, there he was sitting at the bar, cavalierly flirting with a striking brunette.
Hollywood's a cruelly small town sometimes. Dante must have picked up on her brooding over her ex and understood that this was not a woman making bedroom eyes. This was someone who seemed in need of comfort, in need of a gentleman. Easy. As they dance, he asks her, and who might my dance partner be? Lana's taken aback. A man in Hollywood who didn't know who she was didn't come around very often.
Someone who didn't know who she was was about the most attractive quality Lana could imagine in a person. I'm Lana. Lana Turner, she says. Lana, it's nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Ronald Dante. And what do you do, Lana? She smiles and says, you really don't know? He shakes his head innocently. I'm an actor, she says. An actor?
As they sway in the disco in front of her ex, she looks up to him and says, "And you? What do you do?" He smiles and looks back to her eyes. "I'm a hypnotist." They talked of hypnotism, and he regaled her with stories of performing. Told her that for him, hypnosis is about so much more than stage entertainment. That it can be used for other things, like it can help you gain confidence, lose weight, or even help you quit smoking.
As they parted ways that first night, she gave him her home phone number. You know, to help her kick her smoking habit, wink wink. Dante held her number in his hand. It may as well have been engraved in gold for all that it would get him. But first, he had to romance. Two days later, the universally agreed upon appropriate amount of time to wait before calling, he rang her up. And they made plans to spend an afternoon together.
Dante chose his arrival carefully, on a motorcycle, clad in leather, an entrance fit for the movies. He was feeling it. I went on my motorcycle and I'm going down Sunset Boulevard, which is very windy, very windy avenue. He arrived at her mansion, took off his helmet, probably shook out his perm. And as Lana set her eyes on him, she thought of Marlon Brando in Wild Ones.
When he told her to hop on, Lana surprised herself by not hesitating. He had a way of inspiring confidence in people. She'd been a great many places and done a great many things, but she'd never been on the back of a motorcycle. He loved that bike, but he also loved that on the back of it, there was no room for a chaperone.
He wanted Lana to himself. Dante felt her clutch his leather jacket as they roared out of the driveway and tore through the hills of Malibu. Two perfect strangers on a high. He pulled up to Malibu Beach and helped her off the bike. They walked down the beach. Lana was feeling hopeful, but she didn't want to be. She was just out of marriage number six and was about to turn 49 years old. She was happy to be without a husband.
But his eyes were even more compelling in the daylight, and that voice of his pristine, a broadcast on a clear signal that grabbed her anew. He was unlike the others. He was odd in a charming way. Instead of pulling out all the stops to impress her with flowers and wine and gifts, instead on their first date, Dante pulled out a kite and they flew it there on the beach.
Nearly everyone comments on how great a listener Dante is, and Lana found herself really opening up to him. She felt so comfortable with him immediately, and Lana reminded him of their original deal. She said, "Are you going to hypnotize me or what? Are you going to help me quit smoking?" But Dante surprisingly demurred. Dante said, "I wouldn't feel comfortable hypnotizing someone I'm interested in romantically." "Wow," Lana thought.
"This is a man I can trust." While many people would have many things to say about this relationship in the future, it's important not to undercut what was happening here. Lana was falling in love. When Dante would drop her back home from their dates, Lana would hop off the bike in a daze and rush to tell the people in her life about her new love. To which everyone in her life, everyone who had seen this movie before, all had the same question.
Who is he? Well, for starters, I imagine her saying he's a doctor, a prefix that both she and Dante leaned into at every opportunity. He served as a Marine and he's an author. He studied in Singapore of all places. And that was where he earned his doctorate in psychology. Did I mention he's a doctor? He started his hypnotism act in Chicago before moving to California. And now he's a famous hypnotist.
He plays big rooms with big names. And he keeps good company. I used to go motorcycle riding with Clark Gable. Yeah, Sammy Davis and I went. Then I was on the Johnny Carson show. So did Elvis Presley catch my show all the time. You don't keep that kind of company if you're not someone special, she'd insist.
It meant that he must be good at what he does. But really, she didn't know the half of it. Despite all of Lana's talking points about him, everyone in the Lana Turner entourage remained skeptical. Her mother, her maids, assistants, hair and makeup people, agent, manager, accountant, everyone wanted more information about this guy.
it was hard to suss him out. No one could tag along with them to give an unsolicited second opinion because he always picked her up on that damn motorcycle. The biggest concern from Lana's people was simply the finances. In her marital wake were men financially much better off than when she found them. Her people just wanted to make sure that this dude wasn't after her money.
But then, one day when Dante picked her up, he accidentally left something in the driveway. His briefcase. And inside this briefcase were all of Dante's business documents. His private banking information, statements, balances and holdings. Holdings that, it appeared, if one was to say, open the briefcase and sift through its contents, were large. Very large.
We don't know for sure that someone rifled through Dante's briefcase that day. All we do know is that when Lana and Dante pulled back into the driveway later that night, there were no more people speculating about Dante, his intentions, or his money. And so, just a few weeks into their relationship, a familiar occurrence for Lana. Dante asked her to marry him. And she said no. And she meant no.
Things were going so well. Why is it always with the marriage? Her last marriage was still warm in the ground, and this would just ignite another new round of headlines. The last thing she needed were more stories written about her extending her lead on that damn Elizabeth Taylor in the Most Husbands competition. So the answer was no.
When she turned him down though, Dante took it surprisingly well, like a gentleman. And he left shortly after for a run of shows in Arizona. He didn't call her for a few days, perhaps because he knew what a few days alone would do to one Lana Turner. Because the next time they were on the phone together, space given, insecurities stoked,
he asked her to marry him for a second time. And this time, it was a yes. And so it was that a mere three months after meeting in the discotheque, just weeks after her last divorce was final, the two lovebirds met in a wedding chapel in Vegas to tie the knot. But tighter this time, Lana hoped. Husband number seven. And they were married. Whenever she could, Lana would go to see Dante's nightclub show.
She worked in the day on a film set, he worked at night. So hanging out in each other's dressing rooms was pretty much the only time the newlyweds had together. She'd sit in a low profile spot in the club, but he'd always point her out proudly to the audience. And she'd be a good sport, giving a queen-like wave before sitting back down to watch her husband go to work. She'd stare with wonder as he'd induce his subjects. When I touch your foreheads, I want you to let yourself collapse deep into your chair.
When the individual sitting next to you shall lean upon you or you upon them, it'll only relax the both of you.
She'd watch him move around the stage like a matador, always with swagger, always in complete control. It was intoxicating watching her husband do his thing in the lights. We're dealing with creative imaginations. See which ones have the most of that, okay? And I count on you lovely people. I want all of you to sit up straight in your seats. Once you sit up in your chairs, put your hands in your laps. Head up and above all eyes, always shut.
until I tell you to roll from them. One, two, and three. Sinistrate all of you. Eyes closed. Sinistrate. Eyes closed. Sinistrate. But it was always Dante's closing bit that was most remarkable.
At the end of nearly every show, Dante stands on the apron of the stage and calls for one last volunteer. I want a young, before you volunteer, please hear me out. I want a young, slender, sober girl. I want somebody as small as possible if there's a reason for this. There was a time when this bit was commonly attempted among hypnotists, but you don't see it done anymore. And there's a reason for that.
It's dangerous, it's difficult to pull off, and it often leads to lawsuits. And even if you were really good at it, it didn't work every time. The small woman would make her way to the stage, and he'd make quick work of her induction. Deep breath. And once he had her, Dante tells her to tense her body, to become completely rigid, solid, a perfect steel beam.
He then, with great ceremony, lays her a perfect plank across the back of two folding chairs, her torso completely unsupported, like a board over a sawhorse. Dante would climb on one of the chairs with a theatrical intensity in focus, or perhaps an actual intensity in focus, and he would lift a foot and softly place it on the woman's stomach.
In an instant, Lana, along with the rest of the audience, would imagine the 20 ways this could go wrong. If the chair buckles, she could land on her head, Dante falling on top. She could permanently injure her spine. She could hit her neck, million-dollar baby style. It felt dangerous because it was dangerous. Reckless, even. But Dante's face in the moment before would be placid.
The way Dante would succeed at this where others would fail was that he never worried about consequences. Not here, not ever. With one foot planted on her stomach, Dante would lithely move his 200 pounds atop her 100, standing as she clenched every muscle beneath him. The chairs would quiver, but the small woman would not as the crowd would gasp.
Lana would stare at her husband posing atop the woman with a flourish, the perfect image of trust between operator and subject. When you go through the old newspaper archives looking for Dr. Ronald Dante stories, prior to his marriage to Lana Turner, there's almost nothing.
It's almost like he didn't really exist before Lana. But there was one story about him that she didn't know. One small story tucked away in the Miami Herald from 1962, seven years earlier. The headline read, "Tragedy-plagued widow sues over hypnotized marriage." A Florida woman named Claire Kisiel was seeking an annulment in her marriage to Dante.
She first met Dante following a period of unconscionable tragedy in her life, in which she lost two of her children. The trauma of it caused her to be in poor health, and her weight dropped to just 75 pounds, which is what first brought her into Dante's orbit. She'd heard about the therapeutic and clinical applications of hypnotism,
She learned that hypnosis was used to treat everything from bedwetting to drug addiction to disordered eating. And as luck should have it, she learned that one of the best hypnotists in the world was presently in her town doing a run of shows. So Claire went to Dante's show and approached him afterwards, imploring him to hypnotize her, to help her gain weight, get her health back.
Dante agreed to work with her and he started meeting with her regularly, hypnotizing her. She remembers his early sessions with her and claims that initially she did start feeling better and gaining weight like she hoped. But then her life was engulfed by a cloud of confusion. Suddenly she found herself in Chicago, standing at the altar with Dante, saying, "I do," not knowing what was happening. And then he was gone.
The lawsuit claimed that Dante had hypnotized Claire into giving him her hand in marriage and nearly $20,000. Through her lawyer, she alleged that under the influence of hypnosis, she was rendered incapable of exercising her own free will and judgment. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
In 1969, Lana was several years removed from her last hit movie when she decided to make the risky pivot from the big screen to the small screen. For people like her, there was a stigma to working in TV at the time. But this show? This show seemed like a home run. It was called The Survivors. It had a stacked cast, the biggest budget in TV history, and was helmed by one of the most successful authors of all time, Harold Robbins.
It was genuine prestige television. Harold Robbins, The Survivors. It was a precursor to Dallas. People who have it all and want more. And in every episode, there was Lana Turner. He'll always hate you. You learn to live with that. Because it's going to be a fact of your life. It's going to turn you into a bitter, frustrated old man. Get out! There was just one problem. The show was terrible. Uh...
It didn't go over that well. The scripts were so bad that most of the cast couldn't even understand what was happening in the story. Lana felt increasingly insecure. She'd yell at her co-star for upstaging her, at her costume designer for dressing her too matronly. And there were so many cocktails being served at lunch that no one could hit their mark when it was time to shoot again in the afternoon.
And on top of everything else, the rigors of a TV schedule were burning her out. All she wanted to do was spend more time with her new husband, a person she was still trying to get to know, really. They were doing their best. He'd call her in the dressing room. She'd go on the road with him on weekends in lieu of rest. But it felt more like they were chasing each other around than actually spending time together.
So when an invitation came in the mail one day, Lana's face lit up.
She was cordially invited to be the guest of honor at a fundraiser for a children's hospital in San Francisco. The event promised to combine Lana Turner's two favorite things, helping children in need and celebrating Lana Turner. And it offered a chance for the two consummate performers to finally share the stage together. She was supposed to give a speech and she wanted to know if I can give a speech for her. And I said, of course, because I was a speaker.
Finally, a weekend off with her husband in one of America's most beautiful cities, everything was set for a memorable trip for the newlyweds. And it would be memorable, just not in the way that Lana was envisioning.
On the day they embarked on the fateful trip to San Francisco, Lana's hair and makeup team worked on her for so long that in true Lana Turner diva fashion, they missed their flight. So, arrangements were made for another flight, and they almost missed that one too. They arrived at the event 45 minutes late, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a husband and wife in all the world more comfortable when it came to the prospect of making an audience wait.
They both knew that as soon as they appeared on stage in almost any context, that all would be forgiven. The crowd erupted as Lana took the stage with Dante, as everyone got a glimpse at her gorgeous new husband for the first time. But then, as Lana started talking into the microphone, it became apparent that the day of travel had rendered her very drunk.
Dante stood beside her at the lectern, steadying her. She was bawling all over the place. She gave the speech, and she was wiped out of her mind. Somehow, she got through her speech and Dante his. And then Lana sang a rendition of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," in which she forgot most of the words. And then Dante whisked her off stage so that they could do the thing that they did better than any couple on earth. They worked the room while also working their way to the exit.
and they made it outside. Their obligation was fulfilled, and the night was young. They were in San Francisco in 1969, and they were gonna party like it was the last night in the world. And in one sense, it would be.
So that night we went to, uh, Finocchio's. It's a gay club. Lana was summoned on stage by one of the queens, where, for the second time this night, she sang. Only this time, it killed. I mean, when Lana came in, this was their goddess. From the drag show, they went flamenco dancing. She learned how to do the flamenco, apparently, in one of her movies. And then to a Moroccan place for last call. Where they wear these fez caps. All night, they painted the town red.
It was 2 in the morning, but Lana and Dante felt like they were still just getting going. Before they carried on though, Lana said that she wanted to change quickly at the hotel, and that also she had a hankering for a sandwich. And this sandwich hankering would prove to be a pivotal, momentous sandwich hankering, one that all involved would ruminate on and talk about for the rest of their lives.
Because when Lana voiced her hankering, Dante was like... I said, let me go get some sandwiches for you.
The event organizer had already volunteered to get the sandwiches himself, but Dante was insistent that he wanted to tag along in the limo. Maybe to pay for the food, Lana assumed. That's nice of him. But as Lana waved to her husband through the limo's back window, she had no way of knowing that this would be the last time she would ever see Ronald Dante.
Up in their hotel room, Lana and Taylor, her assistant, were fixing another drink when the phone rang. Taylor picked up. The organizer who'd gone with Dante to pick up the sandwiches was calling from the lobby, and he said, he's gone. Who's gone? Asked Taylor. Dante. Dante.
Down in the lobby, the organizer recounted the story. They were almost to the sandwich place, he said, when the limo stopped. And then, without a word, Dante got out and just walked away. Taylor asked, where was he going? He didn't say anything. So Taylor goes upstairs and delicately breaks the news to Lana that her husband, the man they just spent a storybook night with, has disappeared. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. The truth about the relationship between Ronald Dante and Lana Turner was that Dante had no interest in building a life with her. He was getting stir-crazy with the pace of her life, the limos, the lackeys, the custom-made formal wear, the never-ending stream of invitations to dull industry events. Everything was...
It was too phony. Too phony for me. He knew a life with Lana would be one of people handing you things. For God's sakes, she was drinking a Coke when someone said, do you want to be a movie star? Whereas Dante had to claw and hustle to get everything that he had, relying on his wits alone. Wits that were in danger of wilting in this chauffeured life. Really went limo here, limo there.
I couldn't handle, I don't mind people driving me, but I didn't like the idea that everything was limo this, everything was pretentious. And Dante had things to do, places to go, industries to conquer. And now he had his ticket. I had the driver, the limo driver, drive me to the airport and I went home. Ba-boom.
Back in the hotel room, Lana was aghast. What do you mean he's gone? They considered calling the police, maybe even the morgues, but when they discussed it further, they reasoned that Dante probably wasn't in danger.
He left. He had disappeared himself. So they waited around for one more day in San Francisco. But when he didn't show, they flew back to L.A. And when they pulled into Lana's driveway, Dante's motorcycle was gone.
In their bedroom, his drawers and closet were empty. And all that was left was a note in the master bedroom, typed out on the official Lana Turner stationery that read, "It's obvious that you have your things to do and I have mine, and I have to keep on doing them." Lana fainted and fell to the floor. Lana had indeed married a master of his trade.
She just didn't realize what he was trading in. In the relationship between a hypnotist and the hypnotized, only one person is fully tethered to reality. And Lana saw the puppet strings now. He always picked you up on the motorcycle to isolate you. When you turned down his first proposal, he worked to stoke your insecurities so that when he asked a second time, it'd be a yes.
And that briefcase full of documents left in the driveway? They were all fakes, forged by a master. And now Lana, breathe in, breathe out. Three, two, one. After that, Lana's show was canceled. Husband number seven was gone. And Lana was a mess.
After a few weeks of drinking and wallowing, a friend of hers took pity on her and invited her to stay with him at his beautiful place in Palm Springs. When one night, at three in the morning, someone gently shook Lana awake and said, "Your ex-husband is on the phone." Her mind flipped through the rolodex of ex-husbands as she put the receiver to her ear. Dante said, "I was thinking about you."
I just had to hear your voice." There was no explanation, no apology. Only a monologue where Dante said that he thinks they should still be friends, and that he missed her. That it really was sad that things hadn't worked out. "What are you wearing, by the way?" he asked. "I'd like to visualize you as you are. The Gaul." Before they hung up, Dante said, "One more thing. How long will you be staying in Palm Springs?"
Lana told him three or four days. He said, have a good time and hung up. In the morning, when she recounted this conversation to her friends, everyone concurred that this was indeed sketchy as hell. So Lana was compelled to go home, not three or four days from now, but the next day.
Lana and her assistant Taylor drove back to LA and Lana's black Cadillac pulled into the driveway just as it was getting dark. They unlocked the front door, but both froze as they saw that the doors to the pool were wide open, the sheer draperies blowing in the moonlight. Her assistant went ahead of her and they walked through the house clutching each other, turning the lights on one at a time. But nothing looked askew until they got to the bedroom.
There was a secret locked drawer in Lana's room that had been pried open, and its contents, which included upwards of $100,000 worth of jewelry, was gone. When the police arrived and swept the property, they asked Lana if anyone in her life knew about that drawer. Yes, there was one person. The jewelry was never recovered, and no one was ever charged.
For the remainder of her life, Lana would be forced to talk about her husband at just about all of her media availabilities. But of the seven, she always seemed especially disinterested in getting into the Dante marriage. One of the rare times she did open up was on Brian Gumbel, when he asked her if the marriage to Dante was a mistake. Mistake? Oh, total. Total. I wish I could prove that he hypnotized me, but I have no way of doing that.
Well, that would give me a reason for doing such a dumb thing as marrying him, because he was a real thief. He stole from you? Oh, yes. How could you have been so gullible? Vulnerable, gullible, you name it, I was it. But now I'm the new Roman. I mean, I've lived alone, and I am a chosen celibate.
Of all of Dante's accomplishments, perhaps his most incredible was that he single-handedly drove the great Lana Turner, legendary seductress and sex goddess of the silver screen, to never be with another man again.
When their case finally landed in divorce court, Dante tried to get more money from Lana by making a fake prenuptial agreement that the judge threw out. Dante also sought the right to use Lana Turner's name for, quote, "various uses." That was thrown out too, but it didn't stop him from using her name for the rest of his life anyway.
In the year they divorced, I found an ad in the paper for his hypnotism show with the headline, Lana Turner's favorite husband, Dr. Dante, PhD, world's most famous and imitated hypnotist. She'd earned herself one more divorce, but he had earned himself a magic wand.
A way to make the tales he spun more legitimate. The names he dropped, the money he claimed to have. A way to, with a wave of her name, make it all seem more plausible. While his marriage to Lana Turner might be the first line in every story written about Ronald Dante in the coming decades, it would not be the most bizarre part of his story. Not by a mile.
In the years that would follow, the decades his ploys would span, the borders it would cross, the industries it would encompass, the millions of dollars and thousands of marks he would gather along the way, Lana Turner was merely the prologue. But that was all in the future. It was the 1970s now. And before any of that, Dr. Dante had a murder to plan.
This season on Dr. Dante. He is Ronald Pella, a legendary conman. He's hustling wannabe hypnotherapist. I was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid speaker in the world. Columbia State University. The school promises a bachelor's degree in 27 days. It can be done in 25 days. Columbia State University.
Made millions of dollars. Thousands of victims. I've been betrayed. It's a toxic memory. I think he liked fucking with people's heads. Dante was amazing. He just was so brilliant. It just seemed so ballsy. He contracted somebody to go kill a rival hypnotist. He said, if I don't want to go to prison, I got to go south or north. Canada or the other place.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. Dr. Dante was written and hosted by me, Sam Mullins. It's produced by Aboukar Adan and edited by Karen Duffin. Our associate producer is Tanita Rahmani. Original music, sound design, and mixing by Garrett Tiedemann.
Additional music by APM and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Lauren Vespoli. Our consulting producer is Bradley Beasley. Special thanks to Johnny Kaufman and to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Aaliyah Papes, and Destiny Dingle. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Matt Scher, Vanessa Grigoriadis, and Adam Hoff.
A lot of details in this episode were gleaned from two terrific books: Lana Turner's autobiography called " The Lady, the Legend, the Truth" and "Always Lana" by Jeff Rovin and Taylor Pirro, who was Lana's longtime personal assistant.
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