A star at 7, in prison at 22. Then she vanished. Here's what happened to former child actor Lora Lee Michel.
Throughout the history of Hollywood, child entertainers have consistently clashed with their parents and guardians who manage their money and lives. The stories of kid stars like Britney Spears and Gary Coleman are well known. But long before them, was child actor Lora Lee Michel. In the 1940s, Michel became a famed Hollywood actress at age 7, working alongside screen legends like Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper. But by the time she was 22, she landed in prison. Then she disappeared.
Today, part 1 of a two-part series tracing Michel’s life. It’s a story that reveals the underbelly of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the perils facing child actors. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times Company Town reporter Stacy Perman
More reading:
A child star at 7, in prison at 22. Then she vanished. What happened to Lora Lee Michel?
An old VHS tape gives a son a glimpse of his father’s shot at fame in 1960s Hollywood
Explaining Hollywood: Your child wants to act. What do you need to know?
Times Intro MUX
Gustavo: Throughout the history of Hollywood, child entertainers have consistently clashed with their parents and guardians who manage their money and their lives. You know names like Britney Spears
Spears Lawyer: She helped shine a light on conservatorships and guardianships from coast to coast…
Gustavo: And Gary Coleman.
Gary Coleman: I wouldn't be an actor. I would be in Zion, Illinois, probably working at Kmart or Wendy’s. That is a more decent way to live.
Gustavo: But before them in the 1940s was child actor Lora Lee Michel.
Tokyo Joe: Is that for me? Well it sure is and a happy birthday. Isn't it beautiful? What do you think is inside? I know what's inside, Do you really? What? Well… open the box down here.
Mux Beat drop here
I’m Gustavo Arellano. You’re listening to THE TIMES, daily news from the LA Times.
It’s Tuesday, July 12, 2022.
A Hollywood actress at 7 who appeared next to screen legends like Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper ended up in prison by the time she was 22. Then… she disappeared.
Theme mux bump to fade out
Gustavo: LA Times company town reporter Stacy Perman spent a year trying to find out what happened to Lora Lee. Stacy, welcome to The Times.
Stacy: Thank you for having me, Gustavo.
Gustavo: So how'd you get interested in this story?
Stacy: Well, it was one of those stories that kind of came through the transom. A friend of Lora Lee's sister, Barbara, reached out to The Times. Barbara is in her late 70s. She'd been looking for her sister for decades with little luck.
Barbara: So it's been a very sad trip for me not to be able to find her. I would like to have closure. To know what happened to her, or why she never tried to find me or where is she?
Stacy: And thought maybe the L.A. Times would be interested because a large chunk of this story was // these two crazy trials that happened in 1950 that we covered extensively back then.
Barbara: Maybe I can find myself resting in peace about her. I would very much like to know if she's deceased. Yeah. Because there've been many times that I had wished that I had a sister to turn to. Right. To talk to you. Sure.
Stacy: And literally it was just one of those, “Would you be interested in taking a look at this?” And off we went.
Gustavo: What did you initially find out about Lora Lee Michel?
Stacy: Well, I found out that Lora Lee Michel was actually born
MUX IN
Virginia Joy Willeford in September 1940. She was from LaGrange, Texas. It was a small town. Her parents were Lena and Willie Walker Willeford. They had about five or six children and their marriage fell apart pretty quickly. The children were all given to other families. There's various versions of what happened to them. In one, their mother, Lena, just took off with a Baptist minister, leaving uh Willie with the kids that he couldn't care for. And, in another version children's services came in and placed them in new families.
MUX OUT
Stacy: But in the case of Lora Lee, she met a couple named Lorraine and Otto Michel in Schulenburg, a small town in Texas. They were a childless couple and they were old enough to be her grandparents. I think it's interesting that at five years old, not only did they adopt her, but they changed her name to Lora Lee.
Gustavo: I mean, changing her name at 5, they‘re basically changing her whole identity there. That's kind of messed up.
Stacy: Yeah. I mean, I think this is something that followed her throughout her life. When they adopted her, she had an identity, she was Virginia Joy Willeford. She had a family, she had siblings, and now she was put into a new family in a new town with a new name. It was a reset.
MUX IN
Stacy: And it became very apparent that she had a lot of talent and precocity and soon they started putting her in these little pageants around Texas. And it was at one Lions Club banquet that was just filled with Texas dignitaries, including Beauford Jester, who would soon be the governor. She so entranced them that one of these bigwigs sent a telegram to Warner Bros. and said, if you don't give this girl a screen test, you're missing out on a million dollars worth of Texas talent.
MUX OUT with pause
Stacy: About a year later, Lora Lee and her adoptive mother, Lorraine, landed in Hollywood and, you know, began the trajectory that so many hopefuls from small towns and big towns across America do – go to auditions. They take dance classes. They get agents. And very soon, uh, she was appearing in a number of, of big films.
Gustavo: She’s adopted by the Michels’ at age 5 then a year later she’s in Hollywood.
Stacy: Yeah, a year later, she's in Hollywood. So her life is completely upended on, on every level, from her identity to her geography. And she's told she's talented. She is talented. But they channel it into a professional showbiz career.
Gustavo: What were some of her early roles that started getting her attention?
Stacy: Well, I think the first one was “Good Sam.” She played the daughter of Gary Cooper and Ann Sheridan. And there's a great scene where Gary Cooper is putting her to bed and trying to tell her fairytales and he keeps messing up the stories and she's correcting him. And it’s… I mean, you would be hard pressed not to smile when you see that scene.
Good Sam: .Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Cinderella. And…she had two wicked sisters. And didn’t she have a wicked aunt, too? Oh yeah. She used to make Cinderella work from morning ‘till dark. Well, anyway, along came a fairy godmother and changed little Cinderella into a beautiful princess. What about the mice, Daddy? What mice?
Stacy: And…her sort of sassiness and, and preciousness, you know, all came together. Um, sort of the story that was told was during the audition process, there were 10 girls up for the role and she told the director, make up your mind and send the other nine home.
Gustavo: A cooler version of Shirley Temple, basically.
Stacy: Well, yeah, and she was hailed as the next Shirley Temple. That was something that the press glommed onto very quickly in her early and short-lived career.
Gustavo: But as she’s starting to gain some roles, then her life gets completely, completely changed.
Stacy: Right.
Mux in
Stacy: So in January of 1950, her agent, a woman named Ona Wargin, picked her up at the family's apartment to take her to a modeling interview. And instead of taking her to the modeling interview, she took her to the police.
MUX beat
Stacy: And alleged that Lora Lee's mother had abused her…
MUX beat
Stacy: …That she had seen bruises. And Lora Lee, you know, went along with the story for the police. And this kind of set in motion the unraveling of not only her career, but later, her life.
MUX beat
Stacy: First, Lora Lee's adoptive mother, Lorraine, was arrested on abuse charges and her husband, Otto, flew to Los Angeles from Texas. She made bail and was released from jail. And while they were awaiting this abuse trial, Lora Lee's biological mother arrives in Los Angeles after she was apparently contacted by Ona Wargin. She claimed that the Michels’ adoption of Lora Lee was a fraud. So now the couple were facing two trials, one for custody and the other over abuse allegations.
MUX OUT
Gustavo: We'll be right back.
BREAK 1
GUSTAVO RT: Stacy, Lora Lee was in the center of these two big trials with a lot of conflicting points of view, so things get confusing really fast. So, the Michels, what’s their side of the story?
STACY RT: Well, I had access to letters that Lora Lee's adoptive father, Otto, had written back home to his brother during this time.
MUX in
STACY RT: He claimed that Ona Wargin, the police, Lora Lee's biological mother and others were basically conspiring against them in order to enrich themselves. He believed that Ona Wargin had lured Lora Lee's mother to Los Angeles, you know, to bolster their attempt to gain custody of the girl. And the Michels believed that all of these allegations against them and the trials were basically a scheme, a kind of ruse to take control of Lora Lee, who everyone seemed to think was a revenue stream.
MUX fade OUT
GUSTAVO RT: And what about the plaintiffs in these cases? Uh.. Ona Wargin and Lora Lee’s birth mother, Lena?
STACY RT: Well Wargin’s version was that she was simply advocating for the child that she had noticed bruises. She thought abuse was happening and she went to the authorities, Lena, Lora Lee’s biological mother, claimed that she only gave her up because her husband, Lora Lee’s birth father, threatened her with violence if she didn't do so. She claimed that she didn't know what became of the girl and she didn 't have resources to find her. It was only after she saw the movie “Good Sam,” in which Laura Lee appeared, that she realized she had gone to Hollywood.
GUSTAVO: And the center of these trials, Lora Lee, how did all this affect her?
STACY RT: This was a girl that just seemed to be caught in the middle.
Mux in
STACY: I mean, if you read about the trial and her testimony and all that went on, there was this whiplash effect. It just seemed that she was a child actor who was acting out and just really trying to please the different adults in her life. But it's clear that she was at odds with what was going on and with everybody, but she just couldn't advocate for herself. And everyone's interests were being projected onto her.
MUX OUT
Gustavo: // How did the public, like, who did the public side with?
Stacy: Initially the public sided with Lora Lee thinking that her adoptive parents were basically exploiting her for her money. There were quotes in the newspaper that they, um, that supposedly the parents were overheard saying, you know, we're broke, she's all we have to support us.The parents countered that, you know, Otto, her adoptive father said that, um, he never wanted her to go to Hollywood in the first place that, um, the bills were mounting, that he sold his war bonds in his property just to keep her in Hollywood and working.
Gustavo RT: Who do you think was telling the truth?
Stacy: I think all sides had a little bit of truth. You know, she was probably being exploited by her agent who had a scheme up her sleeves. I think her, her adoptive parents also, you know, were working an angle. Like I said, she was making, you know, for the time and for their family, an awful lot of money.
Gustavo: And she's still all of like 10 years old at this point.
Stacy: Yeah, she was 10.
Gustavo: Ay.
Stacy:I think we all think of show business as glamorous, and it is. But I think for people working in it, particularly children, it's an entirely different universe. I know there was a, a headline in one of the papers that kind of summed up this sort of disconnect between what she was experiencing and what people thought. //
MUX IN
Stacy It said something like, “Lora Lee would rather eat pie than be in motion pictures, you know, that's perplexing, juvenile authorities.” And I just thought it was an interesting perspective on this because you had adults looking on the outside in like, how could she not want to be in pictures? Why would she want to eat pie? But she really just wanted to be a kid and she was living in an adult world playing a kid.
MUX OUT
Gustavo: We’ll be right back.
BREAK 2
Gustavo RT: So what was the final verdict in the trials? //
Stacy: Well, the mother, Lorraine, was acquitted on the abuse charges and also won the custody hearing. So her biological mother lost her attempt to win her daughter back. And interestingly enough, she sort of slinked out of the courtroom and was never heard from again. I spoke to one of her granddaughters who was a daughter of one of the older children, and she stayed in touch with her in her later life. And she said she never recalled her bringing up — well to her it was Virginia Joy, but she never recalled her speaking the name or mentioning her daughter again.
Gustavo: What's interesting to me is: OK, the, the adoptive parents get acquitted of abuse. And yet… here's Lora Lee proclaiming, like, I don't like my parents. So what, if anything, did the jury, or like sort of the people in charge of her fate, say to like dismiss her, her complaints?
Stacy: Well, there was a judge, um, A.A. Scott, who was in charge of her hearing, and he took a real active interest in this case and did a fairly strenuous investigation into // her and what happened. And there were all sorts of contradictory and competing allegations. I mean, Lora Lee said that she had lost 10 pounds, you know, in a month it turned out she had actually gained four pounds. And he felt like she was acting, he didn't believe the abuse charges, but he clearly saw that there was something going on with this child. He didn't think Hollywood was the place for her, that she had missed out on a normal childhood. And, and this was sort of symptomatic of her behavior. So in, in some ways, you know, of all the characters in this story that interacted with Lora Lee, the judge seemed to be the one that had her best interests at heart the most.
Gustavo: It seemed to be the only person, sadly.
STACY RT: Well and in the end the judge decides that Lora Lee needed to go home to Texas and have a normal childhood and stay out of Hollywood and show business. And his ruling seemed to me that he really had her best interest at heart that he was trying to protect her from all the adults in her life that were attempting to profit off of her. It seemed that this case // hugely impacted the judge during the rest of his career because in the years that followed he took a kean interest in protecting child entertainers. I remember during the trail the judge had made remarks where he was doubtful of Lora Lee’s own testimony…about the abuse and so on. But he also saw that there was good in her. That she just needed the chance to develop the child that she was. In my reporting, I ended up meeting with the judge's son, he’s 88 and a retired reverend, or I guess you never retire as a priest.
Al Scott: My father was a, a kind father, a just father and taught me what it is to grow up with values and responsibility.
Mux in
Al Scott: He rarely talked about cases or anything, but I really think he, he in my work as a priest for all these years, check that last 40 years, I've worked with many people in alcohol and drug recovery. So I've been, I've had every story possible, but I mean, it's just the fact he wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt. I think my father saw what I saw in each person. There's a grain of goodness in every single person, there's a pearl hidden in each person like the oyster shell there’s always a pearl in there. It takes time and effort and love to try to bring that out. But they may never see it themselves. They may die without seeing it.
Mux out
Gustavo RT: Wow, Lora Lee affected so many lives, how do you think what she went through influenced what ended up happening to her later on?
Stacy: Well it was hugely impactful. I mean we are the collective summary of our experiences, and here she was at a young and seminal age. She was adopted. Given a new identity and then became an actress. And I found in my reporting that there was this blurring of lines with the roles she played. For instance, she played a character in the snake pit….ends up going into a state mental hospital….character was Virginia, Lora Lee’s birth name.
MUX IN
Stacy: Later Lora Lee went into a mental hospital. You know, there was a report from her psychiatrist where she said, you know, both herrr foster parents and her natural parents were killed in car crashes. That actually wasn't true. But in that movie, a car crash played a pivotal role in the character’s trauma. And there were other films where there were these weird echoes. I think she just never was able to develop who she was. She was constantly trying to adapt to the situation. She found herself in an often that was not, um, a positive in her life.
Mux beat
Gustavo: Coming up tomorrow, Lora Lee returns to Texas and the search to learn what happens to her continues.
MUX OUT
<<
Outro mux in
Gustavo: And that’s it for this episode of THE TIMES, daily news from the LA Times.
Alex Higgins was the jefe on this episode, Lauren Raab edited and Mike Heflin mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Brousalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera. Our intern is Surya Hendry. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilera and Shani Hilton. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
“Good Sam clips courtesy of Paramount Pictures, Tokyo Joe Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.
Outro mux out