From the late 1950s through most of the 1970s, Hollywood had a bit of a thing going with Harold Robbins (1916-1997), one of the best-selling writers of all time. His work was perfect for the kind of glossy, big-budget, slightly sensational pictures of the time: sprawling, sexy, and gossipy, especially about the barely disguised real-life celebrities on whom he based many of his characters. His 1949 novel The Dream Merchants (made into a 1980 television mini-series), set in the early days of the film industry, has a main character based on Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Studios (where Robbins once worked). The Carpetbaggers from 1961, made into a film in 1964, centers on a character closely resembling Howard Hughes, another based on Jean Harlow, and others loosely modeled on Jane Russell, Tom Mix, and William Randolph Hearst.

Where Love Has Gone rather clearly takes its melodramatic plot from the real-life case of movie star Lana Turner, whose daughter Cheryl Crane was tried for stabbing to death Johnny Stompanato, Turner's abusive mobster lover. In this movie, the unfortunate teenager is Danny Miller (Joey Heatherton) who kills the boyfriend of her famous artist mother (Susan Hayward). The murder and trial plot brackets a flashback that tells the story of Hayward's marriage to Danny's father, played by Mike Connors. For extra drama and star power, the film adds Bette Davis as Hayward's imperious mother, who forces her into the ill-fated marriage and a subsequent life of romantic entanglements. (Turner had a mother she remained close to her whole life, but there's no indication the older woman ever forced her daughter into any of her eight marriages to seven different men.)

Susan Hayward's career was beginning to wind down at this point. One of Hollywood's major stars of the 1950s, she won a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of real-life condemned murderess Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). Three of her previous four nominated roles showed Hayward had no qualms about portraying screen versions of true stories, particularly ones with sensational aspects: crippled singer Jane Froman in With a Song in My Heart (1952), alcoholic singer Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), and another singer who gives up her career for her husband and falls into, you guessed it, alcoholism in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947), said to be based on Bing Crosby's first wife, entertainer Dixie Lee. After Where Love Has Gone, Hayward made only two TV movies and three more feature films, including replacing Judy Garland in Valley of the Dolls (1967), playing a performer said to be modeled on Ethel Merman.

Bette Davis' illustrious career far outlasted that of her younger co-star (who died at only 57 of cancer). This same year Davis also played dual roles in the thriller Dead Ringer (1964) and starred in the hit Grand Guignol Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. (1964). Her career continued for another 25 years, even after a stroke rendered her seriously debilitated. Davis, by the way, was only nine years older than her screen daughter Hayward.

Director Edward Dmytryk's impressive film resume (Murder, My Sweet, 1944; Crossfire, 1947; The Caine Mutiny, 1954; Raintree County, 1957) has been somewhat overshadowed by his part in the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1940s and 50s. Originally sent to jail as one of the Hollywood Ten for refusing to name the names of fellow leftists to the House Un-American activities Committee, Dmytryk gave in and cooperated, earning the disapprobation of many in the film community. Only seven months prior to the release of this picture, Dmytryk's previous directing effort, Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers, hit the theaters. Producer Joseph E. Levine and screenwriter John Michael Hayes also worked on both pictures.

Where Love Has Gone failed to be the sensational follow-up to The Carpetbaggers its makers hoped for, but it did get about the same critical reception. The Saturday Review slammed the script, saying it "somehow manages to make every dramatic line (particularly when uttered by Susan Hayward) sound like a caption to a cartoon in The New Yorker," and Newsweek called the movie "a typical Harold Robbins pastiche of newspaper clippings liberally shellacked with sentiment and glued with sex." The New York Times' Bosley Crowther said audiences expected to see Susan Hayward going over the top in this type of role but that watching Davis here was simply seeing "a fine talent go down the drain."

Patty Duke, Deborah Walley (Gidget Goes Hawaiian, 1961), and Natalie Wood's younger sister Lana were reportedly all considered for the role that Heatherton played.

According to one story, near the end of filming, the producers wanted to give Bette Davis' wicked character a comeuppance by having her go insane and commit suicide. Davis refused, claiming it was out of character for Mrs. Hayden. The producers threatened to sue her, but Davis was ultimately triumphant.

If the film and the book it's based on are, indeed, thinly veiled takes on the Lana Turner-Cheryl Crane story, Turner must not have minded much. Just five years after this, she took the starring role in The Survivors a limited-run TV series created by Harold Robbins.

The movie's theme song, recorded by Jack Jones, was nominated for a Best Original Song Academy Award and Golden Globe.

Director: Edward Dmytryk
Producer: Joseph E. Levine
Screenplay: John Michael Hayes, based on the novel by Harold Robbins
Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald
Editing: Frank Bracht
Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler
Original Music: Walter Scharf
Cast: Susan Hayward (Valerie Hayden Miller), Bette Davis (Mrs. Gerald Hayden), Mike Connors (Major Luke Miller), Joey Heatherton (Danny Miller), Jane Greer (Marian Spicer)

By Rob Nixon