Lora Lee Michel was a child star at 7 and in prison at 22. Then she went missing.

Content warning: The following contains physical child abuse and could be distressing to some readers.

Lora Lee Michel had something special about her. A child star in the late 1940s, she appeared opposite Gary Cooper and Humphrey Bogart, and was billed as “the greatest since Shirley Temple”. But by the time she reached her early twenties, she was onto her fourth husband and headed for jail. What happened to her after that is the biggest mystery of all.

Lora Lee was born into poverty in a tiny Texas town called La Grange. Her birth name was Virginia and her parents were Willie, a truck driver with an alcohol problem, and Lena, who walked out on her husband and children. When Virginia was five, a couple adopted her in their fifties, Otto and Lorraine Michel. Lorraine later said she saw the little girl in a store and started chatting to her, quickly learning that the family was having a tough time. 

“We were lonesome, and when I saw Lora in the store that day I fell in love with her,” Lorraine told the New York Daily News.

Otto’s brother Henry adopted one of Virginia’s younger sisters, Barbara.

Lorraine renamed the little girl Lora Lee and started entering her in pageants. When she was performing at a Lions Club banquet, a local bigwig, who contacted Warner Bros, telling them to take a look at her spotted her talent. 

In 1946, when Lora Lee was six, Lorraine moved her to Hollywood and signed her up to acting lessons with a drama coach called Ona Wargin. The movie roles came quickly. She played Gary Cooper’s daughter in 1948 hit Good Sam, and a younger Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit the same year.

Lora Lee Michel in Good Sam (Left). Lora Lee Michel in The Snake Pit (Right). Image: Getty.

The following year she starred with Humphrey Bogart in Tokyo Joe. She was earning $US100 a day – the equivalent of more than $US1000 a day in today’s terms – and gaining rave reviews from critics.

“If she continues getting roles like this one, she cannot miss taking her place alongside Shirley Temple and Margaret O’Brien,” The Eastern Recorder’s review of Lady At Midnight declared.

Lora Lee Michel in Lady at Midnight. Image: Getty.

But in early 1950, Lora Lee’s life started to go off the rails. One morning, her drama coach Ona Wargin picked her up, saying she was taking her to a modelling interview. Instead, Ona took Lora Lee to the police, saying she had seen bruises on the young girl. Lora Lee alleged her adoptive mother had starved her, to keep her small for film roles, and mistreated her.

Lorraine was charged with child abuse and mistreatment, and Lora Lee was sent to live with a pastor, Reverend Elford Sundstrom. The case went to court. First, the custody of the young movie star had to be decided. There was a shock development when Lora Lee’s birth mother Lena – now Lena Brunson – turned up at the courthouse. Lora Lee ran towards her, crying, “I want my real mother!” and a tug-of-war broke out. 

Newspapers reported that Lora Lee screamed while her mother and adoptive mother “engaged in a wild hair-snatching battle” in the corridor. However, Judge Alfonso Scott ruled Lena had no claim to Lora Lee because she had signed the adoption papers five years earlier. Lena left, and it’s believed she never saw Lora Lee again.

Next, Lorraine had to face the child abuse and mistreatment charges. It was revealed in court that over the space of two years, Lora Lee had lost a pound in weight while growing three inches in height. Ona alleged Lorraine told her she had whipped Lora Lee and asked her if the girl could keep her clothes on when modelling so the marks wouldn’t show. 

When Ona asked why Lora Lee had been beaten, Lorraine allegedly replied, “That little hussy has stolen more food and gained a pound and I’m determined to conquer her gluttonous appetite.”

Lora Lee testified that Lorraine had whipped her with a hairbrush for buying candy. She said she was always hungry, and would wander around her apartment building, drinking bottles of milk left outside doors.

But there was a twist. While Lora Lee was being cross-examined, she changed her story and said Lorraine had never beaten her. She said Ona had told her what to say, and had even told her to steal milk.

The jury deliberated for nearly eight hours, but eventually acquitted Lorraine. She screamed, “Thank God!” as her friends in the courtroom broke into wild applause. 

Judge Scott, who had presided over both cases, was deeply concerned about Lora Lee. He said there were “many beautiful things in life” which she had missed and wanted her to be placed in a home where the atmosphere was “more normal”. 

“She is a very lonely child,” he said. “Psychological tests show that she is suffering from maladjustment of her social and emotional relationships.”

Later that year, Lora Lee returned to Texas with her adoptive parents Lorraine and Otto. It briefly reunited her with her younger sister Barbara. She went to school and performed in local plays. But when she was 13, Otto died of cancer, and Lora Lee’s life once again went off the rails.

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Earlier this year, LA Times investigative reporter Stacy Perman became determined to find out what had happened to Lora Lee. She spent months tracking down official records and speaking to dozens of people who knew her. She found that Lora Lee was put into foster care after Otto’s death, and, after living in a series of homes, got married at 17 to Donald Ford. Lora Lee was pregnant at the time, and later gave up her daughter, Donna Ann, for adoption. She also had a son, William, who died soon after birth.

Lora Lee got married again, to a former Marine called Joe Owen, and then to a pharmacist called Carey Bray. Perman tracked down Bray’s daughter from a previous marriage, Penny Pearson, who remembered Lora Lee. 

She said Lora Lee had bleached blonde hair and “dressed very sharp” but was “just really horrible”. 

“She said to me one time, ‘I screwed your father on the piano bench.’ I mean, and here I am, a 14-year-old girl!’”

Still only 20 years old, Lora Lee got married a fourth time – bigamously – to a former Marine sergeant called Frank Scott. He “pimped” her out, according to probation records. At one point, she convinced her third husband, Bray, to let her borrow his convertible for a day, and she and her new man, Scott, kept it for months, racking up huge bills on credit cards they found in the glovebox. They were both arrested, and Lora Lee once again found herself in the headlines. 

“Mrs Scott was asked what had happened to the career that had seemed so promising,” The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in 1963. “‘I grew up,’ she said.”

After doing time in jail, Lora Lee disappeared.

Her sister Barbara, now Barbara Wright Isaacs, never gave up hope of finding her. 

“I have been looking for Lora Lee for a period of about 55 years,” she told the LA Times. “I thought to myself, she’s either got to be dead or she doesn’t want to be found.”

Through her months of investigations, Perman finally heard a story of what had happened to Lora Lee. According to a friend of her second husband, Owen, Lora Lee died of cancer in 1979.

Perman broke the sad news to Lora Lee’s sister Barbara and other family members in person. 

“I did not expect her life to be such a tragedy,” Barbara said. “Maybe someday we’ll meet again in heaven. I’d like to believe that, but I don’t know now.”

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Feature Image: Getty/www.loraleemichel.com/Mamamia.

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