You may have noticed a few weeks back that with little fanfare Brainiac added Stanton to our stable of cities and expanded our empire beyond the bounds of Garden Grove, Westminster and Midway City.
That’s just the way one rolls when your brain has so much reserve power that a mere three cities isn’t enough to keep all the neurons busy.
And this week we were ready to go, ready to dip into the history of Stanton to explore the stories of some of the famous people who’ve been born and raised there in years past, only to run into this apparent fact:
There is only one famous person from Stanton and his name is Larry Fortensky.
The former Mr. Elizabeth Taylor is the only one listed on Wikipedia, which, of course, isn’t the final word on things. And while another website claims that Stanton was also once the home of an adult film star named Devinn Lane and a football player named – don’t laugh – George Shorthose, a bit of digging places the adult film star in Newport Beach and the gridder in Missouri.
It’s possible some of you may not remember ol’ Larry, who was a construction worker with a drinking problem that landed him at the Betty Ford Center in 1988 where he met the legendary movie star Liz Taylor and ended up becoming her seventh husband – with a wedding at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, no less – in 1991.
And Larry was a Stanton guy through and through, too. He grew up in a home on Hopi Road and went to Pacifica High School in Garden Grove until dropping out in the 10th grade to go to work. He married young, twice, before meeting Liz.
“He knew I could see through him and I knew he could see through me, so it was elemental,” Taylor once said.
He was 37 when they started dating; she was two decades older. At times when they were courting, Larry took Liz out in Stanton.
In March 1989, People magazine reported that two months earlier the couple had stopped by Mr. Philly’s Restaurant in Stanton, pulling into the parking lot in an Aston Martin Lagonda. Liz ordered a cheesesteak sandwich with grilled onions and mushrooms and impressed proprietors May and Moe Najem with her fancy boots.
“The first thing I noticed was her boots,” May Najem told a People reporter. “At first I said to my husband, ‘Look at those boots. They either belong to a drug dealer or a movie star.’ Then we realized it was Elizabeth Taylor. She looked beautiful. A little heavy, but still beautiful. Of course, there were her eyes.”
That article also noted that Fortensky patronized the tanning salon next door to Mr. Philly’s and lived in a modest Stanton home with peeling paint, a raggedy yard and a mean dog that one of the neighbors feared.
After their eventual wedding, Larry moved into Liz’s much grander digs in Bel Air and presumably wasn’t seen lunching around Stanton much, though the city did try to get the unlikely lovebirds to come down for the dedication of the new city hall in 1993.
“I sent her several letters,” said then-councilman Sal Sapien at the time. “Apparently her health is preventing her from coming to Stanton.”
Or so she said.
Then, after five years of marriage, Liz’s seventh husband turned into her eighth divorce. Fortensky bounced around the county for a spell after that, and at last report was living in Menifee.
But is Larry Fortensky really the only famous person to come from Stanton? That’s the question that’s burning a hole in ol’ Brainiac’s noggin right now. So if you know of another – or have a comment, question or tip for any of our fine cities – give us a holler at Brainiac@ocregister.com or 714-796-7787.
Because, really … Larry Fortensky is it?
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com
