[citation needed] Joe Crane and his younger brother, Billy, were on a trip to Mexico City when they decided to visit Hollywood on a whim in the summer of 1937.

Starring Rita Hayworth and Lee Bowman, this World War II musical was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1946.

Although he had successfully been involved in local Crawfordsville plays in his youth, Crane was the first to admit that his acting skills were less than par.

[3] Crane's daughter suggests that the abrupt end to her father's acting career may be attributed to his attraction to a Polish ballerina, who turned out to be Columbia Pictures President Harry Cohn’s girlfriend.

[4] In the late 1940s, Stephen Crane in partnership with Al Mathes bought and managed Lucey's New Orleans House, a popular celebrity restaurant, but quickly sold it to live abroad in Europe in 1948.

Returning to America in the 1950s, Crane opened The Luau, a Polynesian-themed restaurant on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

As the host and owner, Crane became a well-known name in the restaurant industry and tongue in cheek signed his menus as "STEFOOMA, High-Talking Chief of the Luau"[8] in an attempt to keep up with the storied personas of Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic.

Crane's graphic designs, on menus, matchbooks, and tableware became synonymous with the popular Polynesian trends of the decade.

Crane was engaged to starlet Lila Leeds when, in 1948, she was arrested along with actor Robert Mitchum for smoking marijuana.

In 1948, Crane married French sex symbol and actress Martine Carol, famous for her role in Lola Montès (1955) but the couple were divorced in 1953.

By 1984, Crane was in ailing health and his ex-wife Helen Demaree cared for him in her home in Pauma Valley.

On February 6, 1985, Crane died in a Pauma Valley hospital in California only a day shy of his 69th birthday.

Crane's innovative and high-profile restaurants helped to solidify the Polynesian pop culture of the 1950s and 1960s and remain symbolic of that legacy.