Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool: A True Love Story

by Peter Turner

Overview

Now a Major Motion Picture Starring Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, and Vanessa Redgrave

Chosen as one of the "Top Memoirs of the year" by The New York Times

The Golden Age of Hollywood, a young British actor, a love affair, and a tragedy, Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool is Peter Turner's touching memoir of the last days of Hollywood icon Gloria Grahame, the Oscar-winner best known for her portrayal of irresistible femme fatales in films such as The Big Heat, Oklahoma and The Bad and the Beautiful.

The Hollywood Reporter calls the film adaptation "a tender, affecting romantic drama."

On September 29, 1981, Peter Turner received a phone call that would change his life. His former lover, Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame, had collapsed in a Lancaster hotel and was refusing medical attention. He took her into his chaotic and often eccentric family’s home in Liverpool to see her through her last days. Though their affair had ended years before, it was to him that she turned in her final hour of need.

Taking place over the course of three weeks in Turner’s larger-than-life working-class family home, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is an affectionate, moving, and wryly humorous memoir of friendship, love, and stardom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250136855
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 4.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

PETER TURNER was born in Liverpool in 1952 the youngest of nine children. He was educated at a local comprehensive school and started acting at the age of sixteen with The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He worked extensively in British theatre both in London and the regions. He played Terry Adams in three seasons of the hit television drama series Spearhead and his film parts included playing Trinculo in Derek Jarman’s version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He met the Academy Award–winning American film star Gloria Grahame in London in 1978. They became lovers and their relationship lasted until the end of her life, dying from cancer in 1981. He wrote his memoir Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool in 1984. Peter has also written screenplays and devised and written scripts, British television, plays, and serials.

Editorial Reviews

Rarely has the mortality of the gods been so poignantly brought home” - The literary Review

“An extraordinary book” - Roger Ebert

“A well-paced gathering of eccentrics that mirrors Kaufman and Hart and stirs the heartstrings” - Kirkus Reviews

“A gifted writer” - The Sunday Times

“Here is a memoir concerned with a painful death that frequently has you laughing out loud” - The Observer

“Funny, touching, odd and thank goodness, uncategorisable” - The Guardian

From the Publisher

In this utterly confusing memoir, author Peter Turner tells the story of the final ailing years of his one-time love interest, Gloria Grahame, a film noir actress of some note. Although Turner’s and his family’s kindness to a near-stranger is heartwarming, the narrative contains seemingly unending dialogue without much background in the form of narrative. Despite narrator Peter Kenny’s expertise, the sharing of only who said what, where, and when does not tell a clear story. With his bright, friendly style and attempts to characterize the female voices, Kenny tries unsuccessfully to sort things out sufficiently for an entertaining listening experience. A film of this work is to be released in November 2017. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile