Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool - by Peter Turner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Poignant...the book's strength is found in its sketches of surprising personal connections." --The New Yorker

"Amusing and poignant...[An] affecting chronicle, a flashback-filled text that evokes by turns the feel of a documentary film, a subtle poem, a melancholy novella and a farcical play." --The Wall Street Journal

"Funny, touching, odd, and thank goodness, uncategorizable."--The Guardian (London)

"Here is a memoir concerned with a painful death that frequently has you laughing out loud."--The Observer (London)

"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

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. Currently, he is working on a collection of short stories.