Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool, Peter Turner
Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool, Peter Turner
List: $17.99 | Sale: $12.59
Club: $8.99

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

Author: Peter Turner

Narrator: Peter Kenny

Unabridged: 4 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/02/2017

Synopsis

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

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.

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.

About Peter Turner

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Fabian on March 09, 2020

Insider's invitation to an operatic swan song. Actually, not operatic as much as blisteringly real, arresting, singular and very beautiful for its own sake. "Film Stars" has a protagonist (Turner) which the reader cannot help but try to embody or emulate: he, too, was an actor & quasicelebrity. Ther......more

Goodreads review by Bert on June 03, 2018

This was a nice story, sad but nice. I would love to read a longer, more in depth biography about Gloria Grahame as I think she was a very interesting movie actress and her story is a great one. Peter Turner’s time with Gloria is told in such a heartfelt, emotional, romantic and beautiful way, it’ll......more

Goodreads review by Mark on October 26, 2017

There's something really sad about Peter Turner's memoir, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. I've long been intrigued by the classic film actress, Gloria Grahame - best known for her work in the films The Big Heat, Crossfire, and her Supporting Oscar-winning turn in The Bad and the Beautiful. I knew......more

Goodreads review by Mary on May 13, 2017

[URL not allowed] 3.5 out of 5 stars I won this book from GoodReads and then quite by coincidence, I watched The Bad and the Beautiful last weekend. That movie is the movie that Gloria Grahame won her Oscar for. She was quite the actress and a name that probably a lot of people......more

Goodreads review by Cait on August 14, 2020

This book was very disappointing. Peter Turner lacks self observational skills and this limits the impact of this book. He seems more in love with the idea of dating a movie star than in the woman Gloria Grahame was. On several occasions he lists the films she was in and several anecdotes revolve ar......more

Quotes

“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

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List