Bening and Bell star
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, they love
If you’re obsessed with It’s a Wonderful Life, and who isn’t around the holidays, then you know exactly who Gloria Grahame was. In that charming film which was packed with local “characters,” she played Violet, the flirty blonde, gal-about-town (aka floozie) who borrows money from her “Georgie Porgie” (James Stewart) to get away from the wagging tongues of Bedford Falls. It was a brief but memorable role for the starlet who went on to become the “it” girl in film noirs like In A Lonely Place, Human Desire, and The Bad and The Beautiful, for which she won an Oscar for best supporting actress.
Gloria’s romantic life was equally exciting. She married and divorced numerous times, once to director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause), and then, infamously, to Ray’s son Anthony, who was 14 years her junior.
Which makes this biopic about her whirlwind affair with the much younger actor, Peter Turner, so intriguing. Based on Turner’s memoir, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Annette Bening stars as the slightly over-the-hill Gloria staying in Liverpool while rehearsing a play. She meets Peter and they fall madly in love, which is easy to imagine with such sexy stars as Bening and the adorable Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) playing the amorous couple.
Eventually life happens, the couple separates, but reunite a few years later when Gloria discovers she’s terminally ill. What’s a good boy to do but bring his much older “friend” to recoup in his parents’ home? His sympathetic and star-struck mother, played by the always spectacular Julie Walters, coincidentally played Billy Elliot‘s dance teacher.
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool opens soon.
