BOOK REVIEW-FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Isn't it amazing how propitious time sometimes becomes? I've just finished reading a classic book written a few years ago on the 1950s film icon Gloria Grahame. I knew her films well - the amazing In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart and the searing "The Big Heat" a film noir classic, in which she famously has coffee thrown by the venomous Lee Marvin in her face. And whilst I finished the book I was surprised to find that the book has been made into a movie that is being released now!

What are the chances of that? The book is very interesting and often enlightening. I knew little of her relationship with Peter Turner a youngish British actor 20 years younger than Grahame in the twilight of Grahame's career. I knew Grahame was married to the great director Nicholas Ray, but was shocked to find out that after her tempestuous relationship with him, she married his stepson Tony Ray Grahame ended up acting in theater in Britain in her twilight years and that's where she met the aspiring actor Peter Turner. Friendship blossomed to love as Grahame battled with cancer which sadly took her life in 1981!

So all in all a fantastic read, and now that the movie is out I will be watching it, and be sure that there will be a film review very soon! It stars the fine Annette Bening (wife of the great Warren Beatty) and Jamie Bell. I know it will be extremely interesting, and I hope artistically worthy of the talents of this great actress. A final pointer to all you lovers of fine film - Grahame won an Oscar for her role in the Vincent Minelli classic, "The Bad and the Beautiful" a brilliant film from the 1950s.