The incredible story of Gloria Grahame: the Hollywood diva who did not die in Liverpool
A film chronicles the heartbreaking romance of the Oscar-winning actress, played by Annette Bening, in the last years of her life.
"Love. Just like in the movies ”. The advertising slogan that appears on the first poster of the film Film Stars Don´t Die in Liverpool leaves no room for confusion. What is told, or is aspired to tell, is what we would define here as "a film romance." It has all the classic ingredients of pastiche to keep us immobile in front of the screen: the international celebrity and the provincial anonymous, the older woman and the young man, a fatal disease ... As so many times in fiction, Gloria Grahame starred in the decade of the 70s a story that broke taboos, now being recovered by director Paul McGuigan. Another contemporary diva like Annette Bening puts herself in the shoes of the Oscar winner for Captives of evil and, according to critics, this role may finally give her the statuette that she resists so much. If you thought Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were the only black-and-white muses to ever shine on screen again, read on.
Grahame's was a career as relevant as it is forgotten today. She diva of the golden Hollywood, femme fatale par excellence and muse, among others, of the filmmaker Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause), who was also her husband. One of the four who put a ring on her finger, the last of her being her own stepson, Anthony Ray. Her magnetism was summed up like no one else by the character played by Humphrey Bogart, a castmate in In a Lonely Place: "I was born when she kissed me, I died the day she left me and I lived as long as she loved me." The actress built a career in response to Marilyn's naivety and, like so many others before and after, she was prematurely retired by the sexist dictatorship that continues to rule the film mecca. Her last professional stage was spent on stage, halfway between Los Angeles (where her four children resided) and London. There she had as a neighbor a medium-haired actor, who at twenty-seven years of age could not succeed. “Her movements from him were rhythmic and slippery. His distinctive voice and his familiar face. She wasn't wearing expensive clothes, just her usual T-shirt and jeans. She captivated me. I was dazzled by his style, ”wrote Pete Turner, the neighbor, in the biography that gives the film its name.
It was 1979 and the almost three decades of difference between the two were not an obstacle for the unlikely couple, the Hollywood star and the Liverpool amateur, to remain as such. Her “Glo” revealed to him the benefits and luxuries of the great cities of the United States until one day, without prior notice from her, she cut off all contact. After several months in which the aspiring actor rebuilt her life, the interpreter called him again to confess that the reason for the breakup was a major illness. She didn't want to be a burden. She suffered from breast cancer with metastases to her stomach that a negligent doctor had made worse by causing an infection while trying to remove fluid from her body. Grahame ignored medical advice and refused any treatment. She preferred to spend her last days elsewhere.
Turner answered the call for help. He picked her up from the hotel where she resided while she rehearsed her latest play in London. He returned with her to Liverpool, her hometown, where he and her family took care of her. But as the title announces, this is not the ideal place to bury a movie star. The one who would be hers, her last love known to her, advised her children of hers to take her back to the United States. Just three hours after the airliner carrying the actress landed at New York's JFK airport, Gloria Grahame passed away. Just like in the movies.
Annette Bening now plays the black-and-white diva in the Paul McGuigan film (The Slevin Affair) that was just screened at the Telluride festival. Critics have unanimously praised her work and the chemistry she gives off in her scenes with Jamie Bell, who plays Pete Turner. “Bening could - and should - be in the pools for her fifth Oscar nomination. Bell has never been better since Billy Elliot launched his career in 2000, ”says Deadline. The Hollywood Reporter states that “of course there are award possibilities for both. The biggest obstacle the film faces is that very few people today remember Gloria Grahame. " For us, that she does not stay.
