As Howards End is being shown on TV “only connect” is fresh in my mind. On Monday there were some unexpected connections.
It was an overcast drizzly day so we went to see Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool in the afternoon. The film is actor, Peter Turner’s, true story of his romance with older Hollywood actress, Gloria Grahame. In 1981, after the affair is over, GG falls ill while acting in a theatre in Lancaster. She asks if she can stay with Peter’s family in Liverpool while she recovers. The story is all true and is told through flashbacks as she lies upstairs in bed. It evokes Colin Clark’s My Week with Marilyn and Sunset Boulevard.
The story is slight but the film works because of good casting. Julie Walters plays Peter’s Liverpool mum, Vanessa Redgrave is Gloria’s American mother and Annette Bening plays Gloria. When the film was shot last year Annette was 58, exactly the same age as Gloria had been when she took refuge in Liverpool in 1981, another touch of authenticity in a film that is almost entirely faithful to the facts. It could have ten minutes cut at the end but otherwise is just the sort of touching heart-warmer that you need on a drizzly Monday.
Peter Turner is played by Jamie Bell who was famous as a child actor playing Billy in the 2000 film, Billy Elliot. You will recall that it tells the story of a coal miner’s son who in the teeth of parental opposition struggles and succeeds in getting a place at the Royal Ballet School, thanks to inspirational coaching by his ballet teacher, played by Julie Walters. The film closes with a shot of the now grown-up Billy leaping onto the stage at Covent Garden in Swan Lake. The dancer in that shot was real-life dancer, Adam Cooper. However, until I fact-checked this piece, I believed it to be Anthony Dowell. Dowell danced with the Royal Ballet for decades. As a young man his mentor, friend and lover was older dancer, Derek Rencher. Derek’s background is not unlike Billy’s; he was brought up in a working class family in Birmingham.
On Monday morning I noticed a new headstone in Margravine Cemetery. Only connect.
