THE WALLS OF Ye Cracke, one of the
oldest drinking joints in Liverpool, are festooned
with fl y-blown prints and nicotine-tinged
photos of the Fab Four. Its labyrinth of tiny
rooms is stuffed with moviemaking apparatus
and Empire is witnessing a scene unfolding in
the back bar. Here, sitting side by side behind
two pints of mild, father and son — KennethAnnette Bening and Jamie Bell
pair up for a silver screen
romance with a differenceWORDS WILL LAWRENCEON-SET
EXCLUSIVEFILM STARS
DON’T DIE IN
LIVERPOOL
OUT 1 MARCH 2018Cranham and Jamie Bell — are sharing
memories of silver screen star Gloria Grahame.
She may have been a Hollywood siren, they
recall, but she wasn’t half fond of a bacon
butty with “tommy sauce”.
Bell plays Peter Turner in director Paul
McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool,
the real-life character whose memoir recalls
his unlikely romantic liaison with Grahame.
Turner met Grahame (Annette Bening) in
the late ’70s, when he was an aspiring actor and
she a fading Hollywood star.
“One of the great things about the fi lm
is that it’s about fi nding out who Gloria
was,” Bell says, scene in the can. “It’s about
the discovery of an era long gone by, of
a person that carried an incredible amount of
sadness, and a secret about her life.”
Grahame made her name in a string of
fi lm noirs, including In A Lonely Place withHumphrey Bogart and Fritz Lang’s The Big
Heat. She scooped an Oscar for The Bad And
The Beautiful and earned fame playing Ado
Annie in Oklahoma!. Yet she fell on hard times
and wound up in small British theatre
productions, where she met Turner. Their
relationship didn’t last, but they remained
friends, Grahame spending time with her
old fl ame at his home in Liverpool.
When Empire visits Pinewood Studios
to watch those domestic scenes unfold, Bening
is on scintillating form, breathing life into
a story that’s fascinated her since The Grifters.
As prep for that role, director Stephen Frears
asked her to study Grahame’s output. “That
was when I fi rst became aware of her,” she
says. “Gloria’s been percolating in my
subconscious since then. I’m the right age
now and this seems the right time.” For
Bening, it’s a love story with a happy ending.LOVE AND
MERSEY