Peter Turner was born in Liverpool on the 21st of February 1952, the youngest of the nine children of his parents, Bella and Joe. He was educated at a local comprehensive school and started acting at the age of sixteen when he auditioned to be an actor with The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and was a member of the company for four seasons while still at school and drama school in London. He's acted in films, theatre, and television ever since, working extensively in British theatre both in London and the regions. His first TV appearance was in a 'Wednesday Play' (1969) before appearing as a Teddy Boy alongside David Essex and Ringo Starr in 'That'll Be the Day' (1972). Then he had 3 episodes as Harry in the TV series 'Zigger Zagger' (1975), followed by 2 episodes of 'Killers' (1976), and then two episodes in 'Midnight is a Place' (1977). A much larger role came when he played Terry Adams in three seasons of the hit television drama series 'Spearhead' (1978-81).
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| Peter and Gloria in New York |
It was in May 1978 that Peter met and began a relationship with a woman who would change his life forever. He met the Academy Award winning American film star, who had once lived next-door to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Gloria Grahame when he was 26, living in a small, rented room at the top of a theatrical boarding house near Regent's Park in London. He was a struggling actor and Gloria, who was 55 and over here working on a play, was staying in the spacious ground-floor apartment. Their relationship grew and was played out in London, California, New York and in the chaotic, eccentric heart of Peter's family home in Liverpool, where four-times-married Gloria felt most at ease. They became lovers and their relationship lasted until the end of her life, dying from cancer. In 1981 Gloria became secretive and snappy with Peter, much to his bewilderment and after a major row, Peter decided the relationship had come to an end. He thought she had tired of him and wanted him to go. He returned to Britain and got a part in the Alan Bleasdale play, 'Having a Ball', a comedy set in a vasectomy clinic which was being performed in the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. It was to Peter though that Gloria turned to in her final hour of need, with the devastating call that would change his life coming in the early evening from a stuffy hotel room in a Lancaster hotel. Gloria had collapsed while rehearsing for a play in the ancient county town and, confined to bed for several days, had begged him to come to her. She was in an advanced stage of cancer and she was very sick so Peter, with his brother Joe and his wife Jessie, took her back to Liverpool where the family cared for her as best they could. Two of Gloria's children, Tim and Paulette, from her second and third marriages arrived from the US to assist Gloria in returning home and Peter packed her belongings as Gloria slept. They helped her downstairs into a taxi to the airport, from where the three of them would fly to London and onwards to New York, Peter followed behind and waited at the departure gate until it was time for them to board. He kissed Gloria's cheek and held her hand as she sat in a wheelchair and she winked at him and smiled. That was the last time he saw her and she died later that day, a few hours after being admitted to St Vincent's Hospital in New York aged 57.
Unable and unwilling to forget her, Peter recalled their time together in a 1986 memoir, 'Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool' which was later made into a movie 'Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool' (2017), with Annette Bening and Jamie Bell, of Billy Elliot fame, playing Gloria and Peter and Kenneth Cranham and Julie Walters as his parents. Peter himself made a cameo appearance.
Peter's other film parts included him playing Harry Cunningham in 'The Comeback' (1978); Trinculo in Derek Jarman's version of Shakespeare’s 'The Tempest' (1979); 'The Final Option' (1982); 'Runners' (1983); the manager of The Regal Billiard Hall in Eric Street, Mile End owned by Reggie and Ronnie in 'The Krays' (1990); 'Jacob' (1994), a TV movie and 'Cocktail' (2012). Other TV work included 'The Bill (1985-89).
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