An famous journalist who worked in Bristol and for the Western Morning News has died at 77. Showbiz journalist, Garth Pearce began his career at just 18, writing for a weekly title in Staffordshire before joining the WMN.
He then joined the Daily Express in 1973 at 25-years-old. He also worked in Bristol, at the Western Daily Press, where he said: “you’d even have to provide your own typewriter”.
Garth also lived in Somerset, near what became the Thatchers farm. He said that he could “buy scrumpy from the friendly local Myrtle Farm” which later became the headquarters for Thatchers Cider.
Through his career, Garth worked alongside like likes of Paul Dacre and Kelvin MacKenzie, who would go on to edit the Daily Mail and The Sun, respectively. He later became showbiz editor at The Sun.
Garth himself once said: “I’ve lived the life of a celebrity without having the misfortune of being one.”
The Sun reports that he even knew all six of the James Bond actors, and claimed to be the “only journalist Sean Connery trusted”. Over his 50 year career, Garth travelled to 35 countries and interviewed Hollywood A-listers and the biggest celebrities and musicians.
He was the only British journalist to go on the first tour with Eurovision winners ABBA. Over his life, Garth also wrote eight books, including The Making of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
Writing in Press Gazette in 2023 he said of his exit from the Express: “The Mickey Mouse world in which I operated was changing rapidly at the time. Film companies were losing interest in having journalists on their film sets, so how about just one who wrote for a whole range of different markets? That’s where I came in.
“I was able to syndicate widely in America through the New York Times and, at one point, supplied 50 newspapers and magazines around the world. In the UK, it was every glossy monthly and supplement ranging from my regular gig with The Sunday Times Culture to Sunday magazine in the News of the World.
“I was able to write books on James Bond film sets and trip around 35 countries, interviewing the famous, the egotistical and the certifiable. All inconsequential and lightweight nonsense in the scheme of things. But great fun. It was thanks in many ways to those contacts and knowledge – and mistakes – amid the victories and defeats at the once magnificent Daily Express.”
Garth was still writing articles for The Sun shortly before he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer last month. He died three weeks later at his home in Berkshire on February 5, 2025.
Garth’s daughter Dulcie, The Sun’s film critic, said: “He remained the best storyteller and a hilarious raconteur until the very end.” Jasper Carrott, his life-long friend after they met as teenagers, said: “Garth was such a dear, devoted, generous friend who lit up the room wherever he was.”