Former columnist for the Daily Express, Daily Star and Daily Mirror Peter Tory died yesterday at the age of 73.
Tory was a former editor of the Express Hickey diary column and is perhaps best remembered for his role in one of the most memorable Fleet Street stories ever – the tale of beauty queen Joyce McKinney and the manacled Mormon.
Remembered in the Daily Express today as a “debonair raconteur” – Tory was once romantically linked to the actress Julie Christie and began his career as an actor after first attending Rada.
Former colleague Arnie Wilson told Press Gazette that Tory “had a way with words that few other writers could emulate”.
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In 2010 he starred as himself in the film, Tabloid, about the Joyce McKinney affair. In 1977 McKinney 'abducted' a Mormon missionary and took him across the Atlantic to Devon where she chained him to a bed for three days of what she insisted was consensual sex. When she jumped bail and fled back to America, Tory – who had escorted her to various events in London during her time on bail – followed in hot pursuit.
He accompanied her on further adventures (and reported them for the Daily Express) until she was arrested.
Tory lived for many years in a Gloucestershire home which he shared with his wife Gwen who also succumbed to cancer, the Express reports. In recent years he had lived with his partner, the artist Jackie Gouvier.
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