Mazaltov! Dame Maureen to re-marry

Actress and writer proposed to partner David Turner on Tu b'Av — and he said yes

Actress Dame Maureen Lipman has announced her engagement to the property and fitness industry magnate, David Turner. Both of them are 78 and have five adult children between them.

Dame Maureen announced her engagement in a column for The Spectator at the end of last week. She said that the couple were on a train coming back from Edinburgh when Mr Turner commented that that day — August 19 — was Tu B’Av, the Jewish equivalent of Valentine’s Day.

The custom is that on Tu b’Av Jewish women are allowed to propose to their partners. Dame Maureen wrote: “Unable to resist the gag, I slid under the table separating us onto one knee and asked him for his hand. To my surprise and slight panic, he gave it.”

And then it was a matter of breaking the news to their children.

Dame Maureen’s first marriage was to the playwright Jack Rosenthal, who died in 2004. They had been together since 1974. Four years after his death she met long-term partner, Guido Castro, a computer expert who died in 2021 from Covid.

It is understood that Dame Maureen and David Turner, a widower, have been together for about two years. He studied geography at the Hebrew University and then trained as a surveyor. He was a co-founder of the successful LA Fitness Group and left following the sale and privatisation of the company to Mid Ocean Partners in 2005.

Turner has been involved in many high-profile property projects, and has worked with the Prince’s Trust and Arsenal Football Club on youth training initiatives. He also chaired the South Hampstead synagogue rebuilding centre.

Dame Maureen is taking part in a rehearsed reading of a new play, Trudy Zeller Lives Here, at JW3 on Sunday September 29.