What do actor Laurence Olivier and the Alliance building society founder Lewis Cohen have in common? When they became peers, they both took their titles from Brighton.

It was no surprise that Lord Cohen did so. After all he was often known as Mr Brighton during his action-packed life.

But Lord Olivier seldom seemed to like Brighton that much when he lived there and he spent his final days away from the public glare in Ashurst near Steyning.

Olivier, a touchy thespian, was upset when people criticised him for accepting a grant to renovate his home in fashionable Royal Crescent.

Although he was a wealthy man, he was perfectly entitled to the money for a fine seafront listed building.

He was also annoyed when, after winning a battle to have kippers reinstated for breakfast on the Brighton Belle, British Rail promptly axed the train.

But he enjoyed meeting many of his actor friends in Brighton, such as Sir John Clements who lived nearby.

And his years in Brighton were among his most successful professionally when he started the Chichester Festival Theatre and became director of the National Theatre in London.

Lord Cohen was a classic example of a local boy making good. He rose from humble beginnings to create the Alliance which eventually became one of Britain’s biggest building societies.

He was also elected as a Labour councillor in Brighton and was one of the few to be chosen by the Tory majority group as Mayor, a role for which he was ideally suited.

His attempts to enter Parliament were less successful. In the 1950s he lost to Howard Johnson, the Tory MP for Kemptown.

But long before that he entered the Guinness Book of Records for having the highest ever majority against him when Brighton and Hove were one two-member constituency.

“I demand a recount,” he joked.

Sadly Cohen was only a peer for a short time before he died from leukaemia but he is still fondly remembered by many people.

Another Labour politician who became a peer from Brighton is the former council leader Steve Bassam.

He fell in love with the place while attending University Of Sussex as a student and became celebrated for being a squatter because of the housing shortage.

Steve Bassam rose quickly in politics, becoming leader of Brighton Council while under 30 and holding that demanding job for more than a decade. But, like Lewis Cohen, he could not win Kemptown for Labour.

Tony Blair made him a life peer so that he could work hard in the House of Lords. He did and today he is still Opposition Chief Whip.

There was one other peer with Brighton in his title – Lord Lyons who was ennobled by Labour in the 1970s.

I know little about Dennis Lyons save that he was a Left-wing public relations officer, lived in central Brighton and was portly.

He died less than three years later and no one seems to remember him, in sharp contrast to the other peers.