Ava Gardner was one of the most glamorous and
famous stars in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Her
list of films includes The Killers, Showboat and
Mogambo, for which she was nominated for an Academy
Award for best actress, and her co-stars included Clark
Gable, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart,
Charlton Heston, and Richard Burton - the A-list of male
Hollywood stars. Married three times - to Mickey Rooney,
Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra - the first two lasted
only about a year each whilst her marriage to Sinatra
lasted several. She had a long-running affair with
Howard Hughes, and a briefer one with George C. Scott,
among others. In Ava Gardner, she has much to say about
her husbands and lovers, and some of her co-stars, all
of whom get Gardner's unflinchingly honest treatment.
Ava Gardner is irresistibly candid and surprising. She
began the book because, as she told Evans, 'it's either
write the book or sell the jewels and I'm kinda fond of
the jewels.' At the time of their collaboration Gardner
was living in London, where she had lived for decades,
smoking and drinking heavily. Having suffered a stroke
that damaged the left side of her face and her left arm
she had trouble sleeping and was often depressed - the
glamorous wardrobes replaced by grey. Her story could
itself have been depressing except for her wit and
wickedness, which are on full display in this book. This
book tells the story of her life as she wanted to tell
it. Ava Gardner is the autobiography that Ava Gardner
began with writer Peter Evans in 1988. She never
finished it and decided against publishing it because of
its frankness. She later collaborated on a tamer
autobiography, which was published at her death in 1990.
After Gardner's death, her estate authorised the book to
be published much as she and Evans had originally
conceived it.
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