Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

By Ava Gardner and Peter Evans

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Jul 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781471101168

Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner was born in Grabtown, North Carolina, in 1922. Her films include The Killers, Showboat, Mogambo, The Barefoot Contessa, The Sun Also Rises, and On the Beach. She died in London in 1990.

Reviews for Ava Gardner

[br77rino · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peter Evans was hired to do a biography of Ava Gardner (in the 1990s?), and this is his recap of the notes he was making while having sporadic late-night conversations with her. She eventually nixed the project, and Evans died, but then Ed Victor, who is a book agent or something involved in the initial project, got this published recently.It's good. She liked sex, and describes her husbands and lovers: Mickey Rooney (horn dog), Artie Shaw (cerebral), Howard Hughes (overly gentle?), Frank Sinatra is just skimmed, and George C. Scott was a brute.She really liked John Huston but avoided his passes. She wasn't a good actress and she knew it, but also knew that her sex appeal was enough for a Hollywood career.

[Sarah · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Once I realised Ava did not wish to have her interviews with Evans published, I stopped enjoying it. Evans comes across as callous and manipulative. Throughout the book, Evans pushes an unwell Ava into revealing more than she cared to. Evans also devoted a lot of words to Ava's moodiness and poor treatment of him - usually when she was putting the kibosh on his salacious interpretation of her life. I think Evans took the job thinking that Ava's age, insobriety, and poor health would allow him to control her. Unfortunately for Evans, Ava had other ideas; he was just one of many men who had tried and failed to dominate her.

[knahs_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book about the author’s attempt to work with Ava Gardner to ghost write her autobiography. Gardner needed the money but was hesitant to tell it all, to tell the truth, and had many other hang-ups and misgivings about the project. The author worked with her on a regular basis but gained the most honest information from Gardner during 3 a.m. telephone conversations, of which he made notes and incorporated into the forthcoming book. Gardner provides good background of her childhood in North Carolina and Virginia and the death of her father, her early days at MGM, and her marriages to Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw. Throughout there are some stray comments on both Frank Sinatra (whom she married) and George C. Scott (who she did not) as well as John Huston, Ernest Hemingway, and others. What was there was good. I think the author did a good job of getting Gardner to tell the story as honestly as she could. However, Gardner seems concerned about hurting feelings, sounding like a fishwife, etc. so it would be hard to gauge if what the author came up with are actual events. However, the book never got to the marriage to Sinatra because at that point Gardner dropped it. It is surmised that Sinatra paid her the badly needed funds to not talk. Ava passed away 24 years ago so the author has provided up a look at what he had for a book as well as what it was like to have these nighttime conversations with Ava. What we have holds your interest and makes you not want to put the book down. It would have been nice to have the rest of the story. Unfortunately, the author himself, passed away just as he was finishing this book. A good look at Gardner’s early life as well as the life of a young studio actress.

[debbieaheaton · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations is a stunningly blunt and candid memoir of one of Hollywood’s most stunning actresses. If you are a fan of Hollywood starlets, this is one book you must read.