Three tumultuous marriages, a broken heart, ill health: Ava Gardner became famous not only for her off-screen antics, but also for her roles in movies. Now Downton star Elizabeth McGovern is bringing her story to the stage.
Ava Gardner in the image that struck Elizabeth
To be honest, I had only a vague idea of who Ava Gardner was when, about eight years ago, I stumbled across a book that was collecting dust on a bookshelf in my house. It was called Ava Gardner: Secret Conversations. The cover showed a woman sprawled out on a couch wearing a black bustier, diamond earrings, fishnet stockings and more (see right). She seemed to be “resting” with one long and graceful bare arm akimbo (just like you). She was stunning.
In the 1940s and 50s, Ava was one of the brightest Hollywood stars. She was a farmer’s daughter who didn’t even consider acting when she was spotted by a film scout at the age of 18. She was not immediately successful; It took Ava four years of supporting roles to get her big break. In 1946, MGM loaned her to rival studio Universal to star in The Assassins. Playing a seductress opposite Burt Lancaster, also in a breakout role, she caught the attention of studio bosses and bigger roles began to come her way. The Hucksters, One Touch of Venus, Show Boat and Mogambo, for which she received her only Oscar nomination, followed an incredible career spanning decades.
Ava at 61 with her Corgi Morgan in 1984
In her final years, Ava hired a journalist named Peter Evans to write her autobiography. Living in London at the time, her glory days were behind her, counting down the time after a debilitating stroke and looking forward to her final curtain call (she died in London in 1990 at the age of 67).
Secret Conversations is not a biography. This is a transcript of the year Evans spent in Ava’s company trying to write a biography and ultimately failing. They were in her apartment or on the phone all hours of the day and night, talking and developing what can only be described as an intimacy, not unlike an exciting (and exhausting) illicit love affair.
For me, the book was gold dust. I knew I wanted to play Ava during that period of her life. It was a play about two lives that cross at just the right time for both of them when their mutual needs collide. And by taking the dialogue straight from the unedited transcript, you’ve got a great character to start with: witty, foul-mouthed, humble, eloquent, compassionate, annoying, and sweet all at the same time.
Ava with husband Frank Sinatra, 1951
Ava needed to come to terms with her past of drinking and partying that had led her to three tumultuous marriages. The first, with Mickey Rooney, was doomed to fail when even his mother warned Ava that he was a womanizer. “He went through the ladies like a hot knife through fudge,” she once remarked. The irony of the fact that one of Hollywood’s greatest sex symbols was a virgin on their wedding night didn’t escape Ava’s attention. “I figured it out very quickly,” she said.
Group leader Artie Shaw, Ava’s second husband, was bossy and controlling: “another kind of bully; he always humiliated me.” Today we would probably call it “forced control” and Ava’s mental health was certainly undermined by it – at one point she felt so intellectually insecure around her new husband that she passed an IQ test. “He convinced me that I was a complete fool,” she said. “I didn’t have a huge IQ, but it was high.”
Her third and most famous marriage was to Frank Sinatra, and although it was characterized by deep affection, it was also marked by drunken brawls and dramatic public spats. The gossip columnists of the day loved Ava and Frank not only for their personal dramas but also for their art. According to her memoir, Ava had two abortions while she was with Frank. They married in 1951 and divorced six years later, but remained close for the rest of their lives.
Evans, meanwhile, needed to live in a world larger than his own. The writer could not believe his luck when he had the opportunity to map the reflections of Hollywood’s most femme fatale. Something magical happened within the four walls of Ava’s London apartment.
Elizabeth as Ava in Secret Conversations
The relationship between the ghost biographer and their hero also raises many questions. Who exploits whom and for what purpose? Who will control history? In my dramatization of the book, I am very fortunate that Evans is played by the brilliant actor Anatoly Yusef. He also steps in as other characters from Ava’s life. Along the way, we meet Frank Sinatra, Mickey Rooney, Howard Hughes and others who lived in the glorious, twisted, misogynistic, electrifying, and beautiful era of the Hollywood studio system of the 40s and 50s.
Ava was a woman ahead of her time, a feminist who never claimed the word. She lived by her own rules, failed, and moved on. She was a natural progressive person, not because she was political or intellectual or even well educated, but because she was genuine. It has embraced all races, all sexual orientations. She hugged other women. She suffered from the stupidity of the powerful alpha males who dominated her world, but she could see the complexity, see their side of things, and be able to forgive them. She might even love them to the end.
The legacy of Ava’s life makes me who I am, and in turn, my daughters. We inherit the experience of all the women who came before us. It is important to look at their lives. Ava was a woman who refused to fit neatly into the social norms of the world she was born into. “I made movies, I kissed, I messed up my life. But I never made jam,” she said of her inability to find happiness at home.
This is Ava. She took the first step on the path we are now on. It may have been forced on her, but she withstood the blows.
Come and watch us tell her story!
- Ava: The Secret Conversations plays at London’s Riverside Studios until April 16th.