Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

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

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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.

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I really liked this book. I didn't know much about Ava Garnder going into it, but it really gave insight. I thought the way the story would told was really great.

Let's get it straight folks. This is not the proverbial biography of Ava Gardner as some reviewers were complaining about, it states on the cover the book consists of CONVERSATIONS with her. Conversations with the author for the intended book they were co-writing.
After spending uncountable hours

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with her in person and on the phone at all hours, she nixed it. Why? Because she wanted to maintain a public image that reality did not fit.
Ava Gardner was a whole hell of a lot of woman. Strong, opinionated, intelligent she called it like she saw it. Vulgar, brash, stunningly beautiful and fiercely herself- like it or lump it, men were intrigued and she had her share.
This book was written from a unique standpoint in that 1) both Ava and the author died before it was published and 2)it's not a whitewashed cleaned up bio for the masses...it's real.

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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

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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.

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