Ava Gardner, the most beautiful animal in the world Part II
Ava Gardner, Grabtown 1922 - London 1990
The loves of Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner early career, she met the actor mickey rooney, the little - big Hollywood actor who immediately gives her a tight court. Ava gives in and they get married in January 1942. She was only nineteen and a virgin, he was twenty-two and so hungry for sex, “he made love with anything that moved,” she will say, repeatedly cheating on her. They divorce and after a while she meets the jazz clarinet player Artie shaw, charming, cultured and domineering who will become her second husband. Artie has a strong and influential personality: he forces her to read philosophy texts and take chess lessons. When she starts beating him, he reacts by slapping her. Then comes the threats and psychological violence. She leaves and throws her head down at work.
The fight with Liz Taylor
She is fascinated by Richard Burton when they starred together in the film The night of the iguana, but the challenge in Hollywood's most beautiful eyes saw the victory of Elizabeth Taylor. She took her revenge years later with a curare joke: "Elizabeth Taylor? She was nice. I was beautiful ". Ava Gardner has had an unbridled love and erotic life, but she, unlike many other actresses, has never used her beauty as a bargaining chip; too proud character. He can say he had only one great love: Frank Sinatra.
Marriage with The Voice
On November 7, 1951, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner get married. It was an intense and burning love story. When she discovers she is pregnant, she secretly miscarries in London. when Sinatra finds out he is furious, points his gun at her screaming, and then unleashes his blind fury by shooting at the mattress she was lying on. They break up. Sinatra attempts suicide twice as she goes to Spain to shoot The barefoot countess by Mankievcz. To everyone she appears perfect in the role, removed from none other than Rita Hayworth, of a Spanish dancer with a life that is anything but calm, a role that seems to her sewn on with sartorial mastery, perfect like the wonderful dresses created exclusively for her by Fontana sisters.
The after Sinatra
In Spain he reaches it Ernest Hemingway, the ideal companion for robust drinks and quick amorous encounters. One day he witnesses a bullfight of the famous matador Luis Dominguin. A new passion breaks out. In 1954 Gardner and Dominguin are the most photographed couple in Europe. Paco Cano, Spanish photographer of bullfights and Madonnas, said of her: "with the permission of the Virgin Mary, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met". But Dominguin meets at a dinner Lucia Bose, engaged to Walter chiari, falls in love at first sight and after a few months they get married.
Walter chiari
Two years later Ava Gardner shoots in Italy The Capannina with Walter chiari. And something incredible happens. The greatest Hollywood actress, begins a love story with an Italian actorWalter Chiari, which had not yet achieved notoriety. Passioni amorous between American stars and young Italian actors, like the one between Vittorio Gassman e Shelley Winters, they had already met, but what linked “the most beautiful animal in the world” to the young Walter Chiari was something more.
Why, as he always remembered Federico Fellini, it was the anger of Walter Chiari towards the paparazzi, punched for stalking the couple to photograph them, to inspire his masterpiece The good life. Walter overwhelms her with his sympathy, passion and sweetness. A story that lasted four years and ended because of that inseparable restlessness that has always accompanied the diva. Walter Chiari died in 1991, a year after the death of Ava Gardner, with the great regret of never having visited her in that small North Carolina town.
The decline of a star
Ava Gardner She goes to live in London, in an elegant villa in the elegant district of Kensington in the company of a small dog and a young Filipino who looks after her. Because of her character and bad reputation as a husband stealer, she always had few friends. A friend of hers was undoubtedly Grace Kelly, which she herself told in her memoirs "he loved making bets; We once wagered $ 20 that Hyde Park was bigger than the Principality. She said no. I won. He sent me the dollars, a magnum bottle of Dom Perignon and a packet of aspirin for the hangover. He knew me well".
Sinatra from overseas calls her often and pays her all medical bills. Ava Lavinia Gardner died on January 25, 1990, aged 67. One day, with infinite bitterness he said: I have gained nothing good from my loves except years of psychoanalysis. But there was a man who had really loved her, hopelessly and forever. A man who at the news of his death had cried desperately: Frank Sinatra, The voice.
FILMOGRAPH BY AVA GARDNER
1943 - GHOSTS IN THE NIGHT directed by William Beaudine
1943 - THE CRAZY HITLER directed by Douglas Sirk
1946 - BLOOD AT DAWN directed by Léonide Moguy
1946 - THE GANGSTERS directed by Robert Siodmak
1947 - THE TRAFFICANTS directed by Jack Conway
1947 - SINGAPORE directed by John Brahm
1948 - THE KISS OF VENUS directed by William A. Seiter
1949 - THE GREAT SINNER directed by Robert Siodmak
1949 - THE NEW YORK SIDEWALKS (1949) directed by Mervyn Le Roi
1942 - CRIME IN THE MICROSCOPE directed by Fred Zinnemann
1951 - PANDORA directed by Albert Lewin
1951 - SHOW BOAT directed by George Sidney
1952 - THE SNOWS OF CHILIMANGIARO directed by Henry King
1953 - RIDE VAQUERO! directed by John Farrow
1953 - THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE directed by Richard Thorpe
1953 - MOGAMBO directed by John Ford
1954 - COUNTESS SCALZA directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1956 - MIXED BLOOD directed by George Cukor
1957 - THE SHED directed by Mark Robson
1957 - THE SUN WILL RISE AGAIN directed by Henry King
1958 - THE MAJA DESNUDA directed by Henry Koster, Mario Russo
1959 - THE LAST BEACH directed by Stanley Kramer
1963 - 55 DAYS IN BEIJING directed by Nicholas Ray
1963 - SEVEN DAYS IN MAY directed by John Frankenheimer
1964 - THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA directed by John Huston
1966 - THE BIBLE directed by John Huston
1972 - THE MAN OF THE SEVEN CAPESTERS directed by John Huston
1974 - EARTHQUAKE directed by Mark Robson
1976 - THE GARDEN OF HAPPINESS - THE BLUE BIRD directed by George Cukor
1976 - CASSANDRA CROSSING directed by George P. Cosmatos
1979 - CITY IN FLAME directed by Alvin Rakoff
1968 - MAYERLING (1968) directed by Terence Young
“She is the most charming and aggressive woman I have ever met, a woman who can also drive you crazy, to the point that you have to leave her by force. And, before you leave her, you have to beat her up too. A wild woman, who never knows what she wants. You give her tenderness and she goes wild. You answer her with violence and she becomes sweet as a kitten. You look for her and she runs away. She swears she loves you and is ready to betray you. Never have you seen a woman who has betrayed her husbands and lovers alike. His splendid tiger eyes have done and continue to do slaughters ”. Clark Gable.
