Today it would be politically incorrect, but a Metro publicist defined it in the fifties as "the most beautiful animal in the world." Ava Gardner exploited the great beauty of her on the screen and also in real life. The actress, who received critical applause for her performances in films like Mogambo or The Barefoot Contessa, lived intensely: men, parties, wine... Today is her centenary.
She was born on December 24, 1922 into a humble family in North Carolina and came to the movies very young thanks, how could it be otherwise, to her beauty. A relative took some photos of her when she turned 18 and put them in the window of his store. She passed by a Hollywood talent scout who fell in love with the girl and signed her for the Metro. Studio kingpin Louis B. Mayer was entranced by her smile and horrified by her accent: "She can't act, she can't talk, but she's awesome."
Landing in the Mecca of cinema brought her a couple of small roles and a first husband. The studio's star, Mickey Rooney, saw her and said without further ado: "From the moment we passed each other in the corridor I wanted to sleep with you." They got married right away, but the marriage only lasted a year, because during those 12 months, Rooney kept meeting other ladies and wanted to sleep with them too.
By then, Mayer had already enrolled Gardner in some diction classes and gave him the leading role in Outlaws (Robert Siodmak, 1946), a very black film based on a story by Ernest Hemingway in which young Ava, who played the girlfriend of a gangster, shared the bill with Burt Lancaster and Edmond O'Brien. It was followed by A Life and a Love (John Brahm, 1947), an adventure with Fred MacMurray.
By the late forties, Gardner was already behind another marriage and another divorce. She married musician Artie Shaw in 1945. They broke up in 1946. Her personal life didn't smile on her, but her professional life did. Ava was already a star of the Hollywood firmament, and the Metro did not hesitate to pair her with great actors like Robert Taylor and Charles Laughton in another film noir, Bribery (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949).
At that time it was common for studios to lend stars to each other. And Metro gave Gardner over to Universal to embody Venus herself, the goddess of beauty. The plot of Venus was a woman (William A. Seiter, 1948) was as absurd as it was pygmalionic: a man bought a statue of Venus, kissed it and the marble came to life, the guy was accused of destroying artistic heritage and the reincarnated goddess I was forced to help him.
And for RKO he shot Hate and Pride (Robert Stevenson, 1951), a period drama reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, where Gardner was a poor girl who inherits a great fortune and decides to take revenge on the man she loves, a doctor played by Robert Mitchum, who spurned her to commit himself to another woman. For a time, the actress had an affair with the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes, but in the early 1950s she met the love of her life, singer Frank Sinatra.
Ava and Frank got married and although they loved each other, their marriage was not easy. Fights, cheating, jealousy, reconciliations... This was the relationship of the couple, who separated in 1957 after having made the delights of the gossip press. Gardner's trip to the Costa Brava had a lot to do with her estrangement from Sinatra. The actress settled in the Hostal La Gavina de S'Agaró to shoot in Tossa de Mar with James Mason Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Albert Lewin, 1951).
Encouraged by excessive alcohol and the night of partying, Gardner spent a crazy night with the bullfighter Mario Cabré. The actress recounted in her memoirs that the thing did not happen from there, but the echoes of that romance reached Hollywood and the ears of Sinatra who, mad with jealousy, took a plane and planted himself in La Gavina, where, according to the chronicles, of the time, he delivered a resounding slap to his unfaithful wife.
At the end of filming, the couple returned home, and Gardner, in the thrall of his contract with Metro, which increasingly disillusioned him. The studio gave him a role in a Western that went through the inglorious billboard, Destiny Star (Vincent Sherman, 1952), in which he acted alongside Clark Gable. She later offered her a chance in the musical Magnolia (George Sidney, 1951), but when the actress had already recorded all the songs, Metro replaced them with versions performed by another artist.
Gardner's discontent with Metro was growing. And it was also reciprocal. The interpreter lost some interesting roles, she sued the studio, was loaned to other producers and was suspended from receiving salary. Despite all that, she landed the role of herself that would earn her only Oscar nomination in Mogambo (John Ford, 1953), where she rivaled Grace Kelly for Clark Gable's love in the African jungle.
But that triumph was of little use. Mr. Mayer, the one who had given him his first break and diction classes, wanted his stars to be an example of good behavior to audiences off the big screen. And Ava was going to party. Her fond memories of her days on the Costa Brava brought her back to Spain. The actress settled in Madrid to live her life with all her intensity.
He gave himself up to the night, to flamenco, to the bulls, to wine and to love. She had a passionate affair with the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. She seduced many other men. He became friends with Lola Flores and made Juan Domingo Perón mad. The actress and the former Argentine president were neighbors in a building in La Moraleja. He lived on the second floor. She, in the third. He went to bed early. She hosted parties almost daily until well into the early hours of the morning. Perón ended up fed up with his illustrious neighbor and some nights he called the police to put an end to the stomping of the third floor, which was stealing his sleep.
That eventful life may have inspired Joseph L. Mankiewicz to write the screenplay for The Barefoot Contessa (1954), although the filmmaker is also said to have based himself on the life of another beautiful and hapless actress, Rita Hayworth. The fact is that Gardner composed in the film one of the best interpretations of her when giving life to María, a girl who dances barefoot on the tablados of Madrid and, after being discovered by a talent scout, conquers Hollywood. She marries a handsome earl and everything seems rosy. But is not. Her husband was left impotent due to a war wound and she does not resign herself to chastity, which causes tragedy.
At the end of the 50s, the actress finally managed to break with the Metro and headlined the poster for 55 days in Peking (Nicholas Ray, 1963) along with Charlton Heston and David Niven. The film was shot in Madrid and Ava herself did not have to return to that Hollywood that she hated. She later traveled to Mexico to join the team of another great film, The Night of the Iguana (John Huston, 1964), where she played a nymphomaniac. "Apparently, she transferred her character to real life, having fun with the entire team and especially with the director," according to Terenxi Moix in My film immortals.
It is not known if he got tired of so much partying or if he had problems with the Spanish tax authorities, but at the end of the sixties, Gardner left the country and settled in London where he lived until his death in January 1990. Like other stars , worked in recent years in choral productions often with catastrophic themes such as Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974) or El puente de Casandra (Mark Robson, 1976).
He went through some financial difficulties, although he resolved them with intelligence and irony, dictating million-dollar memoirs to the journalist Peter Evans. "I only have two options left, publish some memoirs or sell the jewels, and the truth is that I have a considerable sentimental attachment to my jewels," he assured when the project started in 1986. But later, Sinatra, with whom he maintained contact, spoke to him evil of Evans and Ava repented.The memories did not see the light until 27 years after the death of the artist.They collected the life of a woman who lived days of wine and roses from whom no one could take away what was danced.
