What does he have with Ava Gardner?
The most beautiful animal in the world...
That's what they called it, yes...
It fascinates me as it fascinated the locals of Tossa de Mar.
He has a statue there.
She left her mark among the people of Tossa, who immortalized her in this way.
He filmed a film in Tossa...
March-May 1950. It was released in 1951, under the title in Spain of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, inspired by a legend.
Remind me.
A curse condemns a Dutch sailor to wander the seas in a ghost ship: he can only go ashore if a woman dies of love for him...
That's not what Ava Gardner is about...
Her name is Pandora, Pandora Reynolds.
And he embodied the man...
James Mason. In the story, she falls in love. Mason was unfriendly in Tossa.
How do you know that?
The memory remains that he locked himself at home and refused to socialize with anyone.
And Ava Gardner?
Quite the opposite! He loved going into bars, shops and grocery stores, buying, meeting, exchanging, joking...
And drink.
The testimonies contradict each other on this: some say that she was drunk in the middle of the afternoon, while others deny it.
Are there photos?
By Manuel Fàbregas, local photographer. She stayed at the Àncora hotel, and then at Can Draper. She was always nice to everyone.
More than one would fall in love with her.
Like Pol, a fabled character, son of an English cook from a restaurant: I allow myself to narrate from him.
And what does he intend to tell us?
I cross several love stories.
Frank Sinatra y Ava Gardner.
Of love, possessiveness, abuse and jealousy of Mario Cabré, bullfighter, actor and poet.
What character does he play in Pandora...?
The Catalan heartthrob is the bullfighter who stands between James Mason and Ava Gardner.
Did he seduce Ava Gardner?
Mario Cabré wrote Ava Gardner long poems in Spanish... that she didn't understand. Cabré did not speak English.
Well, he had to talk about it in the film.
He is stiff, waiting not to miss the phrase. The producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, already said it: “What if we give the bull his role? He would do it much better!” The bull attacks the bullfighter in the bullring and kills him.
Did the romance between Ava Gardner and Mario Cabré go far?
He fell in love with her...
Normal.
...And she not so much about him. In any case, Frank Sinatra burst in to stop that beginning of a relationship.
Did they tell Frank Sinatra that there were tomatoes in Tossa?
Rumors reached him... and he flew away!
There are photos, we have seen them.
In a quiet and romantic Tossa. The local fishermen star in the first scene, speaking in their Catalan...
And what did they say?
“Have you caught a whale?” and other superficialities: the director left the audio in the editing, it must have sounded very exotic to him.
And there Mario Cabré courting Ava Gardner.
He read her a poem written by himself every day, courting her with his lyricism.
Something sticky, maybe...
In her memoirs, Ava Gardner does not speak badly of any of her men... except for Mario Cabré, who does not come across well.
No? What does it say about him?
That his thing was just one night and that it was a mistake. And that he was like a child.
How do you interpret this ugly?
I think he wrote this to please Frank Sinatra. Mario Cabré was a sweet, tender man, a very good person. Mario Gas, his nephew, confirms it to me. He never spoke ill of Ava Gardner.
And Frank Sinatra, what was he like?
Arrogant, jealous, very insecure personally. And with two faces: a very good friend to his own, but a very son of a bitch to the others. With Ava he practiced both sides.
Did they stay together?
No, but each one was for the other. All their lives they were more than friends. Ava listened to Frank's records, and Frank had more photos of Ava in his house than of his wife.
Ava Gardner predeceased Sinatra.
She suffered a stroke, and for his part, he always helped her until the end.
I need to ask you what Ava Gardner was like, according to what you have investigated.
I like men, I like wine... Ava Gardner never married. I stick with what she wrote about herself: “If I were a man, I would not have married a woman like me.”
