Ava Gardner Confessions Revealed from 'Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations' Book Including Shooting Spree with Frank Sinatra
Ava Gardner confessed details of her love affairs and marriages, including her relationship with Frank Sinatra, to journalist Peter Evans, who wrote her story, which is explained in an article written by Evans that was published in the July issue of Vanity Fair.
The actress apparently never wanted to publish her memoirs but eventually permitted Evans to write her biography because she was broke.
Gardner told Evans, who died in September 2013, the following:
"I either write the book or sell the jewels. And I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels."
The book, Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, the last one Evans' wrote, was finished in 1988, two years before Gardner's death in London, but its contents were not revealed until 2010. It was apparently the first time Gardner's story and confessions had been compiled.
However, Evans' book was never published, in part because he was sued by Frank Sinatra - the writer mentioned Sinatra's mob associations in the book. The book was eventually abandoned and Gardner worked with another writer on Ava: My Story, published in 1990.
She revealed details to Evans about her first date with third husband Sinatra, before they wed. He was married at the time.
Garner said they were drunk and went for a drive through Palm Springs and "shot out streetlights and store windows" with two .38s Sinatra kept in the glove compartment of his car.
While she was seeing Sinatra, Gardner was also having an affair with Robert Mitchum, who was married at the time.
Mitchum called it quits with Gardner after she told him she was also seeing Sinatra.
According to the actress, Mitchum said of Sinatra, "Get into a fight with him, and he won't stop until one of you is dead."
"He didn't want to risk it being him," she said.
Gardner was born in Grabtown, North Carolina on Christmas Eve 1922.
At age 18, her picture, which was on display in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio, caught the attention of MGM Studios. MGM offered Gardner a seven-year contract based specifically on her beauty. MGM eventually kept her under contract for 17 years.
She appeared in over 20 films and her last starring role was in the 1964 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana, directed by John Huston.
Gardner died of bronchial pneumonia in 1990 in Westminster, London, England. She was 67.
