Product Description

She was the sex symbol, who dazzled the other sex symbols. Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner thought her the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She was the woman who drove Frank Sinatra to the brink of suicide, and haunted him to the end of his life. Ernest Hemingway carried around one of her kidney stones as a sacred memento. Howard Hughes begged her to marry him; but she punched out his front teeth instead. Her charismatic presence, jaw-dropping beauty and fabulous, scandalous adventures fuelled the legend that Ava Gardner became. Ava Gardner ranks among the great legendary figures in Hollywood history, one of an elite few screen stars whose actual life was as outsized and colourful as a movie poster. Hers is the story of a barefoot farmgirl from North Carolina who became a Hollywood goddess. It was a life of hedonism and self-destruction across a spectacular canvas: big studio Hollywood in the '40s and '50s, the birth of film noir, MGM musicals, exotic locations from Pakistan to Tanganyika, the Las Vegas of Frank Sinatra, the Madrid of studly bullfighters and Argentine dictators, and finally to the garden square in Knightsbridge where she retreated from the world's gaze for the last years of her life. Exhaustively researched, written with great style and a vivid sense of time and place, Ava Gardner is filled with fresh insights, gleaned from exclusive interviews with Ava's colleagues, close friends and lovers. By the author of the acclaimed biography "Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care", this is the definitive biography of Hollywood's most glamorous, restless and uninhibited star.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #214942 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-03
• Released on: 2006-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 560 pages

Review
Praise for ROBERT MITCHUM: "BABY I DON'T CARE" 'Server sustains a fascination for his subject that is broad enough to emcompass the man's miserable behavior alongside [Server's] vast admiration for Mitchum's body of work and hugely iconic personality.' The New York Times 'A thorough, meticulously researched study of the actor's life and career that successfully captures its subject's split personality...The reader comes away caring deeply about the gifted, flawed man and artist.' Kirkus Reviews 'The film biography of the year' Sunday Times

Tom Shone, Sunday Times
`Server gets movie stars, and he gets movies ... That's quite a
trick for a biographer to pull off - both to immerse himself in his
subjects, yet make them utterly his own'

Glasgow Herald
`The most intimate, fully rounded portrait ... A great read that
allows us to see Gardner in a different light'

Customer Reviews

The definitive biography
A lengthy but addictive read about the bitter sweet life of Ava Gardner. Thorougly well researched, particularly in respect of film production and anecdotes from co-stars and others who knew or met Ava. Written in a dispassionate yet understanding style by clearly an intelligent and insightful biographer.
Any fan of Ava Gardner or a curious on-looking should read this excellent and defining biography.

Not just a great biography...
This great book reveals the truth and insight to the stories that are now legend. Moving without being sentimental, the work of this author is immense. It wont matter if you know nothing about Ava Gardner, or if you didnt think you had any interest in her - this book will amaze you.

Ava: Goddess or Witch?
If you have ever watched a film starring Ava Gardner and been enchanted by her face, acting and voice, you will surely want to know how her life unravelled and what her many loves, husbands and one-night stands resulted in.....
Lee Server has used a lot of slang, presumably to match his subject, and he does give you a pretty complete picture of this somewhat wild, amoral woman. But he also makes you realise she was a very decent person and certainly her own woman.
She was a better actress than she was given credit for, and was one of those movie-stars one simply couldn't take one's eyes off....not just because of her classical beauty, but because of something warm, earthy, lovable and fascinating within her.
She did not lead a very happy life, and this book is no hagiography. But it's fascinating account of Hollywood in the 40s, 50s and 60s, shows very well how a beautiful woman like Ava Gardner could get caught up in the star-making machinery, meet men of all types, some of whom wanted to "mould" her, went her merry way the moment a man did something she didn't like, failed to have a child which might have grounded or fulfilled her, and finally grew old, lost her beauty, became ill, and died like everyone else. But not quite like everyone else because, after all, she WAS Ava Gardner. I could not put this book down. A well-researched, rivetting read.