by Evans, Peter
First published 2013
Ava Gardner sits with coauthor Peter Evans, weighing her options: "I either write the book or sell the jewels, and I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels." The Hollywood star chooses to tell her story, but the results prove too explosive for publication during her lifetime. Gardner chronicles her journey from rural North Carolina to becoming one of Hollywood's biggest names in the 1940s and '50s. She earned an Oscar nomination and worked alongside Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, and Humphrey Bogart. Her three marriages provide the book's most revealing moments. Mickey Rooney was such a notorious serial cheater that his own mother warned Gardner away. Bandleader Artie Shaw dominated and belittled her constantly. Frank Sinatra brought passion and chaos in equal measure: "We were fighting all the time. Fighting and boozing. It was madness. But he was good in the feathers." Gardner delivers these confessions with sharp humor and brutal honesty, creating a memoir so candid it had to wait until after her death to see print.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: celebrity, memoir, rags-to-riches
Setting: North Carolina, Hollywood
Period: 1940s, 1950s
293 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster