by Peter Evans (Undifferentiated)
First published 2013
Ava Gardner faces a choice between writing her memoir or selling her jewelry collection. She chooses the book, collaborating with Peter Evans in late-night conversations fueled by drinks and insomnia. The Hollywood star recounts her rise from poverty in rural North Carolina to Oscar-nominated stardom in films like Show Boat and The Barefoot Contessa. She describes her brief marriage to Mickey Rooney as her biggest mistake, calls second husband Artie Shaw a dominating son of a bitch, and reveals her passionate but loveless affair with Howard Hughes. Her tempestuous third marriage to Frank Sinatra involved constant fighting and drinking, though she admits he was good in bed. Gardner's brutal honesty about her public triumphs and private failures creates a memoir so candid that she halted its publication after reading her own words. Only after her death could Evans release these secret conversations that expose the real woman behind the legendary screen goddess.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: North Carolina
Period: 20th Century
304 pages · Kindle Edition · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, domestic-violence, explicit-sexual-content