Ava Gardner, The Secret Conversations by Peter Evans and Ava Gardner

In the late 1980s, Hollywood film star Ava Gardner was living in London, her career sidelined by a stroke and pulmonary emphysema. She asked writer Peter Evans to help ghostwrite her memoir, strictly for the money. "I either write the book or sell the jewels. And I'm kind of sentimental about the jewels."

Their nightly conversations were often middle-of-the-night phone calls; these tapes form a candid portrait balancing image and reality. What she declined to talk about, she often did. Her reputation as an uninhibited woman shines through in her own voice - the swearing, the booze, the scandals, the husbands, and lovers.

As a nineteen-year-old model under contract to MGM, she met Mickey Rooney, the biggest star on the lot, and married him for a year. At twenty, she married Artie Shaw for a year, followed by a long affair with Howard Hughes. Her main love was Frank Sinatra - through dating, marriage, separation, divorce, and friendship. Although she states "f--- Frank", she is protective about what is revealed.

Although it mainly focuses on relationships, she remembers many of her films, including The Night of the Iguana and her long friendship with John Huston, The Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart, and an Oscar nomination for Mogambo with Clark Gable.

Detractors say "she has seldom been accused of acting", and (although she was always prepared) she agrees. Her stardom is part of Hollywood myth, and Peter is wary of tampering with it. Her own voice reveals far more than a standard memoir. Friends warn she is so volatile they will never finish the book, and they are correct. Near completion, she became scared of revealing her truth, and fired him, putting a ban on publication. Her eventual memoir Ava, My Story, was a vanity piece. When Peter Evans died in 2012, the publication rights were then granted by the estate.

Actress Elizabeth McGovern has adapted this memoir into a critically acclaimed stage play in 2023, written by and starring herself.

2013 / Hardcover / 304 pages