Ava Gardner

An impudent, provocative blend of the sweater-girl and spider-woman, the all-American accessibility of Lana Turner and the dark exoticism of Dietrich. Ava Gardner 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 scared memento. Howard Hughes begged her tp 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...