In the last years of her life she moved to London and her life improved. She settled into a quiet neighborhood. She drank and caroused less and less. She cooked and walked her dog, talked with friends, acted in the occasional movie. Her money had been wisely invested so she was "wealthy, just not 'stinking' rich." It was during this period that Adlai Stevenson wrote in his journal that after Ava had cooked dinner she "…then went to bed afraid, anxious about our reaction! Strange, lovely, lush girl." Some of her movies were terrible; she knew it when she did them. But others showed the promise which she seldom had an opportunity to demonstrate. She received an Oscar nomination for "Mogambo" and high praise for "On the Beach" and "Seven Days in May." She received more awards than Server gives her credit for.
Love Is Nothing has been heavily researched (over 100 interviews plus 25 pages of bibliographic information) but reads with the easy, anecdotal readability of People Magazine. Clearly, it will become a popular movie star biography. As he did in his biography of Robert Mitchum, Lee Server has done his homework, interviewing more than 60 people and consulting some 24 pages of bibliographic references. This is an entertaining story of how one country girl came to Hollywood. If she did not conquer the system, she carved her own niche and created an image that was recognized throughout the world. Despite immense insecurities, she always tried to hit the mark.
The portrait Server paints is fair, although readers will most easily remember his emphasis on the more salacious items - her stormy marriages, her love affairs (okay for a man, but not for a woman of her day), her drinking. But we also learn of her love of family, her root values (which, even in the midst of near scandal, always remained), her unwillingness to buy into the prevailing racism of the day, remarkable given the milieu of her childhood. Server makes it clear that she succeeded in becoming a woman in full.
The portrait Server paints is fair, although readers will most easily remember his emphasis on the more salacious items - her stormy marriages, her love affairs (okay for a man, but not for a woman of her day), her drinking. But we also learn of her love of family, her root values (which, even in the midst of near scandal, always remained), her unwillingness to buy into the prevailing racism of the day, remarkable given the milieu of her childhood. Server makes it clear that she succeeded in becoming a woman in full.
Current Presence
Ava Gardner's image continues to hover large over central North Carolina. Three recent incidents emphasize this. The cemetery where she is buried was vandalized. Commentators were careful to tell us that her grave had not been disturbed. Standing in line at a recent book signing, the woman behind us noticed this book. As it turned out, her father was an Air Force officer. Stationed in Spain, the family lived in La Moraleja in the very house where Gardner had lived. In the last week of March 2006, the post office in Smithfield was officially renamed in her honor.
Ava Gardner's image continues to hover large over central North Carolina. Three recent incidents emphasize this. The cemetery where she is buried was vandalized. Commentators were careful to tell us that her grave had not been disturbed. Standing in line at a recent book signing, the woman behind us noticed this book. As it turned out, her father was an Air Force officer. Stationed in Spain, the family lived in La Moraleja in the very house where Gardner had lived. In the last week of March 2006, the post office in Smithfield was officially renamed in her honor.
Drive up I-95, just north of its intersection with I-40 and you can tour the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, or visit on-line at www.avagardnermuseum.org. The museum offers a brief film biography of her life, including a brief snippet from her original screen test. There are dozens of movie posters and personal artifacts, including clothes from some of her movies. Can you believe an 18-inch waist! There is a note telling us that the Custom Tailors Guild of America once voted her "the girl they'd most want to measure for a new suit." For all her movie star persona, she was a serious, literate woman who counted Ernest Hemingway and Somerset Maugham among her friends. One of the nicest exhibits in the museum is a handwritten poem from her friend, the literary giant Robert Graves, just one of a number he wrote to, about or dedicated to her.
