Towards the end of her life, Ava Gardner attempted to sum it up, in characteristically pithy, from-the-hip fashion: “She made movies, she made out, and she made a fucking mess of her life, but she never made jam.”
Let’s consider the evidence. The movies? Yes, she made approximately 60 of them, the majority in the 1940s and fifties, and, with certain notable exceptions, her startling, sloe-eyed, sultry, sensual, whiff-of-danger presence — she was dubbed ‘the original femme fatale’ — was the most memorable thing about them. The making out? Can’t argue with her there, with a tally of three husbands — Mickey Rooney, the bandleader Artie Shaw, and finally and most enduringly (at least for Ava) Frank Sinatra, along with a bevy of lovers, including David Niven, John F. Kennedy, Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, Robert Taylor, and an abusive George C. Scott. The mess? It’s no secret that Gardner liked a drink or three — neat gin, tequila slammers, martinis and mai tais — and ended up banned from establishments as various as The Ritz in Madrid (for relieving herself in
