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Ava Gardner #1
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scriptgirl
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amana
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^ Great picture. Do you know what movie that is from?
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That pic is from the movie "The Bible."
ebay
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Ava's autograph
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scriptgirl
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Daily Times
THE WAY IT WAS: Frolicking fifties — II
Syed Abid Ali
After the shooting was complete and the crew left Pakistan, some enterprising staff members of the Faletti’s hotel put on sale the four pillows Ava Gardner used during her stay. One of these was bought clandestinely by friend Talaat Ali Khan
In the Punjab Public Relations Department one would come across all kinds of ‘characters’ — eccentric, egotistic, idiosyncratic, self-important as well as bohemian, affectionate, happy-go-lucky, self-effacing and genuinely lovable. Perhaps the quaintest of them all was the night Chowkidar, Baba Balanda, who lived on the premises and was ageless like Dorian Gray.
They had forgotten to take down his date of birth at the time of employment and he remained panjah-bawinja (fifty or fifty-two) for as many years. The Baba was a rustic who refused to mend his ways and tone down his idiom and language despite his colleagues’ continuous efforts. The Deputy Director, Malik Iftikhar Ali, was working in his office late one evening when the Baba passed through the corridor. He asked the Malik’s peon in his booming voice “Malik ajay baitha vay (is the Malik still working).” Peeved, Malik Sahib called him in to his office to tell him off. The incorrigible Baba simply said “Meinoon ki pata si toon baitha vayn (how would I know you are still working)” and walked out unruffled.
When I joined the department as officer on special duty, my office hours began at four in the afternoon and ended at midnight. Every now and then I would slip away for an hour or so for an evening stroll or a meal with friends. On one such occasion, Mr Sarfraz, the DPR, rang up and the phone was answered by Baba Balanda who bluntly asked in his typical Punjabi “Kaun ain toon (who are you)?” When the voice at the other end said “Sarfraz”, he again asked “Oh Kaun aay (who is it)?” “DPR”, shouted the voice.
“Oh ki aay (what do you want)?” asked Baba. Exasperated Mr Sarfraz told him that it was the ‘barra sahib’. The Baba immediately greeted him with a booming ‘salaam’. When Sarfraz asked for me, the dialogue proceeded somewhat along these lines: “He has gone out”.
“When will he be back”?
“O badshah admi aay, avay avay, nah avay nah avay (he is a prince unto himself, and may or may not return).”
“Ask him to call me whenever he gets back.” When I returned the call, Mr Sarfraz narrated the whole story to me, suggesting jocularly that the Baba should be advised to refrain from describing me as badshah admi in future!
Once a visiting journalist’s bicycle was stolen from our office. He insisted on calling the police. The SHO came post-haste with his staff. The first man he questioned in the usual rough and tough manner was the night chowkidar. Baba Balanda pleaded total ignorance and when the officer became abusive, he simply told the thanedar that if he (thanedar) had failed to get a drop of milk from his mother’s breast, it was no use sucking at the father’s thumb (The Punjabi idiom he used was much more graphic but unprintable). Further questioning was abandoned and the Baba was only reprimanded for his crude language.
The only tele-printer in the directorate was installed in the room of Malik Yusaf, the resident officer. With great difficulty and much effort, Malik Sahib had trained Baba to ring up the APP office whenever the machine ran out of paper. Safdar Qureshi who was then the APP Manager told me later the ‘message’ that the Baba passed on. Whoever picked up the phone was told “Publak Rralashan, kagat muk gaya vay, Malik Yusaf dee machine vich (Public Relations, the paper has finished in Malik Yusaf’s machine).” Baba would hang up without further ado.
But the Baba is not the only one I remember. Among our colleagues, Karim Khan, who hailed from a remote part of Dera Ghazi Khan was quite innocent but competent in his work, although rather slow on the uptake. One morning the telephone rang in the Information Officer’s room and the Private Secretary to the Information Minister asked for Karim Khan. While he was speaking to the Minister, Jamil Shah impishly started pinching his cheeks. Angrily pushing away Jamil’s hand, Karim Khan said, “Lay off, you bum”.
“Eh, what did you say?” shouted the Minister. “Sorry sir, I was not talking to you but to another bum”. The phone was banged in his ear.
A rather groovy character, Ahmed Hassan, had a special way of greeting his colleagues and friends. He would unexpectedly and suddenly poke his index finger in the lower part of the other chap’s tummy and say ‘Assalam Alaikum’. Once he afflicted this greeting on Khalilur Rahman, affectionately called ‘posti’ due to his relaxed and lethargic manner. Rahman retorted in his sing-song voice, “Ahmed Hasan, apni behuda harkaton say baz a jao”. “Mission accomplished”, declared a grinning and satisfied Ahmed Hasan.
This reminds me of another incident which happened much later. Ayub Khan’s Chief spin-doctor, Altaf Gauhar, had established a network of Bureaus of National Reconstruction throughout the country. The Lahore Bureau was headed by N H Hashmi with Khalilur Rehman as his deputy. On one occasion Khalil requested for the office van to go to a newspaper office. “Khalil, you know we have only one official car”, said Mr Hashmi. “I also need only one,” retorted Khalil.
Another eccentric and somewhat self-important character was Mian Abdul Ghafur, Deputy Director (Technical). He was an uproariously hearty person who addressed all his colleagues as ‘Johnny’. Once, while sitting in his room, Hafizur Rahman fiddled with some papers lying on the table. Hurriedly, Abdul Ghafur snatched them away saying “Johnny, these are Cypress”. Surprised, Hafiz asked what that meant. “Top Secret, Johnny, highly confidential, not meant for every one’s eyes”. It turned out to be a routine ‘cipher’ message!
On one occasion, Hafiz sent in a requisition for an official vehicle without filling in the space headed ‘reason’. The form was promptly sent back as incomplete. Hafiz wrote ‘illegitimate’ in the space and returned it; it was promptly signed and the request approved. At another meeting with the Information Secretary, Mian Ghafur Sahib attempted to explain a certain rule which was under discussion. “You see this rule has two clause. While one claw is clear, the other claw is totally ambiguous”. There was stunned silence all around and Mian sahib came back a satisfied man with his ‘two claws’ intact!
My college friend, Majid Dar who was then studying medicine at KEMC, was a regular visitor to our office and sometimes joined our late evening parties. One morning, he brought along a tall, broad and hefty character who was introduced as his old friend Bali from Kenya. It turned out that Bali had been retained by the production unit of Bhowani Junction. Darr said that Bali needed someone familiar with the local scene, and in particular the media, to help him out and asked if I was willing.
I jumped at the offer. Bali turned out to be a good friend. He was not only heavy in his build and a heavy drinker but also used ‘heavy heavy’ as his takya kalam. For instance he would say to me: Abid Shah, why don’t you come with me, heavy heavy, for meeting some friends from the crew this evening, heavy heavy.”
I spent some memorable times with Bali during his stay in Lahore. On many occasions I slept the night in his suite. He would get up around eleven in the morning and immediately ask for an ‘eye opener’ while he never hit bed late at night without a rather strong ‘night cap’. He introduced me to some members of the film crew, the friendliest of whom was Stewart Granger, the hero of Bhowani Junction. He smilingly gave his autograph to everyone who asked.
But the heavenly experience was Ava Gardner, at close quarters; I even spoke to her once in a while! Incidentally, my graph went sky-high in the opinion of my would-be fiancée and later wife, when I took her and her college friends to watch the film’s shooting at the Lahore railway station. They ogled at the fabled Ava Gardner and the debonair Stewart Granger to their heart’s content.
After the shooting was complete and the crew left Pakistan, some enterprising staff members of the Faletti’s hotel put on sale the four pillows Ava Gardner used during her stay. One of these was bought clandestinely by friend Talaat Ali Khan who paid for it the ‘heavy, heavy’ sum of Rs five thousand. I believe he still uses the very same pillow though his wife does not know the real story behind it.
The first part of this series was printed on Sunday August 31, 2003. Syed Abid Ali is former Director General Public Relations, Punjab and Secretary General, PNCA
THE WAY IT WAS: Frolicking fifties — II
After the shooting was complete and the crew left Pakistan, some enterprising staff members of the Faletti’s hotel put on sale the four pillows Ava Gardner used during her stay. One of these was bought clandestinely by friend Talaat Ali Khan
In the Punjab Public Relations Department one would come across all kinds of ‘characters’ — eccentric, egotistic, idiosyncratic, self-important as well as bohemian, affectionate, happy-go-lucky, self-effacing and genuinely lovable. Perhaps the quaintest of them all was the night Chowkidar, Baba Balanda, who lived on the premises and was ageless like Dorian Gray.
They had forgotten to take down his date of birth at the time of employment and he remained panjah-bawinja (fifty or fifty-two) for as many years. The Baba was a rustic who refused to mend his ways and tone down his idiom and language despite his colleagues’ continuous efforts. The Deputy Director, Malik Iftikhar Ali, was working in his office late one evening when the Baba passed through the corridor. He asked the Malik’s peon in his booming voice “Malik ajay baitha vay (is the Malik still working).” Peeved, Malik Sahib called him in to his office to tell him off. The incorrigible Baba simply said “Meinoon ki pata si toon baitha vayn (how would I know you are still working)” and walked out unruffled.
When I joined the department as officer on special duty, my office hours began at four in the afternoon and ended at midnight. Every now and then I would slip away for an hour or so for an evening stroll or a meal with friends. On one such occasion, Mr Sarfraz, the DPR, rang up and the phone was answered by Baba Balanda who bluntly asked in his typical Punjabi “Kaun ain toon (who are you)?” When the voice at the other end said “Sarfraz”, he again asked “Oh Kaun aay (who is it)?” “DPR”, shouted the voice.
“Oh ki aay (what do you want)?” asked Baba. Exasperated Mr Sarfraz told him that it was the ‘barra sahib’. The Baba immediately greeted him with a booming ‘salaam’. When Sarfraz asked for me, the dialogue proceeded somewhat along these lines: “He has gone out”.
“When will he be back”?
“O badshah admi aay, avay avay, nah avay nah avay (he is a prince unto himself, and may or may not return).”
“Ask him to call me whenever he gets back.” When I returned the call, Mr Sarfraz narrated the whole story to me, suggesting jocularly that the Baba should be advised to refrain from describing me as badshah admi in future!
Once a visiting journalist’s bicycle was stolen from our office. He insisted on calling the police. The SHO came post-haste with his staff. The first man he questioned in the usual rough and tough manner was the night chowkidar. Baba Balanda pleaded total ignorance and when the officer became abusive, he simply told the thanedar that if he (thanedar) had failed to get a drop of milk from his mother’s breast, it was no use sucking at the father’s thumb (The Punjabi idiom he used was much more graphic but unprintable). Further questioning was abandoned and the Baba was only reprimanded for his crude language.
The only tele-printer in the directorate was installed in the room of Malik Yusaf, the resident officer. With great difficulty and much effort, Malik Sahib had trained Baba to ring up the APP office whenever the machine ran out of paper. Safdar Qureshi who was then the APP Manager told me later the ‘message’ that the Baba passed on. Whoever picked up the phone was told “Publak Rralashan, kagat muk gaya vay, Malik Yusaf dee machine vich (Public Relations, the paper has finished in Malik Yusaf’s machine).” Baba would hang up without further ado.
But the Baba is not the only one I remember. Among our colleagues, Karim Khan, who hailed from a remote part of Dera Ghazi Khan was quite innocent but competent in his work, although rather slow on the uptake. One morning the telephone rang in the Information Officer’s room and the Private Secretary to the Information Minister asked for Karim Khan. While he was speaking to the Minister, Jamil Shah impishly started pinching his cheeks. Angrily pushing away Jamil’s hand, Karim Khan said, “Lay off, you bum”.
“Eh, what did you say?” shouted the Minister. “Sorry sir, I was not talking to you but to another bum”. The phone was banged in his ear.
A rather groovy character, Ahmed Hassan, had a special way of greeting his colleagues and friends. He would unexpectedly and suddenly poke his index finger in the lower part of the other chap’s tummy and say ‘Assalam Alaikum’. Once he afflicted this greeting on Khalilur Rahman, affectionately called ‘posti’ due to his relaxed and lethargic manner. Rahman retorted in his sing-song voice, “Ahmed Hasan, apni behuda harkaton say baz a jao”. “Mission accomplished”, declared a grinning and satisfied Ahmed Hasan.
This reminds me of another incident which happened much later. Ayub Khan’s Chief spin-doctor, Altaf Gauhar, had established a network of Bureaus of National Reconstruction throughout the country. The Lahore Bureau was headed by N H Hashmi with Khalilur Rehman as his deputy. On one occasion Khalil requested for the office van to go to a newspaper office. “Khalil, you know we have only one official car”, said Mr Hashmi. “I also need only one,” retorted Khalil.
Another eccentric and somewhat self-important character was Mian Abdul Ghafur, Deputy Director (Technical). He was an uproariously hearty person who addressed all his colleagues as ‘Johnny’. Once, while sitting in his room, Hafizur Rahman fiddled with some papers lying on the table. Hurriedly, Abdul Ghafur snatched them away saying “Johnny, these are Cypress”. Surprised, Hafiz asked what that meant. “Top Secret, Johnny, highly confidential, not meant for every one’s eyes”. It turned out to be a routine ‘cipher’ message!
On one occasion, Hafiz sent in a requisition for an official vehicle without filling in the space headed ‘reason’. The form was promptly sent back as incomplete. Hafiz wrote ‘illegitimate’ in the space and returned it; it was promptly signed and the request approved. At another meeting with the Information Secretary, Mian Ghafur Sahib attempted to explain a certain rule which was under discussion. “You see this rule has two clause. While one claw is clear, the other claw is totally ambiguous”. There was stunned silence all around and Mian sahib came back a satisfied man with his ‘two claws’ intact!
My college friend, Majid Dar who was then studying medicine at KEMC, was a regular visitor to our office and sometimes joined our late evening parties. One morning, he brought along a tall, broad and hefty character who was introduced as his old friend Bali from Kenya. It turned out that Bali had been retained by the production unit of Bhowani Junction. Darr said that Bali needed someone familiar with the local scene, and in particular the media, to help him out and asked if I was willing.
I jumped at the offer. Bali turned out to be a good friend. He was not only heavy in his build and a heavy drinker but also used ‘heavy heavy’ as his takya kalam. For instance he would say to me: Abid Shah, why don’t you come with me, heavy heavy, for meeting some friends from the crew this evening, heavy heavy.”
I spent some memorable times with Bali during his stay in Lahore. On many occasions I slept the night in his suite. He would get up around eleven in the morning and immediately ask for an ‘eye opener’ while he never hit bed late at night without a rather strong ‘night cap’. He introduced me to some members of the film crew, the friendliest of whom was Stewart Granger, the hero of Bhowani Junction. He smilingly gave his autograph to everyone who asked.
But the heavenly experience was Ava Gardner, at close quarters; I even spoke to her once in a while! Incidentally, my graph went sky-high in the opinion of my would-be fiancée and later wife, when I took her and her college friends to watch the film’s shooting at the Lahore railway station. They ogled at the fabled Ava Gardner and the debonair Stewart Granger to their heart’s content.
After the shooting was complete and the crew left Pakistan, some enterprising staff members of the Faletti’s hotel put on sale the four pillows Ava Gardner used during her stay. One of these was bought clandestinely by friend Talaat Ali Khan who paid for it the ‘heavy, heavy’ sum of Rs five thousand. I believe he still uses the very same pillow though his wife does not know the real story behind it.
The first part of this series was printed on Sunday August 31, 2003. Syed Abid Ali is former Director General Public Relations, Punjab and Secretary General, PNCA
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MTV.com
'Aviator' Howard Hughes Really A Player?
You could say he didn't need a star map to find many actress' homes.
By Tanya Edwards Mancini
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Rate this article
The Reel Story: The Oscar race, led by big-budget epic "The Aviator" with a field-best 11 nominations, is coming down the home stretch as this year's ceremony looms on Sunday. With director Martin Scorsese nominated for yet another trophy (believe it or not, the director of "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" has never won), and the movie itself up for Best Picture, Oscar voters obviously think the film is worth a second look.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays American legend Howard Hughes, who, in between building empires in Hollywood and in the skies, was the quintessential eccentric playboy. DiCaprio's Hughes is shown wooing Hollywood's leading ladies of the day, including Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani).
In the first half of the film, Hughes rolls through Hollywood like a mix of Diddy and Colin Farrell, making deals and sweet-talking the ladies. Which, of course, makes you wonder: How much of this is Hollywood magic, and how much is true? Was Howard Hughes a player?
The Real Story: Yes, and then some.
High-flying Hughes turned Hollywood on its ear in his 20s, broke the world speed record at the age of 30, revolutionized the airline industry in his 40s, and went famously crazy by the time he was 60.
During his storied life, Hughes directed and produced films and eventually bought his own movie studio. Needless to say, he had a lot of pull with many leading ladies, but don't let his power and influence overshadow his charm — by all accounts Hughes was an attractive and enigmatic genius.
"The Aviator" does take some liberties with Hughes' personal life. The film bumped up his meeting with Ava Gardner several years, and Jane Russell — a woman whose breasts so fascinated Hughes that he created both a movie ("The Outlaw") and a bra (a cantilever design) for them — is nowhere in sight.
Make no mistake, Hughes was a player whose romantic escapades not only included a decades-long on/off affair with Gardner and a romance with Hepburn, but also an extensive list of Tinseltown beauties including Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Ginger Rogers.
A rich man who aspired to greatness, later in his life Hughes was plagued by demons and madness. He died alone in his suite in the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas — a building he had to purchase to prevent his eviction.
Check out everything we've got on "The Aviator."
'Aviator' Howard Hughes Really A Player?
You could say he didn't need a star map to find many actress' homes.
By Tanya Edwards Mancini
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The Reel Story: The Oscar race, led by big-budget epic "The Aviator" with a field-best 11 nominations, is coming down the home stretch as this year's ceremony looms on Sunday. With director Martin Scorsese nominated for yet another trophy (believe it or not, the director of "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" has never won), and the movie itself up for Best Picture, Oscar voters obviously think the film is worth a second look.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays American legend Howard Hughes, who, in between building empires in Hollywood and in the skies, was the quintessential eccentric playboy. DiCaprio's Hughes is shown wooing Hollywood's leading ladies of the day, including Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani).
In the first half of the film, Hughes rolls through Hollywood like a mix of Diddy and Colin Farrell, making deals and sweet-talking the ladies. Which, of course, makes you wonder: How much of this is Hollywood magic, and how much is true? Was Howard Hughes a player?
The Real Story: Yes, and then some.
High-flying Hughes turned Hollywood on its ear in his 20s, broke the world speed record at the age of 30, revolutionized the airline industry in his 40s, and went famously crazy by the time he was 60.
During his storied life, Hughes directed and produced films and eventually bought his own movie studio. Needless to say, he had a lot of pull with many leading ladies, but don't let his power and influence overshadow his charm — by all accounts Hughes was an attractive and enigmatic genius.
"The Aviator" does take some liberties with Hughes' personal life. The film bumped up his meeting with Ava Gardner several years, and Jane Russell — a woman whose breasts so fascinated Hughes that he created both a movie ("The Outlaw") and a bra (a cantilever design) for them — is nowhere in sight.
Make no mistake, Hughes was a player whose romantic escapades not only included a decades-long on/off affair with Gardner and a romance with Hepburn, but also an extensive list of Tinseltown beauties including Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Ginger Rogers.
A rich man who aspired to greatness, later in his life Hughes was plagued by demons and madness. He died alone in his suite in the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas — a building he had to purchase to prevent his eviction.
Check out everything we've got on "The Aviator."
scriptgirl
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The Telegraph
California: Palm Springs is my kind of town
A year after his death, Frank Sinatra lives on - everywhere - in California's celebrity playground of Palm Springs. Geoff Robert reports
Last Updated: 11:29AM GMT 05 Feb 2001
THE Fifties. Ava Gardner was diving naked into Frank Sinatra's swimming pool in Palm Springs and I was growing up in the wilds of Tyrone. Frank was having martinis with Carmen Miranda and I was drinking NHS powdered milk. He was leaving Lauren Bacall and I was leaving for school.
The Fifties. When the American dream was pure and Americans were perfecting the art of endless childhood that they continue to this day: the instant friendships, the artless lack of irony, the wearing of bright clothes well into senility. The corollary of that, of course, is arrogance and selfishness, unthinking generosity, hedonism and the inability to defer a pleasure if it can be had right this minute.
Sinatra was the epitome of all of those and Palm Springs was where he perfected them. As a result, the ghost of Sinatra is everywhere in this Californian town.
You go into a bar and his voice is sailing through the air without a breath. You talk to a man in that bar and discover that he was Sinatra's dentist. You order a cocktail and Sinatra is in the glass, in the effortless cool of late afternoon beneath the palms. You talk to a man outside and Sinatra paid his father's medical bills. You check into a hotel and the owner says of course Sinatra had a temper: he was short and Italian, so what did you expect?
A town of 45,000 souls, 8,000 of them millionaires, Palm Springs has had many lives. A thousand years ago, it was the home of the Cahuilla Indians, who retreated to the nearby canyons in the heat of the summer. In the Thirties, it became Hollywood's hideaway, and from the Forties to the Sixties everyone from Elvis to Liberace stalked the streets and gathered for cocktails in the tangerine dusk, which for many of them was not long after breakfast.
In the Seventies, it became a retirement town in which the average age and temperature were both about 88. In the Eighties, hordes of libidinous teenagers descended on it every spring break, until Mayor Sonny Bono banned them. In the Nineties, the gap left by the students was plugged by gay tourists, who stay in luxury private resorts where the rooms, naturally, start at standard queen size.
Appropriately enough, I arrived in this perpetual Mecca of cool at the cocktail hour, falling from a lilac sky to a desert the colour of powdered brick. I picked up my convertible at the airport and pressed a button by the seat. The hood tilted back and the heat of the night filled my bones. I pressed another button and the music from the radio poured into my veins like honey. It was Sinatra, singing Lady Luck.
"Sinatra," said the announcer, when the song had finished. "All this week, in the valley he loved so well, we will be making sure that his flame burns forever."
By the pool, a waitress was waiting with a gin martini. The darkness crept around, draping me with the scents of bougainvillaea, jasmine and orange blossom. I could not sleep and read a novel late into the night.
At breakfast, I read that nine of the top 10 in the bestseller list of the Los Angeles Times were self-help books. The 10th was the restaurant guide to Southern California.
All day long, I walked the streets looking for the ghost of Sinatra and finding him everywhere and nowhere. At five, I looked at my watch and realised it was the cocktail hour again and that I had a date at Sorrentino's, Sinatra's favourite restaurant in Palm Springs. In the Fifties, when the Guadalajara Boys played mariachi here, there were seatbelts on the bar stools and the men bought dolls from the barman and gave them to the hooker they wanted.
This evening, Sinatra was the background music, as it would never have been in his day. Anywhere he went, he insisted that his songs were never played.
There was even a Steak Sinatra on the menu, still served just the way he liked it, with mushrooms and bell peppers. But since Sinatra's idea of good food was pork and beans out of a tin, I gave it a miss and had sand dabs with lemon and a glass of Chablis.
Hermann, the waiter, had served Sinatra here for three decades, not to mention every star in Hollywood and several presidents, and Sinatra had been persistently generous to him and his children in return. "My best customer? Mr Sinatra. He was always pleasant and helpful. My worst customer? Mr Sinatra when he didn't get exactly three coffee beans for luck in his after-dinner sambuca or a bottle of Château Lafite '56."
The next morning, I woke before dawn and went for a swim in the heated outdoor pool. In the duck-egg light, mist wraiths ghosted on the surface of the water and the tiny black birds known as Phaino Pepla sang with their soft, insubstantial call.
It was five in the morning. At six, I was to meet a pilot in a hotel lobby out in the desert and we were to go flying in his balloon over the warming sands to the mountains where snow still lay in the curves below the peaks.
Twice before in my life, I had risen at five for a balloon flight, only to find when I arrived at the take-off site that the flight had been cancelled owing to high winds. But this morning was as still and quiet as a nun. I drove for an hour, with the hood down and Sinatra on the radio, to the hotel.
In the lobby, there was no sign of a balloon pilot.
"Is this where I'm supposed to be?" I asked the night porter, a large man with a small way about him.
"Balloon flight's been cancelled due to high winds," he said.
Unable to get into the air, I drove back into town and spent a vicarious couple of hours in the Palm Springs Air Museum amid assorted Thunderbolts, Bearcats, Corsairs and Spitfires, and noting with British disdain that Mustangs were fitted with air-conditioning. ("Base, I gotta problem. The air con's busted and my shades are misting up!")
Outside the window, the midday heat was shimmering off the runway where Sinatra used to land with the rest of the Rat Pack in his private plane, then walk straight to a waiting helicopter to whisk them up to Villa Maggio, the mountain retreat he built in 1968 and named after the Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity that relaunched his career.
A modest log cabin with nine bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, two saunas, pool, spa, tennis court, petrol station, heliport and separate guesthouse, this has been beautifully restored by a tax-fraud lawyer and his wife. They moved to Palm Springs from San Diego ("We didn't like the people. You say hello and they're stuck for an answer"), bought this as a weekend home and are now selling it for $2 million.
The house is full of the flotsam of fame. I was leaning on Al Capone's old table when a ****su came snuffling by my ankles. "That's Harold Robbins's old dog," said the lawyer's wife. "We got her when he died a year ago."
Sinatra spent his early years in Palm Springs, though, in Twin Palms, a house down in the valley that he built in 1947. A perfect example of mid-century modernism, it has now been immaculately restored by a former landscape gardener, Marc Sanders, who only discovered its history when he dug up some old planning permits.
In the heat of the afternoon, we padded through the house, followed by Marc's miniature terrier - what is it with rich people and small dogs?
Here was the pool into which a drunken Ava Gardner dived naked in front of Sinatra's party guests. Here was the room where Garbo stayed, arriving in midsummer in a heavy coat and scarf and only emerging to swim topless in the pool, clad in just a pair of baggy khaki men's shorts.
These icons passed before my unblinking eyes. But something was wrong: I had lost interest in the past, in history, in all that old stuff. I was turning into a Californian.
I said goodbye to Marc and went for a drive in the convertible, the wind whipping in my hair and Sinatra on the radio, as he would be all week. I checked in the mirror. I was tanned. I filled up the tank, drank a bottle of low-sodium energy supplement and ate a diet loganberry yogurt, and then went to a car dealership to look at some pre-enjoyed low-mileage Rolls-Royces. I felt better. On the way back to the hotel, I was overtaken by two teenagers in a vintage Jaguar and a bald pensioner in a red Corvette.
That night I went out to the old Plaza Theatre to see the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, a bunch of retired showgirls and boys between the ages of 54 and 86 who have put their dancing shoes and their singing hats back on for a last hoof through the twilight years of vaudeville.
It might sound like finding out your granny's become a kiss-o-gram, but it was brilliant and by the end of the evening I had fallen in love with not one but several of the dancers. Ah, if only I were an older man.
The next day, I went to the Joshua Tree national park, 800,000 acres of desert, rocks, cacti and the strange trees so named because the Mormons who travelled west through here in the 1850s thought they looked like the prophet showing them the way to the promised land. If they were right, Joshua was a ra-ra girl, eternally holding aloft several handfuls of pompoms.
Late in the afternoon, I drove over to Desert Memorial Park, the final resting place of Palm Springs' rich and famous, to see Sinatra's grave. It is just a simple plaque set in the grass, bearing the inscription: "The Best Is Yet to Come, Francis Albert Sinatra, 1915-1998, Beloved Husband and Father."
His several wives, especially Nancy, would probably have something to say about the beloved husband bit, but after reading so much about him I felt a shiver when standing by the grave where he finally sleeps with all the stars of Palm Springs. Much as he did in life, really.
That night I went to see Sinatra: My Way, the tribute show by Frankie Randall, a friend and fan of Sinatra's for 38 years, in which Russ Loniello is a better Dean Martin than Dean Martin ever was, Louie Velez is a splendidly dreadful Sammy Davis Jnr and Randall . . . well, good he is, Sinatra he ain't, as he would admit himself.
I sank into my seat and realised the back of my neck was sunburnt. I had been in his homes, I had stood on his grave and now here I was listening to his music live on stage in his town. In the darkness, I drifted away.
In the dream, Frank was cooking pasta in the kitchen, Dean Martin was lying drunk on the sofa, Ava Gardner was swimming naked in the pool and Greta Garbo was sitting on the floor in the corner, wearing an overcoat. I looked at Garbo and her eyes closed and with them the past.
Next morning, I drove to the aiport. On the radio, the Sinatra week had finished and they were playing Smooth Operator by Sade. I climbed into an airplane and rose, high above the palms, into the endless curve of a Sinatra-less future.
California: Palm Springs is my kind of town
A year after his death, Frank Sinatra lives on - everywhere - in California's celebrity playground of Palm Springs. Geoff Robert reports
Last Updated: 11:29AM GMT 05 Feb 2001
THE Fifties. Ava Gardner was diving naked into Frank Sinatra's swimming pool in Palm Springs and I was growing up in the wilds of Tyrone. Frank was having martinis with Carmen Miranda and I was drinking NHS powdered milk. He was leaving Lauren Bacall and I was leaving for school.
The Fifties. When the American dream was pure and Americans were perfecting the art of endless childhood that they continue to this day: the instant friendships, the artless lack of irony, the wearing of bright clothes well into senility. The corollary of that, of course, is arrogance and selfishness, unthinking generosity, hedonism and the inability to defer a pleasure if it can be had right this minute.
Sinatra was the epitome of all of those and Palm Springs was where he perfected them. As a result, the ghost of Sinatra is everywhere in this Californian town.
You go into a bar and his voice is sailing through the air without a breath. You talk to a man in that bar and discover that he was Sinatra's dentist. You order a cocktail and Sinatra is in the glass, in the effortless cool of late afternoon beneath the palms. You talk to a man outside and Sinatra paid his father's medical bills. You check into a hotel and the owner says of course Sinatra had a temper: he was short and Italian, so what did you expect?
A town of 45,000 souls, 8,000 of them millionaires, Palm Springs has had many lives. A thousand years ago, it was the home of the Cahuilla Indians, who retreated to the nearby canyons in the heat of the summer. In the Thirties, it became Hollywood's hideaway, and from the Forties to the Sixties everyone from Elvis to Liberace stalked the streets and gathered for cocktails in the tangerine dusk, which for many of them was not long after breakfast.
In the Seventies, it became a retirement town in which the average age and temperature were both about 88. In the Eighties, hordes of libidinous teenagers descended on it every spring break, until Mayor Sonny Bono banned them. In the Nineties, the gap left by the students was plugged by gay tourists, who stay in luxury private resorts where the rooms, naturally, start at standard queen size.
Appropriately enough, I arrived in this perpetual Mecca of cool at the cocktail hour, falling from a lilac sky to a desert the colour of powdered brick. I picked up my convertible at the airport and pressed a button by the seat. The hood tilted back and the heat of the night filled my bones. I pressed another button and the music from the radio poured into my veins like honey. It was Sinatra, singing Lady Luck.
"Sinatra," said the announcer, when the song had finished. "All this week, in the valley he loved so well, we will be making sure that his flame burns forever."
By the pool, a waitress was waiting with a gin martini. The darkness crept around, draping me with the scents of bougainvillaea, jasmine and orange blossom. I could not sleep and read a novel late into the night.
At breakfast, I read that nine of the top 10 in the bestseller list of the Los Angeles Times were self-help books. The 10th was the restaurant guide to Southern California.
All day long, I walked the streets looking for the ghost of Sinatra and finding him everywhere and nowhere. At five, I looked at my watch and realised it was the cocktail hour again and that I had a date at Sorrentino's, Sinatra's favourite restaurant in Palm Springs. In the Fifties, when the Guadalajara Boys played mariachi here, there were seatbelts on the bar stools and the men bought dolls from the barman and gave them to the hooker they wanted.
This evening, Sinatra was the background music, as it would never have been in his day. Anywhere he went, he insisted that his songs were never played.
There was even a Steak Sinatra on the menu, still served just the way he liked it, with mushrooms and bell peppers. But since Sinatra's idea of good food was pork and beans out of a tin, I gave it a miss and had sand dabs with lemon and a glass of Chablis.
Hermann, the waiter, had served Sinatra here for three decades, not to mention every star in Hollywood and several presidents, and Sinatra had been persistently generous to him and his children in return. "My best customer? Mr Sinatra. He was always pleasant and helpful. My worst customer? Mr Sinatra when he didn't get exactly three coffee beans for luck in his after-dinner sambuca or a bottle of Château Lafite '56."
The next morning, I woke before dawn and went for a swim in the heated outdoor pool. In the duck-egg light, mist wraiths ghosted on the surface of the water and the tiny black birds known as Phaino Pepla sang with their soft, insubstantial call.
It was five in the morning. At six, I was to meet a pilot in a hotel lobby out in the desert and we were to go flying in his balloon over the warming sands to the mountains where snow still lay in the curves below the peaks.
Twice before in my life, I had risen at five for a balloon flight, only to find when I arrived at the take-off site that the flight had been cancelled owing to high winds. But this morning was as still and quiet as a nun. I drove for an hour, with the hood down and Sinatra on the radio, to the hotel.
In the lobby, there was no sign of a balloon pilot.
"Is this where I'm supposed to be?" I asked the night porter, a large man with a small way about him.
"Balloon flight's been cancelled due to high winds," he said.
Unable to get into the air, I drove back into town and spent a vicarious couple of hours in the Palm Springs Air Museum amid assorted Thunderbolts, Bearcats, Corsairs and Spitfires, and noting with British disdain that Mustangs were fitted with air-conditioning. ("Base, I gotta problem. The air con's busted and my shades are misting up!")
Outside the window, the midday heat was shimmering off the runway where Sinatra used to land with the rest of the Rat Pack in his private plane, then walk straight to a waiting helicopter to whisk them up to Villa Maggio, the mountain retreat he built in 1968 and named after the Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity that relaunched his career.
A modest log cabin with nine bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, two saunas, pool, spa, tennis court, petrol station, heliport and separate guesthouse, this has been beautifully restored by a tax-fraud lawyer and his wife. They moved to Palm Springs from San Diego ("We didn't like the people. You say hello and they're stuck for an answer"), bought this as a weekend home and are now selling it for $2 million.
The house is full of the flotsam of fame. I was leaning on Al Capone's old table when a ****su came snuffling by my ankles. "That's Harold Robbins's old dog," said the lawyer's wife. "We got her when he died a year ago."
Sinatra spent his early years in Palm Springs, though, in Twin Palms, a house down in the valley that he built in 1947. A perfect example of mid-century modernism, it has now been immaculately restored by a former landscape gardener, Marc Sanders, who only discovered its history when he dug up some old planning permits.
In the heat of the afternoon, we padded through the house, followed by Marc's miniature terrier - what is it with rich people and small dogs?
Here was the pool into which a drunken Ava Gardner dived naked in front of Sinatra's party guests. Here was the room where Garbo stayed, arriving in midsummer in a heavy coat and scarf and only emerging to swim topless in the pool, clad in just a pair of baggy khaki men's shorts.
These icons passed before my unblinking eyes. But something was wrong: I had lost interest in the past, in history, in all that old stuff. I was turning into a Californian.
I said goodbye to Marc and went for a drive in the convertible, the wind whipping in my hair and Sinatra on the radio, as he would be all week. I checked in the mirror. I was tanned. I filled up the tank, drank a bottle of low-sodium energy supplement and ate a diet loganberry yogurt, and then went to a car dealership to look at some pre-enjoyed low-mileage Rolls-Royces. I felt better. On the way back to the hotel, I was overtaken by two teenagers in a vintage Jaguar and a bald pensioner in a red Corvette.
That night I went out to the old Plaza Theatre to see the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, a bunch of retired showgirls and boys between the ages of 54 and 86 who have put their dancing shoes and their singing hats back on for a last hoof through the twilight years of vaudeville.
It might sound like finding out your granny's become a kiss-o-gram, but it was brilliant and by the end of the evening I had fallen in love with not one but several of the dancers. Ah, if only I were an older man.
The next day, I went to the Joshua Tree national park, 800,000 acres of desert, rocks, cacti and the strange trees so named because the Mormons who travelled west through here in the 1850s thought they looked like the prophet showing them the way to the promised land. If they were right, Joshua was a ra-ra girl, eternally holding aloft several handfuls of pompoms.
Late in the afternoon, I drove over to Desert Memorial Park, the final resting place of Palm Springs' rich and famous, to see Sinatra's grave. It is just a simple plaque set in the grass, bearing the inscription: "The Best Is Yet to Come, Francis Albert Sinatra, 1915-1998, Beloved Husband and Father."
His several wives, especially Nancy, would probably have something to say about the beloved husband bit, but after reading so much about him I felt a shiver when standing by the grave where he finally sleeps with all the stars of Palm Springs. Much as he did in life, really.
That night I went to see Sinatra: My Way, the tribute show by Frankie Randall, a friend and fan of Sinatra's for 38 years, in which Russ Loniello is a better Dean Martin than Dean Martin ever was, Louie Velez is a splendidly dreadful Sammy Davis Jnr and Randall . . . well, good he is, Sinatra he ain't, as he would admit himself.
I sank into my seat and realised the back of my neck was sunburnt. I had been in his homes, I had stood on his grave and now here I was listening to his music live on stage in his town. In the darkness, I drifted away.
In the dream, Frank was cooking pasta in the kitchen, Dean Martin was lying drunk on the sofa, Ava Gardner was swimming naked in the pool and Greta Garbo was sitting on the floor in the corner, wearing an overcoat. I looked at Garbo and her eyes closed and with them the past.
Next morning, I drove to the aiport. On the radio, the Sinatra week had finished and they were playing Smooth Operator by Sade. I climbed into an airplane and rose, high above the palms, into the endless curve of a Sinatra-less future.
- Geoff Hill flew from Belfast to London with British Midland (0345 554554) - from £67 return - and from London to Palm Springs with United Airlines. United Vacations (020 81313 0999) offers fly-drive holidays to Palm Springs from £529 per person in June, including scheduled flights and a week's car hire. Fly-drives to Los Angeles in June start at £496 per person. From LA to Palm Springs by road is about 114 miles. His hire car was provided by Alamo (0990 994000), which has 130 agencies in North America renting everything from compacts to convertibles. He stayed at Casa Cody (00 1 760 320 9346), a Spanish-style inn near the old heart of Palm Springs; doubles from £44 in June, including a great breakfast by the pool. He also stayed at Howard Johnson's (00 1 760 320 2700) at 701 East Palm Canyon Drive, a Fifties motor lodge; doubles from £25.
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chicago tribune
Back home with Ava
'A little old country girl' gets a new museum
By Jon Anderson | Tribune staff reporter June 12, 2001 Smithfield, N.C. - No, there aren't any beautiful young women running barefoot through the tobacco fields around here these days. That was a long time ago. And Ava Gardner was, well, special. Always.
But there is a brand new Ava Gardner Museum, on the main street of this well-kept town of 11,000 people. Opened last fall, it replaces a smaller museum on a side street that was hard to find.
This one has 6,400 square feet of space to house what has been called the nation's largest collection of memorabilia for a single movie star. The new museum has Gardner scripts, posters, clothing, photos, books, family albums, videotapes, a portrait gallery, a mini-theater and a well-stocked gift shop.
Nor is there is skimping on what many fans remember about Gardner.
SPUNK!
"Yes, some people come in and they don't know who she is. But by the time they leave, they love her," says Billie Stevens, the director of the museum and one of the principal keepers of what is still a major flame.
As the museum's guidebook notes, Gardner had the courage to face up to such fearsome directors as John Huston "without breaking out in hives or collapsing in tears or running home to mama." She also had strong views on her need to separate the demands of her glamorous public life from her longings for quiet times, out of the public eye.
"There should be a little more quality in this life, a little more delicacy, a little more love, gentleness and kindness. That goes for just about everything. And it must begin with ourselves," Gardner once said. "I live my life according to my own standards. I like to live out of the public eye. Being a film star is a big damn bore.
"But there's the loot, honey," she went on, "always the loot."
'LITTLE OLD COUNTRY GIRL'
Gardner was born just outside of Smithfield, a 40-minute drive southeast of Raleigh along U.S. Highway 70 in North Carolina's rolling Piedmont region. Her father was a sharecropper. Her mother ran a boarding house for teachers.
She liked to describe herself as "a little old country girl."
But from the time she performed in a 1st-grade operetta, "A Rose Dream," she was, as they say, tabbed for stardom. As a long hall of exhibits -- and a video documentary -- make clear, she grew up a beauty, with green eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, a delicately cleft chin and flawless skin.
Ava went North not long after high school to visit her older sister, Beatrice, known as Bappie, and Bappie's husband, Larry Tarr, a photographer in New York City.
That led to some portraits of the kid sister-in-law. They were spotted by a mail room clerk for MGM. That led to a screen test and a contract. And that led -- after Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw -- to husband Frank Sinatra.
As author Kitty Kelley related in "His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra," Gardner was the only person in Sinatra's weight class (150 pounds and under) who ever fought the feisty singer to a draw. Though they remained enchanted with each other for the rest of their lives, their turbulent marriage didn't last long.
In Kelley's 1986 tome, Gardner describes a typical evening at home.
"I hadn't been there more than 10 minutes," she says, "when the door bursts open and in storms Frank looking like Al Capone and the Boston Strangler rolled into one, and starts to abuse everyone present, mostly me. He called Lana [Turner] 'that two-bit wh*re,' and she burst into tears and got very small and said, 'I'm not going to be talked about like that' in a very little-girl voice just like we were all in a Shirley Temple movie."
Her movie career, meanwhile, was doing very nicely.
After 15 small walk-ons in MGM movies, she was loaned out to Universal to play the femme fatale Kitty Collins in "The Killers." She played opposite Clark Gable in "The Hucksters," then again with Gable in "Mogambo," filmed in the heat of Africa with cast and crew housed in 300 tents and the film shipped out daily packed in dry ice.
Back home with Ava
'A little old country girl' gets a new museum
By Jon Anderson | Tribune staff reporter June 12, 2001 Smithfield, N.C. - No, there aren't any beautiful young women running barefoot through the tobacco fields around here these days. That was a long time ago. And Ava Gardner was, well, special. Always.
But there is a brand new Ava Gardner Museum, on the main street of this well-kept town of 11,000 people. Opened last fall, it replaces a smaller museum on a side street that was hard to find.
This one has 6,400 square feet of space to house what has been called the nation's largest collection of memorabilia for a single movie star. The new museum has Gardner scripts, posters, clothing, photos, books, family albums, videotapes, a portrait gallery, a mini-theater and a well-stocked gift shop.
Nor is there is skimping on what many fans remember about Gardner.
SPUNK!
"Yes, some people come in and they don't know who she is. But by the time they leave, they love her," says Billie Stevens, the director of the museum and one of the principal keepers of what is still a major flame.
As the museum's guidebook notes, Gardner had the courage to face up to such fearsome directors as John Huston "without breaking out in hives or collapsing in tears or running home to mama." She also had strong views on her need to separate the demands of her glamorous public life from her longings for quiet times, out of the public eye.
"There should be a little more quality in this life, a little more delicacy, a little more love, gentleness and kindness. That goes for just about everything. And it must begin with ourselves," Gardner once said. "I live my life according to my own standards. I like to live out of the public eye. Being a film star is a big damn bore.
"But there's the loot, honey," she went on, "always the loot."
'LITTLE OLD COUNTRY GIRL'
Gardner was born just outside of Smithfield, a 40-minute drive southeast of Raleigh along U.S. Highway 70 in North Carolina's rolling Piedmont region. Her father was a sharecropper. Her mother ran a boarding house for teachers.
She liked to describe herself as "a little old country girl."
But from the time she performed in a 1st-grade operetta, "A Rose Dream," she was, as they say, tabbed for stardom. As a long hall of exhibits -- and a video documentary -- make clear, she grew up a beauty, with green eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, a delicately cleft chin and flawless skin.
Ava went North not long after high school to visit her older sister, Beatrice, known as Bappie, and Bappie's husband, Larry Tarr, a photographer in New York City.
That led to some portraits of the kid sister-in-law. They were spotted by a mail room clerk for MGM. That led to a screen test and a contract. And that led -- after Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw -- to husband Frank Sinatra.
As author Kitty Kelley related in "His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra," Gardner was the only person in Sinatra's weight class (150 pounds and under) who ever fought the feisty singer to a draw. Though they remained enchanted with each other for the rest of their lives, their turbulent marriage didn't last long.
In Kelley's 1986 tome, Gardner describes a typical evening at home.
"I hadn't been there more than 10 minutes," she says, "when the door bursts open and in storms Frank looking like Al Capone and the Boston Strangler rolled into one, and starts to abuse everyone present, mostly me. He called Lana [Turner] 'that two-bit wh*re,' and she burst into tears and got very small and said, 'I'm not going to be talked about like that' in a very little-girl voice just like we were all in a Shirley Temple movie."
Her movie career, meanwhile, was doing very nicely.
After 15 small walk-ons in MGM movies, she was loaned out to Universal to play the femme fatale Kitty Collins in "The Killers." She played opposite Clark Gable in "The Hucksters," then again with Gable in "Mogambo," filmed in the heat of Africa with cast and crew housed in 300 tents and the film shipped out daily packed in dry ice.
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chicago tribune
Back home with Ava
The museum's screening-room documentary has clips from most of her triumphs, including "Show Boat," "One Touch of Venus" and "The Night of the Iguana," a film shot in Mexico where she defied the pleas of friends (and the insurance company) by water-skiing to the film's location shootings across shark-infested waters.
Like many stars, including Sinatra, she regularly mixed sex appeal with a sense of danger.
MEMORABILIA COLLECTION
On the other hand, this museum was born -- one might say -- with a kiss.
It was built around a collection of memorabilia put together by Tom Banks, a psychologist, and his wife, Lorraine, a school librarian. At the age of 12, Banks was kissed on the cheek by a young girl, Gardner, who was attending secretarial school in Wilson, N.C. He never forgot it. For years, he collected Gardner-related material as a hobby.
In their later years, after settling in Florida, the couple had planned to donate their collection to a university in New York state. But after talking with a Smithfield reporter in 1978, they decided on Ava's native territory.
In 1980, Banks opened a museum in Ava's childhood home near Smithfield. He ran it for nine summers. In 1989, he suffered a stroke at the museum and died a few days later. Gardner died six months later in January of 1990.
Later that year, Lorraine Banks donated the collection to the Town of Smithfield -- and the following January she died.
Some said that Gardner's raucous private life caught up with her.
Through most of her 30s, she lived in Spain, with an agenda built around bullfighters, gypsies and long excursions into the night.
In her late 40s, "when the nights and the gypsies were no longer the same," she moved on to London, drinking with "chums," as she called them, and continuing to work, "always trying to do my best."
In 1986 she suffered a stroke. She lingered on for four more years. She was 68 when she died and was buried at home, in North Carolina, in Sunset Memorial Park. That's about 7 miles from where her museum now stands.
chicago tribune
Back home with Ava
The museum's screening-room documentary has clips from most of her triumphs, including "Show Boat," "One Touch of Venus" and "The Night of the Iguana," a film shot in Mexico where she defied the pleas of friends (and the insurance company) by water-skiing to the film's location shootings across shark-infested waters.
Like many stars, including Sinatra, she regularly mixed sex appeal with a sense of danger.
MEMORABILIA COLLECTION
On the other hand, this museum was born -- one might say -- with a kiss.
It was built around a collection of memorabilia put together by Tom Banks, a psychologist, and his wife, Lorraine, a school librarian. At the age of 12, Banks was kissed on the cheek by a young girl, Gardner, who was attending secretarial school in Wilson, N.C. He never forgot it. For years, he collected Gardner-related material as a hobby.
In their later years, after settling in Florida, the couple had planned to donate their collection to a university in New York state. But after talking with a Smithfield reporter in 1978, they decided on Ava's native territory.
In 1980, Banks opened a museum in Ava's childhood home near Smithfield. He ran it for nine summers. In 1989, he suffered a stroke at the museum and died a few days later. Gardner died six months later in January of 1990.
Later that year, Lorraine Banks donated the collection to the Town of Smithfield -- and the following January she died.
Some said that Gardner's raucous private life caught up with her.
Through most of her 30s, she lived in Spain, with an agenda built around bullfighters, gypsies and long excursions into the night.
In her late 40s, "when the nights and the gypsies were no longer the same," she moved on to London, drinking with "chums," as she called them, and continuing to work, "always trying to do my best."
In 1986 she suffered a stroke. She lingered on for four more years. She was 68 when she died and was buried at home, in North Carolina, in Sunset Memorial Park. That's about 7 miles from where her museum now stands.
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irish examiner
Authors claim Ava Gardner aborted Sinatra's baby
01/06/2005 - 12:16:14
Movie siren Ava Gardner underwent two abortions in the space of three months, according to Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan - and only one of the babies was her husband Sinatra's.
The authors have already created a storm of controversy with their new book Sinatra: The life, which exposes the beloved crooner as an alleged r*pist, mafia member and depressed suicide case.
And now, they're exposing Ol' Blue Eyes' second wife.
Summers reveals, "She not only had an abortion of Frank Sinatra's baby very early in her marriage, but, within a month or three, had had an abortion of a child that had been fathered by another man."
The authors have also obtained an audio tape of Gardner revealing what made her six-year marriage to Sinatra so tempestuous.
On the tape, the actress reveals: "Every single night we would have at least three or four Martinis, big ones... have wine with dinner and go to a nightclub and start drinking scotch or bourbon or something. I don't know how we did it."
Summers and Swann claim Sinatra couldn't live with Gardner, but had even more trouble living without her - after their divorce in 1957 the authors claim Sinatra attempted suicide.
Authors claim Ava Gardner aborted Sinatra's baby
01/06/2005 - 12:16:14
Movie siren Ava Gardner underwent two abortions in the space of three months, according to Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan - and only one of the babies was her husband Sinatra's.
The authors have already created a storm of controversy with their new book Sinatra: The life, which exposes the beloved crooner as an alleged r*pist, mafia member and depressed suicide case.
And now, they're exposing Ol' Blue Eyes' second wife.
Summers reveals, "She not only had an abortion of Frank Sinatra's baby very early in her marriage, but, within a month or three, had had an abortion of a child that had been fathered by another man."
The authors have also obtained an audio tape of Gardner revealing what made her six-year marriage to Sinatra so tempestuous.
On the tape, the actress reveals: "Every single night we would have at least three or four Martinis, big ones... have wine with dinner and go to a nightclub and start drinking scotch or bourbon or something. I don't know how we did it."
Summers and Swann claim Sinatra couldn't live with Gardner, but had even more trouble living without her - after their divorce in 1957 the authors claim Sinatra attempted suicide.
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msnbc
Readers pick the new classic stars
Gwyneth Paltrow as the new Grace Kelly; Johnny Depp as the new Chaplin
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Erik Lundegaard gave his take on the new classics. Here are some of your suggestions:
The new Chaplin: This one is so obvious I can't believe you overlooked it.... Johnny Depp! He has already played the role perfectly in “Benny & Joon,” with the "runaway hat" schtick which he truly had down to a "T." —Deborah Dunstan
The modern day Joan Crawford is Sharon Stone for sure! —Shannon Hatzichristos
Catherine Zeta Jones is definitely the new Ava Gardner. —Catherine Bucher
You mentioned Peter Lorre, and a new incarnation HAS to be Steve Buscemi. Not just looks either. I am not so sure about the Buster Keaton/Bill Macy comparison though. Bill Macy plays so many different types of characters it's hard to do comparisons. I like Brad Pitt as the new Redford. I also like Deborah Messing as the new Lucille Ball, and again... not just the red hair. And, by the way, the new Jack Nicholson is Jack Nicholson. —Scott Ross
In response to your slide show that compared Russell Crowe to Marlon Brando, etc., I offer the following comparisons:
Readers pick the new classic stars
Gwyneth Paltrow as the new Grace Kelly; Johnny Depp as the new Chaplin
Click to see how today's stars compare to stars of the past. Caption text by Erik Lundegaard.
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updated 5:52 p.m. ET, Mon., June. 6, 2005
Erik Lundegaard gave his take on the new classics. Here are some of your suggestions:
The new Chaplin: This one is so obvious I can't believe you overlooked it.... Johnny Depp! He has already played the role perfectly in “Benny & Joon,” with the "runaway hat" schtick which he truly had down to a "T." —Deborah Dunstan
The modern day Joan Crawford is Sharon Stone for sure! —Shannon Hatzichristos
Catherine Zeta Jones is definitely the new Ava Gardner. —Catherine Bucher
You mentioned Peter Lorre, and a new incarnation HAS to be Steve Buscemi. Not just looks either. I am not so sure about the Buster Keaton/Bill Macy comparison though. Bill Macy plays so many different types of characters it's hard to do comparisons. I like Brad Pitt as the new Redford. I also like Deborah Messing as the new Lucille Ball, and again... not just the red hair. And, by the way, the new Jack Nicholson is Jack Nicholson. —Scott Ross
In response to your slide show that compared Russell Crowe to Marlon Brando, etc., I offer the following comparisons:
- Catherine Zeta-Jones is today's Ava Gardner: The face, the body, the coloring, the sultry allure, etc.
scriptgirl
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Laif
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Thanks scriptgirl. Have you seen the movie? Is it any good?
scriptgirl
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Ziegfield Girl, I have not seen "The Bible". I have read that book "Love is Nothing" on Ava and I feel very bad for her. Ava was a very, very sweet girl who was plunked down in Hollywood and had to fend for herself. Along the way, her self-esteem and self image were destroyed-mainly by Artie Shaw and turned into an alcoholic. After she split with Frank, she went on a downhill slope, only to maybe be truly happy before she died.
ipj
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