"The most complete and engrossing biography yet of this exotic Southern girl...Excellent."âLiz Smith
She was the sex symbol who dazzled all the other sex symbols. She was the temptress who drove Frank Sinatra to the brink of suicide and haunted him to the end of his life. Ernest Hemingway saved one of her kidney stones as a sacred memento, and Howard Hughes begged her to marry himâbut she knocked out his front teeth instead.
She was one of the great icons in Hollywood historyâstar of The Killers, The Barefoot Contessa, and The Night of the Iguanaâand one of the few whose actual life was grander and more colorful than any movie. Her jaw-dropping beauty, charismatic presence, and fabulous, scandalous adventures fueled the legend of Ava GardnerâHollywood's most glamorous, restless and uninhibited star.
In this acclaimed first full biography of Gardner, Lee Server recreatesâwith great style and vivid detailâthe actress's life, from her beginnings as a barefoot North Carolina farm girl to her heady days as a Hollywood goddess. He paints the full spectacle of her tumultuous private lifeâincluding her string of failed marriages to Mickey Rooney, Sinatra and Artie Shawâand Gardner's lifelong search for adventure and love.
Ava Gardner: "Love is Nothing" is both an exceptional work of biography and a richly entertaining read.