Ava Gardner: "She was so bloody gorgeous" [by David Lehman]

An Australian cameraman at whom she threw a glass of champagne marveled. "She was so bloody gorgeous." That is what he was thinking when the glass and its contents went flying at him. That was Ava Gardner. Like a hurricane but beautiful, glamorous yet down to earth -- she could swear like a sailor; had a terrible temper; gravitated naturally to macho men, matadors, crooners, big-band leaders, big-game hunting American writers on safari. She was 5'6, a brunette with killer looks and a nice voice. They dubbed her in the movie "Showboat" but it's her voice you hear on the soundtrack. They should not have dubbed her. It sounds phony.  Her voice full of tequila cocktails was just right for Julie's showstopper, "Bill." Her eyebrows and mouth rival Vivien Leigh's; her eyes give Liz Taylor's a run for the money. On the sexuality scale, she ranks right up there with Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak. She posed for Man Ray ("absolutely ravishing"). A sculptor got her to step out of her little two-piece, one piece at a time. He did inspired work. But they didn't use the statue. Damn it, it has tits, the executive roared.

Ava commanded an unusual loyalty. Among her ex-husbands, Frank Sinatra was really hooked. He had a statue of her in his backyard until his fourth wife (Barbara Marx) made him remove it. But was it the same one? When she fell ill in 1989, Frankie paid all the bills. He called her "Angel." But he didn't attend the funeral when she died in January 1990. Neither did the two other ex-husbands, Mickey Rooney, a major Hollywood star when she was nineteen and breaking in, and clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw, who ruined her self-esteem by reminding her how uneducated she was. Artie made her read Dostoyevski, Mann, and Flaubert. He even took Darwin's "Origin of the Species"  along on their honeymoon. Darwin's great-grandson deemed her to be "the highest specimen of the human species." But Artie thought she was a dummy, and she was desperately in love with Artie. "I don't think he ever really understood the damage he did," Ava wrote about Artie Shaw. (Artie married a lot, divorced a lot, and was famous for his chutzpah.) Mickey Rooney remembered that sex with her had been great. She demurred: "Not for me," she said. Of her third husband, Frank Sinatra, Ava once said. "Frank weighs 120 pounds but 110 of them are pure cock." But she made him sweat, being an inconstant as he was. She carried on with a famous Spanish matador and made the crooner fanatically jealous.

Surprisingly, there is more North than South in her natal chart -- 56.4% to 43.6% -- a proportion that beautifully mirrors the popular vote after certain landmark US elections. Her chart conjures a type of individual who externalizes her emotions rather than bottling them up. In a certain mood, she is more likely to fight, curse, slap, and shout than to act quietly bitchy. She is not introspective. As the actress herself once said, "deep down I'm pretty superficial." The predominance of water signs in her chart suggests a state of constant motion, change, and periodic upheaval. Can anyone be surprised that the proportion of yin to yang in Ms. Gardner's chart is more than three to one, 76.3% to 23.7%?

Planetary: The predominance of the moon, Mars, and Saturn in Ms. Gardner's chart indicate that she can be saturnine, martial, and lunar, though not all at the same time. The dominant signs in the chart are Capricorn (her birth sign, which also houses her Mercury), Cancer (her rising sign, and her Pluto), and Pisces (the moon, Mars, Uranus). Much depends on your interpretation of Ava's eighth house -- the house of transformation and the house of sex -- which in her case is particularly complex. The strong currents of the water signs in her chart suggest an unremitting flow of sexual energy. The fact that both her Venus and her Jupiter reside in Scorpio give you an idea of the unpredictable nature of her temper and moods. Such a woman. when endowed with a beautiful face and body, is guaranteed to have a bewitching hold on men -- whether the strong, silent, sincere type, the mercurial genius, or the vain prince.

Let me just put it this way: she shares a birthday with Elvis Presley. She is the same height as Catherine Deneuve (5'6).In Chinese astrology, she is a water dog. When Sinatra sings "I'm a Fool to Want You," he's thinking of Ava. She taught him heartbreak and the dark side of passion -- and that was just one of the gifts she bestowed on him during their tempestuous marriage. It is said that Sinatra got his career-reviving role in From Here to Eternity (1953) not from the machinations of a mafioso (as The Godfather would have it) but because Ava, then as big a box office star as there was, weighed in with Harry Cohen of Columbia Pictures.

-- DL

Comments

[Laura Orem]

I aspire to be more like Ava - she's a terrific tough broad with a big heart. Not to mention gorgeous.

(Artie Shaw was a jerk to all his wives. And to most women. If he hadn't played clarinet like an angel, someone would have dropped a piano on his head.)

She was heart-breaking in "Showboat," but my favorite Ava Gardner performance is in the oft-scorned "Night of the Iguana." I think she really caught the tragic but indomitable essence of Maxine Faulk, a woman who is past her prime but whose gusto is not. A brave role for Garnder, too - showing she was an artist as well as a movie star.

[Jilly]

I wonder what the synastry between her chart and Frank Sinatra's charts looked like.

[Laura Orem]

Probably like a mushroom cloud.

[Stacey]

I'm often mistaken for Ava Gardner.

[DL]

LO, I think you're right about "Night of the Iguana" (though about all I remember of that pic is the song, "The Shadow of Your Smile"). And you're almost certainly right about Artie Shaw. Yet I have a soft spot for Abraham Arthur Arshawsky, who faced so much anti-Semitism as a boy that he was determined to excel at anything he tried: he was ranked #4 among marksmen in the US and was an adroit fly-fisherman in addition to playing "Begin the Beguine" most brilliantly.

[Tali]

Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935.....not December 24th. I share a birthday with Elvis, not that this means a thing.

[Janet]

The Shadow of Your Smile was from The Sandpiper not Night of the Iguana and Artie Shaw was a jerk when it came to women - he was married 8 times and not one of his ex-wives remembered him with any fondness. Says a lot about the man. When Ava died instead of being gracious he said something like "she died of confusion - she was all over the place". How gentlemanly of you Mr. Shaw. Fine musician but lousy human being.

[The Best American Poetry]

Yes, "The Shadow of Your Smile" was in "The Sandpiper." My error. -- DL

[Lewis Lyons]

Wow, are you single?