75 years ago, in 1941, Ava Gardner (1922-1990) made her debut in films.
Ava Gardner:
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Shawn Levy, ‘Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci,
Paparazzi, amd the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome’:
“...But the 1950s were allowing for a brassier and more
overtly sexual image of feminine allure to emerge on movie screens than
previously, and Hollywood would send a specimen of that sort to Rome in
November 1953: Ava Gardner flew in after divorcing Frank Sinatra, to blow off a
little steam at the nightclubs that were starting to pop up around town, to
acquire a hand-fit wardrobe of couture dresses, and, almost incidentally, to
play the title role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa, a story of
a poor girl turned man-eating diva that was, apparently, personally tailored to
Gardner as a bespoke gown...”
Ava Gardner:
“You can sum up my life in a sentence, honey: She made
movies, she made out, and she made a fucking mess of her life. But she never
made jam.”
(‘Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations’ by Peter Evans &
Ava Gardner)
courtesy: respective copyright owners of the images