Ava Gardner
[ 2006-04-24 11:29 ]
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Author: Lee Server
List Price: $29.95
Pages: 608
Publisher: St.
Martin's Press (April 18, 2006)
Dimensions: 9.5 x
6.5 x 1.7 inches
ISBN:
0312312091
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Server follows his superb biography of Robert Mitchum (Baby I Don't
Care, 2001) with the life of another midcentury movie icon: Ava Gardner.
Gardner's rise from North Carolina tobacco country to Hollywood
superstardom began when an MGM talent scout spotted her picture in the
window of a photographer's studio. It's a Cinderella story, to be sure,
but Server gives us the unexpurgated version, complete with Gardner's
Mitchum-like credentials for booze consumption, rugged individualism, and
sexual appetite (marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra
and affairs with pretty much everyone else). And then there was her
beauty--in interviews with dozens of stars, the message is the same: no
one ever looked better than Ava Gardner. This is also a story of the
studio system, and Gardner was one of its most notable victims, ill-used
throughout her career, forced to do bad movies and forced to watch her
good movies decimated in the cutting room. Server capably assesses the
hits and misses, languishing on those electric moments when the camera
caught the "feline sprawl of her exquisite body." A no-holds-barred view
of a larger-than-life star.
Book
review
Lee Server is one fascinating writer. His
exceptionally well written book, "Ava Gardner" is one to be savored! The
author has an uncanny ability to capture Gardner in the most humane,
respectable and revealing terms, while sharing fascinating
behind-the-scenes first hand accounts that serve to show all sides of
Gardner's life.
I've been enthralled with biographies since the third grade, and this
one is beautifully written. There's a lot to learn and discover. Most
importantly this book is especially flowing, interesting, and the kind of
book you can't put down.
As Ava "lived large, long, and precisely as she wanted to" this book
truly shares it all. This is an excellent biography about an incredibly
interesting woman!
Author
introduction
Lee Server is an American
writer. He is the author of the successful biography on Robert
Mitchum, 'BABY I DON'T CARE'. He has been busy for the last decade,
cranking out some of the most challenging works in print including among
others: 'SAM FULLER: FILM IS A BATTLEGROUND: A Critical Study, With
Interviews, a Filmography and a Bibliography', 'DANGER IS MY BUSINESS: An
Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines/1896-1953', as well as
editing 'THE BIG BOOK OF NOIR' a collection of articles on film noir by
several contributors.
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