A biography for Ava Gardnerhasn’t been written yet.
“I think the most vulgar thing about Hollywood is the way it believes its own gossip.”
“Nobody could pile on the applesauce like Mickey. He was the best liar in the world - well, Frank Sinatra can tell a good story, too, but I don't believe he was ever unfaithful to me.”
“I did a lot of hokey movies when I was starting out at MGM. Good and bad, mostly bad.”
“There was no way the marriages could have survived. Nor do I regret that they didn't.”
“The marriages to Mickey and Artie were easy come, easy go. I called them my 'starter husbands!'”
“What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in.”
“Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn't have been more wrong.”
“I suffered, I really suffered, with all three of my husbands. And I tried damn hard with all three, starting each marriage certain that it was going to last until the end of my life. Yet none of them lasted more than a year or two.”
“I'm not saying my own looks don't give the game away. Nothing I can do about that anymore. A nip and tuck ain't gonna do it.”
“I do owe Mickey one thing: he taught me how much I enjoyed sex.”
“Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn't and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don't think they understood me.”
“I'm here to tell you, there ain't much forgiveness in that old-time religion. That particular savior was a mean son of a bitch. If you sinned, honey, he was going to get you, no doubt about it.”