Life After HEARTBREAK

AFTER A TRAUMATIC SPLIT, THE MOVIE GODDESS FLED HOLLYWOOD TO ESCAPE THE GOSSIP

- LOUISE A. BARILE

Ava fell in love with Spain while filming 1951's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.

On a trip to Spain, author James Michener couldn't believe his eyes. “He was working on his book Iberia and was at some club where they were doing flamenco dancing,” Lawrence Grobel, author of Conversations with Ava Gardner, tells Closer. “And there's Ava Gardner, so he introduced himself. She said, ‘What's your name? Well, James, [expletive] off!’”

"Just being a film star is a very great bore," said Ava. She sought a different life in Spain's capital, Madrid, where she lived until 1968.

In the late 1950s, Ava, one of Hollywood's great silver screen goddesses, moved to Europe to escape her fame, the film studios, the paparazzi and to recover from her divorce from Frank Sinatra. Traveling only with her personal assistant, Mearene “Renee” Jordan, she settled in the Spanish capital of Madrid. “In Spain, I wasn't Ava Gardner, movie star,” said the actress, who immersed herself in the city's culture of late nights, flamenco dancing and bullfights. “I was Ava, the woman.”

Ava had a warm friendship with author Ernest Hemingway and his fourth wife, Mary Welsh.

It was a long way from Grabtown, North Carolina, where Ava had grown up poor. Luck and an uncommonly beautiful face brought her to Hollywood. “She was never a great actress but she was good in movies,” says Grobel of the star who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in 1953's Mogambo. Unfortunately, gossip about her love life often overshadowed her film work.