AVA GARDNER
How to measure the iconographic dimension of Ava Gardner in the history of cinema and physical beauty without falling under Stendhal syndrome? The only thing more unfathomable is capturing his influence in the Art of Frank Sinatra. What to thank Ava Gardner more for, “The Barefoot Contessa” or “Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely“?
The course of love and lack of love of a human being traces the future of his life and work. This is particularly evident in an artist, whose raw material is generated on the left side of his chest; You have to work to create beauty and truth with whatever you have in your heart’s supply, whether ecstasy or abysses.
The Sinatra who was a living legend and Voice of the 20th Century is born from the ashes of a youthful idol in decline who, with nothing to lose, throws himself into the pyre of a brutal passion that will devastate his body, soul, and soul with pleasure and pain. judgment and dignity. After having and losing the sublime and corrosive love of Ava, Frank stops singing like a singer and begins to sing like a man, thus becoming the best performer of his class. A Sinatra happily married to Nancy Barbato, or going from one Mount of Venus to another, would never have been able to make an album like “In The Wee Small Hours.”
Ava Gardner was born on Christmas Eve 1922 on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. At seventeen years old she already possessed an extraordinary physical beauty that fractured glances and clouded hearts. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer only needed to see some photos in 1941 to offer him a contract. His first years in Hollywood were more marked by his love life than by his work; Hasty and fleeting marriages with Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw gave her headlines longer than her sentences on screen.
In 1946 he had his first major role alongside George Raft in “Whistle Stop“, and that same year, he participated in the successful “The Killers“. In 1953 John Ford included her in the cast of “Mogambo” and there she truly displayed her glory, earning an Oscar nomination. In 1954 she made “The Barefoot Contessa” and two years later she starred in “Bhowani Junction.” His last role to achieve critical acclaim was “The Night Of The Iguana” in 1964.
Disillusioned with Hollywood, she moved to her beloved Spain and then went to London, where she ended her days. The latest films, sporadic and nutritional, continued to show the brilliance of a beauty resistant to excess and age. But there is no heart or human reason that can withstand so much fire, and Ava died on January 25, 1990 at the age of 67, a victim of pneumonia. The physical decline of the actress, caused by her excessive alcohol consumption, had worsened in recent years. She and Frank never lost touch, and the embers of that impossible love had never been extinguished. In fact, in his home in Palm Springs, Sinatra had for years a sculpture of Ava in the mythical role of “The Barefoot Contessa.” When he receives the news, Frank breaks down, crying, blaming himself for not having been with her at that last moment. He does not have the strength to attend the actress’s funeral or burial, but he sends a wreath of flowers with a message that says: “With love, Francis.”
On January 30, one day after Ava’s burial, Sinatra inaugurated the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York, before ten thousand people who sold out the tickets on the same day they went on sale. Almost at the end of the concert, he surprises the audience by singing the rare “Lonely Town”, a moving hymn to loneliness that he had recorded in 1957 for the album “Where Are You”, and that could well serve as a tribute and final goodbye to Ava, who leaves a void in her heart that nothing and no one can fill again:
“Unless there is love, the world is a lonely place, and every town is a lonely town.”
Article written by Mahnuel Muñoz. https://www.facebook.com/mahnuelmunozoficial
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