Ava

 

To avoid this blog turning into perpetual obituary, let's have a look at the very fascinating photo.

Ava Gardner was a celebrated Hollywood beauty and as such she was kind of frozen in time - the industry was fascinated with her good looks, glamour, sex appeal and alluring presence but we hardly ever got a glimpse behind the artificial image.

In the movies, she was the ultimate sex kitten, a ravishing trophy on the elbow of a hero (or a criminal mobster) - in the media, she was jet setting superstar who was marrying and divorcing and marrying again one millionaire after another. There was a hint of restless soul about her, someone who was attracted to excitement, passion and adventure - after all, she left Ernest Hemingway for a Spanish bullfighter. What is much more interesting to me is that Hollywood froze her in time - we see time and time again her photographs from 1940s and 1950s, when she was carefully made up to look like a elegant leopardess but curiously, almost nothing from later years when she moved to Europe and gradually slipped out of the movies completely. Not that she became less interesting - but once she left Hollywood, the media focused on others, new young faces. And when we had a chance to see her (doing usually a high profile cameos, like in "Mayerling" or "The Cassandra Crossing") it was always a glimpse of a former beauty - still striking and still regal, but one could tell this is aged Helen of Troy. And voilà, here is the photograph from 1970s (my guess) when Gardner was well in her fifties - I find it very interesting, in fact probably the most striking photo of her that I have ever seen before - in all the other, famous black and white portraits she was a Hollywood glamour girl, here she looks directly into us - still beautifully made up, still glamorous, still striking - but there is something in her eyes that suggest a woman trapped in her own image. Famous for being beautiful, she was now facing the passing of time, her own mortality and she is almost wondering "Is that all there is?" I like this picture very much, far more than any of her artificial studio shots and find it very interesting psychological portrait. 

P.S.

Just found out that I wrote and published this - by some cosmic coincidence - on the anniversary of her death.

Now, how interesting is this? Why on Earth would I think of Ava Gardner on January 25th? I do remember seeing and saving this picture specifically for this essay a few days earlier.