Ava Gardner: Love is Nothing - Softcover

'An extraordinary life of an extraordinary woman ... Gardner's genius was not her work, but, as this book proves, her life' Observer 'Server gets movie stars, and he gets movies ... That's quite a trick for a biographer to pull off - both to immerse himself in his subjects, yet make them utterly his own' Tom Shone, Sunday Times 'Server has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down publicists, make-up artists, servants, friends and neighbours to provide the most intimate, fully rounded portrait ... A great read that allows us to see Gardner in a different light' Glasgow Herald 'In the space of these pages, we befriend, then fall in love with, then finally mourn a remarkably beautiful woman who was surprisingly shy, yet spoke her mind fearlessly (and often colourfully), who thought little of herself as an actress, who lived in a man's world yet managed not to be fooled into losing sight of who she was. She remained, ultimately, free to be herself, no matter what the price' Peter Bogdanovitch, New York Times

Ava Gardner was the sex symbol who dazzled the other sex symbols. Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner thought her the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She drove Frank Sinatra to the brink of suicide. Ernest Hemingway carried around one of her kidney stones as a sacred memento. Howard Hughes begged her to marry him: she punched out his front teeth. Her charismatic presence, jaw-dropping beauty and scandalous adventures fuelled the legend that she became. Yet she was a farmgirl who became a reluctant goddess, and who retreated from the world's gaze for the last years of her life. Filled with fresh insights gleaned from interviews with Ava's colleagues, friends and lovers, this is the definitive biography of Hollywood's most glamorous, restless and uninhibited star.