Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

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Her phone calls in the middle of the night had fallen into a habit. I picked up the receiver on the first ring, an old newspaperman’s trick.

“Did I wake you, honey?” she asked softly, without preamble.

“It’s 3 A.M.,” I said, checking my watch. “Of course you didn’t wake me.”

“It’s me,” she said.

“I know it’s you, Ava.” No one else in the world sounded like Ava Gardner. Nobody I knew anyway. There was always a sense of weariness, a hint of a recent bender in her voice, even when it wasn’t three o’clock in the morning, even when she was stone-cold sober.

“You said I could always call, no matter what time it was,” she reminded me. “Were you sleeping, honey?”

“Just dozing,” I lied. She sounded low. “Can’t you sleep?”

“I miss Frank,” she said after a small silence. “He was a bastard. But Jesus I miss him.”

“Was? Is he dead?”

“Not as far as I know, honey.”

Sinatra would outlive her, she said. “Bastards are always the best survivors.”

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