Word: ava
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...goes the gossip, some new, some warmed over. Kelley's narrative is as lengthy as a chronicle of the Hundred Years' War, in part because even a selective list of Sinatra's sexual skirmishes seems endless. The author ticks off affairs with, among many others, Marilyn Maxwell, Ava Gardner (his second wife), Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow (his third), Natalie Wood and Lauren Bacall. But the most important woman in the singer's life, and Kelley's most substantial contribution to the inside story, may have been Sinatra's mother Dolly, an abortionist, ward politician...
...this biography of one of President Reagan's Medal of Freedom winners is accurate, is it also fair? Kelley takes pains to point out that Sinatra's callousness has often been balanced by a swaggering generosity. Ol' Blue Eyes may have charged the gaudy anniversary ring he gave to Ava to her account, being down on his luck at the time. He also played benefits tirelessly for worthy causes, raised millions for charity, and impulsively paid bills for down-and-out show business acquaintances, and sometimes for people whose hard-luck stories he happened to see in newspapers...
...when the distortions of life far exceed those of art. Evelyn Waugh's scapegrace Basil Seal (Black Mischief) is based in part on an aristocrat who might have arrived from the set of early Monty Python. As a houseguest, Basil Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Fourth Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, liked to borrow a pound from the butler and later tip him with it. The title character of V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas is a version of the author's father, a West Indian journalist. Seepersad Naipaul publicly labeled the rite of goat sacrifice superstitious. He subsequently...
...days when a big network mini-series could mobilize the country around its TV sets night after night seem to have vanished. Though none of this season's mini-series were outright bombs, all fell short of smash ratings. Despite A.D.'s stars (James Mason, Ava Gardner), spectacle and heavy pretelecast promotion, it attracted only 19.2% of the nation's TV viewers. That is above average but no larger than the audience for a typical episode of Magnum, P.I. The most popular three-parter of the season, ABC's Hollywood Wives, drew an unspectacular 22.8 rating, much lower than...
...screen was silver in her day, and she gave it unforgettable polish and shine. Now Ava Gardner, 62, is bringing her glow to the phosphors of the TV screen for the first time. In three weeks Gardner will star on NBC's A.D., a Christians vs. lions mini-series in which she plays Agrippina, Nero's manipulative mother. Last week brought the start of her seven-episode stint on Knots Landing, in which she portrays the wealthy Ruth Sumner, another manipulative mother and one of those prime-time soap characters like J.R. and Alexis who manage to drub everyone...