Ava and the Avas that followed

Even for Hollywood standards, she was a special : a beautiful, alluring animal. That she was, in fact, a woman, all flesh and bones like all of us makes her even more magical and fascinating. I always wanted to know more about her, other than the marriages, the love affair, and the discovery. 

There are a few books out there about her life and I am yet to buy one. I do put a lot of energy into  researching  biographies before buying  them, reading as many reviews as I can before I feel sure it is the right choice. It makes the whole process longer, but I learned the hard way that publishers do.....publish anything they think will sell. Are they not aware that it hurts us, the public for such books, to find inaccuracies, mistakes and stupid lies written about people we admire? Don´t get me wrong: I am not talking about sanitized books, hagiographies of all kinds or even the worst of all, family-members-telling-it-all. Those do them- and us-  no justice.

Anyway, Ava was such a remarkable person that a book came out about the making of a biography of her. The reviews are very positive, so I already made up my mind about it. Soon I will find out more about the woman so special to me. In the meantime, I share what I already know-or think-about her.

The so called "Studios System" or "Star Machine" for Jeanine Basinger gave us the movie stars. And they were right in feeling at the time that  they created them and they could destroy them. In another words: the stars were creatures. They had their hair changed, teeth caped, accents erased. Their previous life story was rewritten, as if the ones they had before were a draft. Most of the times, their name was changed.

But not with Ava.

She had not only the perfect face and body , but also the most unusual, yet simple,  name. Ava Lavinia Gardner. No, she was not  called "Lucy Johnson" as some researchers suggested. The only thing MGM had to get rid of was her North Carolina accent. Oh, and to teach her how to act. She was a teenager when she arrived there, chaperoned by a sister.

Years passed: two marriages ( Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw) and not a single good movie . Was she aware of that? Did she care at that point? It does not matter now,  almost 70 years later, because in 1946 she finally broke through with " The Killers". It is not what she does, as she does not do much. But we believe a guy like Burt Lancaster would fall hard for her. That movie proved also important to her as John Huston is listed among the screenwriters and he was very keen on working with Ava, even after her days as a bonafide movie star were over. 

I watched " The Barefoot Comtessa" when I was young, on the day she died. I did not follow the plot in a linear way, as I was 11 years old with a very limited attention span . I remember finding  the Humphrey Bogart character very weird and wanting even more Ava on the screen. I was fascinated by her and did not care about the story, to be honest. That is the essence of a star: your eyes are on no one else.

Oh, the name. It has been a trend in Hollywood now. Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Jackman, Heather Locklear and Jeremy Renner had all named their daughters "Ava". As it often goes, this has inspired many others and "Ava" is listed among the top 10 names for girls in USA. What is the meaning of this name? No idea! It is a Persian name , meaning voice or sound, very common for older women, as an Iranian friend told me. It is also an old German name, used mainly in the Middle Ages,  but honestly, nobody knows for sure its meaning. 

I named my daughter Ava, not following a trend, but paying tribute to a very honest, down to earth and beautiful woman.