Ava – The Secret Conversations

A fading star of Hollywood’s golden age, now living a quiet life in 1980s London, hires a journalist to write her biography in order to bring in much needed income. The journalist can’t believe his luck. From poor Southern farm girl to a powerful Hollywood goddess her story is pure celluloid. A devastating beauty whose hard drinking, hard loving lifestyle kept the gossip columnists busy as her movies thrilled the punters. The ultimate femme fatale – Ava Gardner.

Not always intentionally, Ava spills the beans on her three husbands to often humorous affect: Mickey Rooney, a serial cheater so notorious that even his mother warned Gardner about him; bandleader Artie Shaw “a dominating son of a bitch – always putting me down” and Frank Sinatra.. “We were fighting all the time. Fighting and boozing. It was madness. But he was good in the feathers”. This compelling new play explores the fractured relationship between the public and private lives of one of Hollywood’s great icons. . Produced by Karl Sydow, the production will star Elizabeth McGovern who also adapted the book Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations by Peter Evans & Ava Gardner for the stage.