Some years ago, after reading his definitive biography of Robert Mitchum, <i>Baby, I Don’t Care</i>, I became unequivocally convinced that there was no better biographer of the icons of old Hollywood than Lee Server, a man of palpable passion and thorough research – with a hip, fluid writing style besides. But his new book on Ava Gardner – bad boy Mitchum’s feminine equivalent – reveals that the oldest of raps on biographers holds true even for one such as Server: that they’re only as good as their subjects.
For all that complicated her – her alcoholism, her penchant for cocky, confrontational men, her quirky reclusiveness – Ava, even at the service of Server, remains unworthy of such an extensive excavation of character. Despite a considerable effort – 500 pages! – we are left with not much more than what we were presented with in the beginning: a simple North Carolina girl blessed by the goddess of genetics.
She was raised in tobacco country, until picked like a prize leaf by a New York City photographer, who brought her to the attention of the eastern arm of MGM, then riding the philosophy Beauty First, Talent Later. She made her way up the studio ladder, from unremarkable shorts to femme fatale, finally planting her almost always bare feet atop its highest rung, with films such as <i>The Killers</i>, <i>Mogambo</i>, and <i>The Barefoot Contessa<i> (a role written specifically for her.) Despite a decent percentage of prestige pictures, she shied away from roles she deemed too challenging. “I can’t act,” she maintained, even in her last years, “Many directors have tried.” Her sense of self, formed largely by a long line of extremely successful men who threw away their precious public decorum for her – including Mickey Rooney, Howard Hughes, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra – never progressed past the one originally created for her: that of raven-haired, post-war pin-up. Once that started to erode – beginning with a drunken fall off a horse in her adopted Spain, an incident that resulted in a noticeable facial flaw – it was, in her mind, game over; her cue to eschew the spotlight and embrace anonymity.
Problem was – for Server at least – this adios took place as early as the late 50s. Mitchum – to contrast Server’s last 2 efforts – worked until the last days of his life, leaving, therefore, a living, breathing pool of reliable sources. Here, with Ava, poor Server is stuck with a seriously depleted stock: octogenarian Hollywood stringers, overworked tabloid speculation, and – a biographer’s worst nightmare – admitted dead ends.
One of the most powerful magnifying glasses on the market today has been applied to Ava Gardner; her trademark beauty, as a result, is made even more obvious, but otherwise, her image is enhanced little.
