• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Frank argued that Ava had “a thing” amounting to aberrant jealousy. He said she constantly suspected he was involved in other romances, all of which he denied.

“If it took seventy-five years to get a divorce, there wouldn’t be any other woman for me,” he said. His friends had advised him to give her up, saying Ava was too complex and full of problems for him. “Sure, it’s easy for somebody to say give her up—when they’re not in love with her.”

Dolly’s “reconciliation” lasted only a few weeks, until Frank left for Las Vegas to appear at the Sands Hotel. Ava refused to fly to his opening because he hadn’t called her. “Why should I go?” she said. “I’ve heard nothing from him since he left.”

The night he left, she attended the premiere of Mogambo in Los Angeles wearing what the newspapers described as “a so-low-cut pastel satin gown, skin-tight from bustline to hemline and embroidered all over with beads, sequins, and paillettes. Skirt was slit to the knee in front. A long stole of white fox set off her short, short hair-do.” The next day, Ava went to Palm Springs while Frank poured his heart out to Louella Parsons in Las Vegas.

“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I love her,” he said.

“You should be telling that to Ava, not to me,” said Louella. “Why in heaven’s name don’t you telephone her and tell her how you feel? I know she’s carrying a torch for you a mile high.”

“No, Ava doesn’t love me anymore. If she did, she’d be here where she belongs—with me. Instead, she’s in Palm Springs having a wonderful time.”

“C’mon, Frankie. Why don’t you telephone?”

“No, Ava’s wrong this time. I’ve been wrong other times, but this time it’s all her fault. She’ll have to call me.”

“Why ‘wrong’?” asked Louella.

“She doesn’t understand that I’ve got a career to worry about too,” he said. “Why, Louella, she didn’t even come to my opening here! Why would she do a thing like that to me? That’s only part of it. Ever since our marriage, I’ve been at her beck and call. No matter where she’s been, I’ve flown to her regardless of the fact that I also had some important engagements. But I was willing to neglect them for her.… She saw my mother. My mother said to her, ‘All this fighting is no good. Why don’t you telephone Frank?’ ”

Instead, Ava called her lawyer, Neil McCarthy, after seeing a photograph of Frank in the newspapers dressed as a clown at a Halloween party he threw at the Sands. Two gorgeous show girls flanked him. Ava told her lawyer that she wanted a divorce.

“Frank doesn’t love me. He would rather go out with some other girl, almost any other girl,” she said.

McCarthy advised her not to rush into the divorce court without first talking to her husband. He set up a meeting between them, and Frank flew to Los Angeles, but he canceled the meeting at the last minute. He resented being brought to heel by Ava and her lawyer for faults that he felt existed only in her imagination, so he flew back to Las Vegas.

On October 29, 1953, MGM announced that the marriage was over: “Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra stated today that having reluctantly exhausted every effort to reconcile their differences, they could find no mutual basis on which to continue their marriage. Both expressed deep regret and great respect for each other. Their separation is final and Miss Gardner will seek a divorce.” That night, a New York disc jockey played a Sinatra record, which he introduced as “Ava Gardner’s newest release.”

Ava announced that she was leaving for Rome to make The Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart. She said she was in no hurry to file for divorce but nonchalantly dismissed the possibility of a reconciliation. She invented and reinvented her marriage for reporters and ranged from sexually ridiculing Frank as “Mr. Sin-Nada” (nothing) to proclaiming him “the man I’ll always love.”

Frank was devastated and made no pretense about it. When reporters asked him about the break-up, he said, “I guess it’s over if that’s what she says. It’s very sad … it’s tragic. I feel very badly