Ava Gardner
(September 2012)
Ava Gardner – Forever
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I don’t know why but I have last week been thinking of the Hollywood actress – and one of the most beautiful ones, Ava Gardner. Maybe it’s because a few evenings back I chanced to pass the sealed and boarded up great hotel in Lahore, Falettis whose case hangs in the air somewhere without anyone knowing its future. It was a landmark hotel and very much part of Lahore. While the city remains in a somewhat mutilated form, Falettis, sadly has been swallowed in the mists of time.
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Maybe seeing it, derelict and a mere shadow of its former great self evoked a memory of Ava who lived here briefly in 1956 when the film Bhowani Junction was shot in Lahore. Maybe because when Ava was here, she was already stuff of legends and a woman who continued to make her rules in an environment where men held all the strings and maybe seeing her in the film in some unforgettable scenes still remains a magical memory.
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Maybe because seeing it, in the evening dusk, in creeping darkness I was reminded of that great jazz band, The Blue Notes amongst whom our friend Dominique on trumpet played stirring jazz every night to a packed and classy ballroom and in 1963 hosted the Duke Ellington Orchestra almost every night. The Duke often played and the sidemen, fabulous musicians all of them, joined him and the Blue Note boys to whip up a musical storm. Long past the midnight hour, Falettis would be humming, the popular bar where the drinks flowed freely would be crowded and the women exotic enough to turn heads. Above all, we were a happy people and we relished life. What a pity that it has all gone and we are an angry, frustrated, myopic and hypocritical nation. When was the last time you saw someone with a smile to light up a hundred thousand light bulbs? Of course Ava was not the only celebrity to grace the hotel in its heyday. People like Mr. Jinnah, Justice Cornelius and Z.A. Bhutto frequented this great period-piece hotel.
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But it is Ava who beckons. As a website writes, ‘Amidst a sea of blonde-haired bombshells, Ava Gardner stood out as one of Hollywood's true screen sirens, with her legendary beauty and rollercoaster love affairs. The stunning green-eyed brunette was often described as having the face of an angel and the body of a goddess, best known for playing Mara Vargas in "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954). What was infinitely more interesting to fans, however, was her much chronicled off-screen life in which the wild child did what she wanted when she wanted; others be damned - whether it was dating married men, openly courting bullfighters or throwing back whiskey shots like a man. Her complicated, passionate relationships opposite a wide spectrum of Hollywood's leading men fascinated the public the most, but it was her tumultuous union to crooner Frank Sinatra which brought the actress the most chronicled pain and pleasure of her life, leading to obsession, abortion and suicide attempts. The fact that Sinatra could never control his real-life barefoot contessa would haunt him until the day he died, making the Sinatra-Gardner union one for the ages.’
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‘Gardner had found the love of her life in crooner-turned-actor Frank Sinatra, who, at the time of their first meeting, was on a downward career spiral. In fact, she was the bigger star.’ When Sinatra got a legal separation from his wife in 1951, the couple married within 72 hours! To say the couple had a tempestuous union would be an extreme understatement. Sinatra's intense jealousy and mistrust of his wife, coupled with Gardner's substantial drinking habit, eventually lead to the actress' third failed marriage. At one point, Sinatra was so obsessed with his wife and wrecked over their fights that he would threaten to kill himself. Gardner would receive phone calls and a gun shot would go off mid-sentence or his cronies would find him with the gas on and his head in the oven. Whether these were serious attempts, no one knew for sure, but one thing was certain - Gardner had a hold of Sinatra like no woman ever had or would again. Despite the couple separating in 1957, they remained good friends for the rest of her life. In fact, Sinatra never stopped loving or obsessing over his ex-wife, even well into his later years.’
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In 1990, an unrepentant Gardner wrote an autobiography titled Ava, My Story before dying of pneumonia - a result of having smoked all her life - on Jan. 25, 1990. Sinatra - who had quietly paid for Gardner's medical expenses while she was alive - also paid for her funeral. She was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park in Smithfield, NC, next to her parents and other family members.
But it was Bhowani Junction (1956) based on the 1954 novel by John Masters that brought Ava to Lahore. The story set amidst the turbulence of the British withdrawal from India is notable for its portrayal of the Eurasian (Anglo-Indian) community, who were caught in their loyalties between the departing British and the majority Indian population. The Anglo-Indian characters in the novel, like many members of their community, were closely involved with the Indian railway system. The film directed by George Cooker, was shot partly on location in Lahore, Pakistan. It starred Ava Gardner as Victoria Jones, an Anglo-Indian who has been serving with the British armed forces, and Stewart Granger as Colonel Rodney Savage, a (British) Indian Army officer who eventually marries Jones, while she is battling against her inferior social background, but is left with little choices in the end.
When Ava was in Lahore, there was a buzz. A Hollywood film was being shot! My friend, Tina’s elder sister, always ready for adventure, was one of the extras on the set and made the most of it! And with Ava the dashing suitors were never far away. Many made a beeline for the hotel and some, as stories claimed, were successful in luring the goddess. We were in school but even there, were aware that this was no ordinary woman. My brother Khalid was a devoted fan all his life but I ended up sharing correspondence with Ava who was by now living in Spain – by her own tumultuous rules I must add. When Bhowani Junction was released in Pakistan, me and my friends saw it thrice in one day – the 3pm, 6pm and 9pm shows in rapt attention!
Now years later – Ava has been dead over 20 years and so are the many other stars who were with her, but her memory abides. So many scenes remain embedded in the inner most recesses of the heart and mind, where all good memories must reside. That one scene with Gregory Peck in a Paris jazz club where she leans over and asks for a light (The snows of Kilimanjaro), is fresh even today. With the times so unhappily jaded, I wonder what would happen were Hollywood want to shoot a film here (not that they would)? Surely we would turn them down on ‘security’ grounds alone if not others.
Ava’s room in Falettis which carries her name is boarded up, infested with rats, rodents and lizards which just about sums up the state of sorry affairs.