Peter Evans - Ava Gardner - The Secret Conversations

Peter always enjoyed writing acknowledgments thanking all those who’d helped him. Sadly, with The Secret Conversations this undertaking has been left to me.

I probably don’t know all of the people who helped Peter, so if I haven’t mentioned you below, please forgive me, but on Peter’s behalf you have his heartfelt thanks.

My thanks to:

David Patrick Columbia, New York Social Diary, where it all started when he published Peter’s original Ava article.

Margo Howard, who read the article and pushed Peter to pick up his Ava Gardner book again.

Bob Bender, who worked closely with Peter on the manuscript.

The late Jess Morgan, Todd Johnson, Maggie Phillips, Bill Edwards, Eric and Marcelle Clark, Brian Wells, Richard Kahn, Greg Morrison, Michael Baumohl, Myrna and Jeffrey Blyth, Norma Quine, Jeanne Hunter, Penny Bianchi, Kitty Kelley, David and Nancy Aukin, Matt Warren, Paulene Stone Burns, Rev. Michael Kingston, Pat and Roy Bailey, Maggie and Jeff Tetlow, Jerry and Sheridan Lewis, Duncan and Rachel Clark, Helene Gaillet de Neergaard, Phillip Kurland. All supported Peter with wise counsel and friendly encouragement.

Ed Victor, Peter’s agent and friend, who supported Peter throughout the original Ava venture as well as The Secret Conversations.

Also: William Pratt, Christine Walker, Mark Saunders, and Michael Evans.

My children, Lisa and Mark, and granddaughters, Camilla and Clementine, who have always been very supportive of Peter and me.

Finally, I spent the late eighties living with Peter and Ava, and the last couple of years of Peter’s life again living with them. While I was reading the manuscript of The Secret Conversations, I could hear Peter’s voice on every page. To relive those memories was both a delight and sadness in equal measure.

So to Peter, my love always and thank you for being my companion, friend, and husband.

PETER EVANS was a columnist and foreign correspondent with London’s Daily Express in the 1960s and also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Vogue , and New York magazine, as well as every major newspaper in Britain, including The Times, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail.

He was also the author of a dozen books, including Ari, a biography of Aristotle Onassis; the bestselling novel The Englishman’s Daughter ; The Mask Behind the Mask , the first and official biography of Peter Sellers; and Goodbye Baby & Amen , the defining book on the Sixties, with pictures by David Bailey. Peter Evans’s book Nemesis was made into a West End play, Onassis, starring Robert Lindsay.

Peter Evans died in 2012, just as he finished this book.

Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys

Behind Palace Doors (with Nigel Dempster)

Ari: The Life and Times of Aristotle Onassis

Bardot: Eternal Sex Goddess

Peter Sellers: The Mask Behind the Mask

Goodbye Baby and Amen: A Saraband for the Sixties (with David Bailey)

Theodora

The Englishman’s Daughter

Titles

Ava: My Story

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A.D., 217

All About Eve, 62, 234

Ari (Evans), 10, 150

Aristophanes, 11

Arshawsky, Sarah, 201

Astaire, Fred, 63

Babes on Broadway, 110

Bacall, Lauren (Betty), 51, 52

Baker, David Forbes (grandfather), 38–39

Baker, Elizabeth (grandmother), 39

Bancroft, Anne, 263

Barefoot Contessa, The, 7, 61, 63, 65, 232–36, 271

Barrymore, Lionel, 119

Baxter, Anne, 234

BBC, 279, 280

Bergman, Ingrid, 19

Bhowani Junction, 77, 234

Bible, The, 143

Billboard, 273

Bogarde, Dirk, 12–13, 57, 195, 261

on Evans, 10, 263–64

Evans warned about Ava by, 13, 24, 26–27, 82, 150

Bogart, Humphrey, 16, 50, 61, 63, 239

Ava on, 233–34, 236

lisp of, 28

Boys Town (1938), 120, 137, 245

Brando, Marlon, 18–19, 21

Brecht, Bertolt, 16

Bringing Up Baby, 187

Buck, Joyce, 54

Buck, Jules, 54

Bull, Clarence, 125

Burton, Richard, 6

Cabré, Mario, 225, 226–27, 273

Cagney, Jimmy, 119

Callas, Maria, 11

Camille, 121

Capote, Truman, 50

Captains Courageous, 120, 137, 245

Cardiff, Jack, 7–8, 62, 83–85

Carter, Nell, 120, 134, 136, 141, 142, 168

Catcher in the Rye, The (Salinger), 26

Cavani, Liliana, 13

CBS, 237

Chapman, Mrs., 3

Chasen, Dave, 116

Cher, 6

Churchill, Winston, 150, 163

Citizen Kane, 231–32

Clarke, Thurmond, 243

Colman, Ronald, 110, 116

Columbia, 274

Confidential, 139, 239

Coward, Noel, 50

Crosby, Bing, 46

Cukor, George, 77, 234, 261

Daily Telegraph (London), 13

Dali, Salvador, 270, 271–72

Damned, The, 13

Darnell, Linda, 190, 234

Davies, Marion, 46

Davis, Sammy, Jr., 238–39

Dead End Kids, 168

Dean, James, 19, 42

Death in Venice, 13

DeHaven, Gloria, 166

de Havilland, Olivia, 32

Diamonds Are Forever, 269

Dominguín, Luis Miguel, 16, 236–37, 262

Dorsey, Tom, 165, 208, 222–23

Dorsey band, 165, 167, 222–23

Douglas, Kirk, 99

Duhan, Barney, 92

Durante, Jimmy, 63, 116–17

East of Eden (film), 42

East of Eden (Steinbeck), 42

Ebony, 238

Edwards, Bill, 261, 275–77

Eldridge, Roy, 206

Elstree Studios, 77

Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge, 18, 53, 142, 171, 260, 269

Evans, Michael, 261

Evans, Pamela, 281

Evans, Peter:

Ava invited to dinner at home of, 276–77

Ava’s kiss bestowed on, 265–66

Ava’s meetings with, 18–22, 28–30, 31–47, 53–60, 80–82, 84–86, 88–96, 97–106, 107–17, 119–27, 129–38, 139–43, 149–51, 184–193, 221–29, 260–66, 269–74

Ava’s phone calls with, 1–4, 5–6, 8–12, 23–28, 49–53, 61–66, 82–83, 143–47, 155–57, 175–79, 181–84, 196–209, 211–19, 231–40, 255–60, 267–69

Cardiff’s advice to, 7–8

death of, 279

notes to Ava from, 164, 241–42

Snyder’s visit with Ava and, 79–86

Spoli Mills’s memoir anxieties and, 77–78, 101, 105

Victor’s advice to, 8, 150

Victor’s friendship with, 6, 52, 173