Frank & Ava: In Love and War

Description

The love story of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner has been told piecemeal, from one side or the other, but has never been fully explored or explained-until now. The story begins in Hollywood's golden age when Ava, ever insecure, was emerging as a movie star. But she fell in (and out of) love too easily. Mickey Rooney married her as a conquest. Artie Shaw treated her like a dumb brunette. Neither marriage lasted a year. Then, after being courted by Howard Hughes and others, along came Sinatra, who was battling his own insecurities-MGM fired him, his record company dropped him, and no one seemed to want him, except Ava. Their encounter led to an affair that broke all the rules of the prudish era. Frank was married with children. Their reputations could be ruined if this got out-and it did, as Frank left his family and pursued Ava across Europe while she taunted him. They married, but then came quarrels, separations, and reconciliations. Finally, there was a divorce, but even afterwards their long, hot, messy, glorious, painful romance stretched right to the finish line. Thoroughly researched and reported, Frank & Ava is not another storybook version of a Hollywood romance but a compelling drama of love and emotional war that left two iconic celebrities wounded for life.

John Brady is a veteran editor and author of five books, including The Craft of the Screenwriter and the investigative biography, Bad Boy: The Life & Politics of Lee Atwater. In the 1970s, while working for Reprise Records, he met Sinatra and many of the singer's colleagues whom he interviewed after Frank's death in 1998. He lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

"A tantalizing lagniappe for those fascinated by the star-crossed duo -- twinned in obsession, emotional instability, infidelity, and, finally, friendship." --The Boston Globe Details Sinatra and Gardner's tumultuous romance. Their scandalous affair, six-year marriage and eventual divorce in the late 1950s are put under the microscope, all the while painting a broader portrait of Hollywood's Golden Age. --USA Today "Anyone remotely curious about either of these larger-than-life characters will want to read Brady's book." --Publishers Weekly on Frank & Ava "Brady reveals the human side of a grand love affair that somehow survived a marriage and a divorce, epic battles, and sweeping romantic gestures...This honest and contemporary look at an almost mythical couple is a quick-paced and poignant tale that will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers." --Library Journal on Frank & Ava More than a story of a dizzying love affair, Frank & Ava depicts the profound aftershocks of a relationship. -BookPage on Frank & Ava "A riveting account of the most unlikely Republican in the history of American politics. John Brady's fascinating rise-and-fall biography of Lee Atwater also makes you wonder who'd be sitting in the White House today if he had not died at the too-early age of 40." --Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking, on Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater "John Brady has made a compelling story of all the unprincipled things Lee Atwater did to make our national politics into a low-down gutter fight. He was indeed the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the political valley till he came to the Valley of Death. In a better world, angels' stories would enthrall us more than those about bad guys like Atwater, but in the one we have, the bad guys' stories rule." --George V. Higgins, author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, on Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater "It seems to say almost everything to be said about talking to others for publication." --Columbia Journalism Review on The Craft of Interviewing "This is a must-read book for serious film buffs, and fun for anyone who is interested in the stories of some of the most successful screenwriters at work today." --People magazine on The Craft of the Screenwriter "A worthy and needed guide." --Gay Talese, author of Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, on The Interviewer's Handbook