Good Read Review: Frank and Ava: In Love & War
- donna31489
- Feb 4, 2016
- 2 min read
It was the wild affair that broke all the straitlaced rules of the studio era. The charismatic man with the pipes that took him to the top and the sticks-to-starlet beauty whose smoldering presence enchanted every man she met.
Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.
For the first time, their beautifully brutal romance is brought to life in John Brady’s seductive Frank and Ava: In Love and War. Brady has picked up the broken pieces of their tragic love and put it back together for a fascinating and fast-paced read pulsed with passion and scandal.
He brings it all back to the beginning, telling the whole story from each side in a captivating way. Alternating chapters about Gardner and Sinatra, he creates an intriguing experience that makes you invested in these two individuals, heightening your enthusiasm for the incandescent intersection of their lives.
Unlike any biography I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a lot of them), this one gives you all the facts with feeling, reading better than an addictive reality show. Brady delves deep behind the desires and fears of these two icons, while unveiling tantalizing glimpses of gossip from Hollywood’s dream factories that make you feel like a Golden Age insider.
Today Gardner and Sinatra would have been a paparazzi’s dream. Back then they were the media’s majesty that put Hollywood in a glorified frenzy.
After two short-lived marriages, Gardner finally met her match: a man with as much passion for her as himself. Married with three children, Sinatra left his family for Gardner when he was scraping rock bottom. MGM was close to firing him and his record company near dropping him. The only person who wanted him and who he wanted back was Ava. And, what resulted was a torrid and turbulent affair that consumed both of them in its fire, almost destroying Sinatra.
Brady reveals the unvarnished truths of two emotionally self-destructive and insecure people who couldn’t live together or apart. Through all the years of tortured trials and tribulations, separations and reconciliations their love affair never ended until they died.
In a way, it’s a little sad. With all their status and wealth, Gardner and Sinatra were never able to rise above the degradation of loneliness from each other and love each other in harmony. Brady creates a crusade of lost love that leaves you wanting more, wishfully hoping there's a happy ending in sight.
Frank and Ava: In Love and War ignites a past passion that’s edaciously entertaining, opening the door to a more impassioned era with the glory and grace of a battlefield romance that will win your heart.
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