Elizabeth McGovern (Photo: Jeff Lorch)

AVA: The Secret Conversations

By Marc Miller

She was, press agents were fond of asserting, "the most fascinating woman in the world." Most critics, herself included, thought her not much of an actress, but she embodied a sensuality and glamour that virtually defined the Hollywood culture of the 1950s and the influence it exerted on everyday lives. And she capped that with an earthiness and saltiness that were uniquely hers. Probably 80% of today's population couldn't tell you who Ava Gardner was, but hers is a story worth remembering and retelling.

And Elizabeth McGovern, of all people, has mostly done a nifty job retelling it with AVA: The Secret Conversations, her dramatization of a year's worth of interviews Gardner granted in the 1980s to a British journalist seeking to turn them into her autobiography. AVA is as much the story of the pair's turbulent relationship as it is a retrospective of the star's work and private life, and it's a bit sturdier in the latter capacity. But we're engaged throughout, and McGovern has a fine foil in Aaron Costa Ganis, as novelist-journalist-biographer Peter Evans.

Evans fancied himself a master of fiction, but he made most of his money writing the life stories of Peter Sellers, Ari Onassis, etc. He seems to have been a bit of a jerk, and Ganis isn't afraid to accentuate the devious, controlling aspects of his personality. We first encounter him on the phone with his agent, Ed Victor (Chris Thorn, mostly offstage but we do eventually meet him), who's arranging the Gardner assignment. Soon enough, Evans is in her lavish London apartment, a stone's throw from Harrods, stylishly rendered by set designer David Meyer. It's 1988, and McGovern, in Matthew Armentrout's wig and Toni-Leslie James's parade of late-'80s fashions, isn't quite a ringer for Gardner. But her throaty laugh, way of holding a cigarette, and delivery of blunt, spontaneous observations are brilliantly Ava. Her movements-Gardner has had a stroke, and one side of her face is frozen-are more than convincing. And when she has to play the decades-younger Ava, the lines on her face actually seem to disappear. Maybe lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker is helping her out here, but credit McGovern with conveying the many ages of Ava in masterful ways.

As a sharecropper's daughter, she's insecure but bubbly, peddling a thick North Carolina accent that MGM will strive to sandpaper down. Newly in Hollywood and still in her teens, she's introduced to No. 1 box office attraction Mickey Rooney, who woos her with such romantic endearments as "I wanna f--- you so bad." They're married not long after.

Aaron Costa Ganis, Elizabeth McGovern (Photo: Jeff Lorch)

Ganis plays all three Gardner husbands, splendidly. His Mickey Rooney is brash, overconfident, self-centered. She divorced him and, after initiating an affair with Howard Hughes while still sleeping with her ex-husband, quickly wed clarinetist Artie Shaw, whom Ganis plays as intellectual, fast-talking, and... self-centered. The husband Peter's agent most wants to know about is Frank Sinatra; Ganis, whose British and Jersey accents are both so persuasive that I had to look him up to find that he's a Brooklynite, has not only to act Sinatra but to sing Sinatra, and he's damn fine at it. Sinatra is crude but loving, attached to some unsavory Mafia elements, and. self-centered. Unbeknownst to Gardner, he had previously sued Evans, and when she finds that out, it leads to a falling-out that complicates a relationship that's been tantalizingly ambiguous. Gardner and Evans spar with and manipulate one another, but they're mutually fascinated, and we're left guessing as to how far her cougar impulses asserted themselves.

Throughout, Ava reveals herself to be smart, observant, self-deprecating, and, while probably dropping a lie or two, fundamentally honest in her assessments of both herself and the Hollywood that created her. She enjoyed sex, apologized for nothing, and told studio executives exactly what she thought of them, all traits that paint her as something of an early feminist. The past is often painful for her to confront-"I don't want to have to remember all the shitty things people have done to me," she tells Peter-but she's never one for self-pity, and her moviemaking memories are a cinephile's smorgasbord. We hear rude anecdotes about Joseph Mankiewicz, John Ford, and Mike Nichols, who considered her for Mrs. Robinson. And the Howard Hughes stuff, much as we've heard outrageous stories about Howard Hughes before, is truly unsettling.

Elizabeth McGovern (Photo: Jeff Lorch)

Moritz von Stuelpnagel's direction is devoted mainly to making sure we focus on Ava (not difficult), and Alex Basco Koch's projections, mostly old footage of Ava and her husbands, are educational aids for the youngsters and a nostalgic wallow for us grownups. AVA: The Secret Conversations is clever in conveying both the efficiency and appeal of the old studio system and the individual sacrifices that stars like Gardner had to make to remain a part of it, and McGovern's Ava Gardner is, in the most complimentary sense, a great old broad. One mystery: her pronunciation of Marion Davies as "Marion Davis"-Gardner's mistake, or McGovern's? Beyond that, I shall long admire her delivery of lines like "I suppose you could say that Mickey taught me how to f---." And the next time I watch a Gardner movie, it will be with a new appreciation for the complex woman underneath the probably not-very-complex character she's playing. For that, we have McGovern to thank.

AVA: The Secret Conversations
New York City Center Stage 1
131 West 55^th Street
Through September 14
Tickets: Ava: The Secret Conversations | New York City Center