Ava Gardner Beat Artie Shaw at Chess: Ava The Secret Conversations

Elizabeth McGovern, Photo by Jeff Lorch

Ava Gardiner didn't like a woman to swear. She fucking hated it. In Ava: The Secret Conversations Elizabeth McGovern embodies the life of Ava Gardner as her life story is coaxed out of her by writer Peter Evans (played by Aaron Costa Ganis) over the course of several weeks in 1988. Evans is badgered into getting the salacious out of Ava by an audio only Ed Victor who notes frequently that no less than Dick Snyder himself is paying attention to the writers' efforts. 

The play opens with a 2am call to Evans by Gardner where she seems to be contemplating suicide - and although this doesn't come up again in the play, the reason she has entertained the idea of selling her story at all is that she needs the money for her mortgage and is still suffering from the effects of a stroke. She's not in a good place, and she will question some of her life choices during these conversations. McGovern plays the role with her left arm mostly hanging limp except when the scenes fall back to reenact past events. As these events unfold the stage scene is boosted by the use of video images of past husbands Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra. Ganis will later break out into song.

It is Frank, that Synder desperately wants in this book and he presses, via the voice of Ed Victor, Evans to get the anatomical bits out of Ava. At the time, Sinatra had recently been the victim of the Kitty Kelly bio and Snyder knows how much anything about Sinatra would drive sales of this book. Even without Frank - who does feature, there is much to consider here about Ava Gardner: McGovern and Ganis are galvanizing in their respective roles. The set which represents Gardner's apartment in London is both sitting room and bedroom - the bed being obviously symbolic, is very well constructed and the multimedia images add significant context to the story.

As it turned out, Gardner threw Evans out before the manuscript was finished and it was only after she died in 1990 that Evans revisited the material and with the approval of the Gardner family the work was published. From this book, the play was conceived by McGovern and premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in 2023.

And yes, on the first occasion she did beat Artie Shaw at chess even though he was an expert. Go see it.

***** 

For those who don't know, Dick Synder was the long time CEO of Simon & Schuster and by accounts liked nothing better than his executive team to be in open combat with each other. Ed Victor, was a 'super-agent' sometimes known for influencing the telling of the story.