Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Record Details:

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Ava Gardner's Lost Baby (Continued from page 44) ;gay with, up till now. Except that now the mood had overtaken her suddenly, the sullen mood, the had-it mood. And so she'd dropped the gaiety, gulped her wine and gotten up from the table. She walked across the room, to a phonograph, and she put on a record. She listened for a moment, to the voice on the record. It sang something about nightingales singing, singing sweet. "Si-na-tra?" called out the man at the table, teasingly. "That's right," said Ava. "Sinatra. And me," she added, shrugging, as if for no particular reason, "I'm the ex-Mrs. Sinatra." She laughed. "Amen." The man at the table laughed, too. "Sei ibriaga," he said. "You are drunk." I. "Am I?" Ava asked, shrugging again. h The man got up from the table and I started walking towards her. f But Ava barely saw him coming. ; She was listening to the voice on the ;-ecord, as it sang something now about a I andman bringing dreams of you. ii The man began to put his arms around * "Dance with me," he said, not asking. | Ava drew herself back. "No," she said. I The man tried again. I "Don't you touch me," Ava said. "Not •When he's singing." J She closed her eyes. The voice was Ringing something about a new kind of hive you bu-rought to me. ! The man tried once more. 4 "Stop it . . . beat it," Ava said, snapping Xer eyes open. 1 She tried to get away from him, but the 1'ian had his arms around her waist now, | ght, and he wouldn't let go. 4i Ava began to struggle. T, "Beat it," she said. "Let go of me and J:eat it." 1 The man wouldn't. |, 'We dance," he said, whispering, pushing \ [s weight against hers, bringing his mouth I p to her ears. i| Suddenly, Ava bent her head and bit at %.s arm, hard, savagely. |j The man cried out. Stunned, he took a | ep back. Then, with all his might, he [ apped her. ilr' The lady gets old," he said, "with the Jjg bags under the eyes. And the older ike gets, the meaner she gets, eh?" 3 Ava, furious now, hysterical now, began \ shriek. "Beat it, you jaded louse," she id. "Beat it before I call the cops." . She turned and ran to a fireplace a few Xet away. She picked up a vase, small, Xagile, pink-tinted, a smiling cherub danc%g lightly over the belly of the vase. 4-She aimed it at the man. .i She threw it at him. jXIt missed his head by inches. I Beat it," she shrieked once more. JAnd then, as he turned and left, she J gan to sob. lot do they want from me? 'Why don't they leave me alone — these onies?" she asked, turning to the table d to the chair where her girlfriend had through all this, quietly, nervously, 'hy?" She brought her hands up to her face. 'What do they want from me anyway — ;se creeps?" she asked. She was silent for a moment. 5he stood there listening to the voice on record, still singing, singing now about ;iv he was the slave, his girl the queen. She began to dig her fingernails into face. "And what did he want from me?" she asked. Her sobbing returned now, and grew louder, more convulsive, more hysterical. "What," she asked, beginning to scream, "what . . . what . . . what . . . wwwhhhhaaaaatttttt?" Her friend jumped up from her chair. She rushed over to Ava. "Stop it, honey," she said. "Cut it out." Ava didn't. "Stop it," her friend said, bringing up her hand and striking it across her face. Ava stopped. And as she did, she grabbed her friend's hand and held it, tightly, viciously, furiously. For a second, neither of them said anything. And then, very softly, Ava spoke. "Don't give me this," she said. "I've had all this before . . . the slapping . . . the treatment." She let go of the woman's hand. And then, as softly, she said, "I'm sorry." And she turned and walked across the room once more, to the terrace and to a chaise there and sat back on it — and she closed her eyes to the beautiful and expensive view of night-time Rome below her. To kill the boredom It was about an hour later, a little after midnight. They both sat on the terrace now, Ava and her friend, Ava smoking and holding a drink — and talking, the friend letting her talk. "I don't know about Europe anymore — Spain, now Italy," Ava was saying. "I was so bored in Hollywood . . . Hollywood," she said it again, hollowly. "Hollywood. ... Do you know that there were days there when the most exciting thing to do was to get up in the morning and pick up the papers and read all the columns? Can you imagine that? Can you believe it?" "No," her friend said. "Hollywood," Ava said again. Then: "So I came here to Europe, to mad gay Europe. And now after six, seven years I'm bored here too. "The other day," she went on, "before you came, I was so damn bored, you know what I did? I went to the beauty parlor and said, 'Dye my hair blonde.' Just for the hell of it. 'I want to be a bionda' I said. . . . Oh boy, did I look like something when they got through with me. I had it dyed back the next day and the boy in the beauty parlor sighed gratefully. 'You must never do that again, Miss Gardner,' he said. And he was right, too. Because I won't. Because it doesn't help the boredom, being blonde. Not one bit." She took a drag from her cigarette, then a sip from her glass. "I fought a bull once to kill the boredom," she said then. "And what happens? The bull nearly kills me. "I bought a dog once," she said. "Corgi. Do you remember Corgi?" "Yes," said her friend. "The sweetest pooch in the world," Ava said, "with the most beautiful, the most loving eyes in the world." She stopped for a moment. "A few months ago," she said then, "this man — I call him a man; ha, I call him a man — he was here. He began to fight with me. I forget what started it. Who ever remembers what starts those things? And he began to curse and shout. And at one point he picked up that little dog and he began to thrash him. And he thrashed him so hard that his eye fell out — " SANITARY BRIEF Knit for flawless fit with pitiless "stay-put power" and waterproof panel for ultimate protection. White all combed cotton with nylon reinforced leg bands. $1.50.