Couples
Ava Gardner May Have Been a Heartbreaker, but She Met Her Match in Frank Sinatra
Hollywood icon Ava Gardner had quite the tumultuous love life. Not only was she married twice before the age of 25, but she was also very public about many of her love affairs. However, she found her match in one special man during her lifetime: Frank Sinatra.
Ava was married to Mickey Rooney from 1942 until 1943 and to Artie Shaw from 1945 until 1946. She didn't marry Frank until 1951, but the pair stayed together for six years until 1957. And even though Ava and Frank were a great pair, she stood firm about her beliefs in equality for men and women.
Frank and Ava.
"She seemed more confident in her love life, however, and was progressive "in terms of equality for women," said actor Farley Granger, one of her lovers. "Ava felt that for a man to be admired while he played the field while a woman was called a slut for doing the same thing was 'bulls—, honey!'"
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However, after her two failed short-lived marriages and bold affairs with actors like Fred MacMurray and Robert Taylor, Ava still wasn't satisfied. "Ava felt lonely," authors Kendra
Bean and Anthony Uzarowski write in the new biography Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies.
It wasn't until she met Frank when she really fell in love. "In Ava, Dad had met his match," the legend's daughter, Tina Sinatra, has said about the couple in the past. Their first dates consisted of shooting out street lights, so it totally makes sense why…
Frank and Ava.
Unfortunately, due to alcohol and other matters, the pair went their separate ways in 1957. And when Ava tragically passed away in 1990 at age 67, Frank couldn't have been more upset about the loss, especially because they kept in touch after their split. He described it as "very painful," even though he remarried to Barbara Sinatra in 1976 and was with her until his death in 1998. Who knows if Ava and Frank would have ever gotten back together if things turned out differently…
