Frank and Ava

The tempestuous relationship between Hollywood icons, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, in the ’50s, showing their multi-year love affair and subsequent marriage. A downcast Frank, his career on the wane because of problems with his voice, a failing marriage, and a tarnished reputation falls in love with rising star, Ava, admittedly the most beautiful woman in movies. As couple, they were hapless: reporters pursued them everywhere, even playing them off against each other, initially casting Frank as an adulterer and Ava as a home wrecker as wife, Nancy Barbato, refused to grant him a divorce. When they finally married in 1951 the tabloids then paraded their sorted affairs whenever Ava went off to Europe or Africa to make a movie; leaving Frank behind desperately trying to land the acting job that he believes will turn his fortunes, the role of Private Angelo Maggio in upcoming Columbia Pictures film, From Here to Eternity. Despite the passionate, intense way in which Frank and Ava loved each other it becomes apparent they are doomed mirror images of each other: hard drinking, profane, fiercely independent, who never believed in being faithful and monogamous. They fought wildly, savagely, trading insults and even blows with the despairing Sinatra trying to kill himself on hearing of Ava shacking up with a famous bullfighter while in Spain making The Barefoot Contessa. Eventually they separate, and although Frank does make a comeback when he wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1953 for the role of Maggio, a role that Ava may have interceded on his behalf in his being cast, it is a pyrrhic victory as the broken hearted Frank celebrates alone.