Julie Burchill on Ava Gardner
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The writer Julie Burchill talks to Matthew Parris about the Hollywood star Ava Gardner. They're joined by Ava's biographer Lee Server.
Often described as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, Ava Gardner made sixty-five movies, ranging from ‘Mogambo' (for which she won an Oscar nomination) to ‘Maisie Goes To Reno' (for which she didn't). She had three husbands - Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra - and many lovers including Howard Hughes, David Niven, Robert Mitchum and John F. Kennedy as well as numerous playboys, beach-boys and bullfighters.
Ava Gardner was, says Matthew Parris, “a hard-drinking, wisecracking, libidinous vamp – a liberated woman before the phrase was invented.”
Presented by Matthew Parris.
Produced by Peter Everett.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult? |
| 0:06.0 | What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are? |
| 0:10.0 | I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas. |
| 0:16.4 | Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth. |
| 0:23.0 | Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003. |
| 0:27.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.0 | Great Lives is a download from Radio Fall. We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:35.0 | She had luminescent white skin, eyes like Andion-emorels, |
| 0:40.6 | eminent cheekbones, a wide sensuous crescent mouth, a sleek strong body that moved |
| 0:46.3 | with a feline insolence and a dancer's grace. |
| 0:50.0 | Wrote a chap, we'll be meeting soon. |
| 0:52.2 | The subject of great lives this week was forever |
| 0:55.1 | being described as the most beautiful woman in the world. When those who remember think |
| 1:00.5 | of 1950s glamour, hers are the face, figure, pose and dress but spring to mind. |
| 1:06.9 | She was also a hard drinking, wiscracking, libidinous vamp, a liberated woman before the phrase |
| 1:12.4 | was invented and to use the slang of the time, she was |
| 1:15.8 | a hell of abroad. |
| 1:16.8 | No matter where she might appear, at a glittering premiere surrounded by her fans or at her wedding before the eyes of the world |
| 1:27.5 | in the platinum plated rooms of Monte Carlo or on a millionaire yacht yacht. They all worshipped the face, the fame, the figure of the world's most beautiful animal. |
| 1:41.0 | The world's most beautiful animal. |
| 1:43.0 | Ava Lavinia Gardner, born on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, |
| 1:48.0 | died in a flat in London in 1990 at the age of 67. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.