Guns, Booze & Prison: Inside Frank Sinatra & Ava Gardner’s Destructive Romance
Iconic and talented as he may have been, Frank Sinatra had a wild side that only grew as soon as he made his name in Hollywood, and met the love of his life, Ava Gardner, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
“Everything about Ava Gardner was alluring: she had exquisite beauty, her southern accent, she swaggered the same way Frank Sinatra swaggered. He wasn’t the only one who was besotted with her. Most men were,” says host Kitty Kelley in the clip.
As Radar previously reported, Sinatra left his first wife of twelve years, Nancy Barbato, after meeting the gorgeous singer/actress.
He married her in 1951, the same year he divorced Barbato, and the rest is history.
“They did bring out the worst in each other,” adds Kelley. “They both drank a lot. They were both tempestuous.”
The former singing waiter quickly got swallowed up by the glitz and glam of Hollywood, so much so that his hard-partying lifestyle turned somewhat aggressive and dangerous when he was with Gardner.
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“Frank in those days carried two .38s in his car, and they got in his convertible and they were in Palm Springs and they drove into Indio and Frank took the guns out of the glove compartment, gave one to Ava and they were going through the street shooting out the street lights. They got arrested and they were hauled into the police station.”
Sinatra then reportedly called his press agent George Evans, who in turn sent his partner Jack Keller to Indio to fetch the rowdy stars.
Says Kelley, “He sat down with the sergeant, and he said ‘what’ll it take to not press charges?’”
At about 4:00 in the morning, Sinatra and Gardner were released at the cost of about $30,000.
The Kitty Kelley Files: Frank Sinatra airs Saturday, August 5 at 10 ET/PT.
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