Anatol Yusef and Elizabeth McGovern in Ava: The Secret Conversations
(Picture: PA)As self-created star vehicles go, this portrait of film icon Ava Gardner by Elizabeth McGovern – aka Downton Abbey’s Lady Cora – is an old banger.
Based on the biography completed after her death by British journalist Peter Evans, it mostly rehashes gossip about Gardner’s relationships with Mickey Rooney, Howard Hughes, bandleader Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra, while vaguely celebrating her as a tough, salty dame.
