He Needed Her More
According to Sinatra writer J. Randy Taraborrelli, one of the factors that always strained the artists’ relationship was Sinatra’s emotional and financial reliance on Gardner, and his jealousy drove him to dangerous extremes. According to Taraborrelli’s Sinatra biography, the crooner committed suicide, or at least pretended to, multiple times over his wife. The first occurred after an explosive fight, and Ava went to see her ex-husband, Artie Shaw. When Ava returned to their hotel, Sinatra called her from the other room and pretended to kill himself over the phone, while actually shooting bullets into his mattress. Another time, Sinatra took many sleeping pills after another dispute drove Ava away from their Lake Tahoe getaway.
He Needed Her More
Gardner and Hemingway
If Rooney, Shaw, Sinatra, Hughes, and Gable aren’t enough for you, add Ernest Hemingway to the mix. They became close friends when she and Sinatra split up. She spent time with him in Spain and stayed at his property in Cuba, where she famously went swimming naked in his pool, prompting Hemingway to remark, “The water is not to be emptied.” Gardner became interested in bullfighting after reading Hemingway. She had an affair with a bullfighter before, and chose to try it again when Hemingway introduced her to Luis Miguel Dominguín, a world-famous bullfighter. The two became passionate lovers, and their fights were as intense as their love. He remarked of Gardner, “She was the prettiest and the most fierce.” I kept a very vicious wolf in a cage.”
Gardner And Hemingway
