Ava Gardner, a bio-bibliography

Ava Gardner, a Bio-Bibliography is a reference book by Karin J. Fowler about Ava Gardner. Greenwood Press published it in 1990, and it runs to 242 pages. Open Library files it under biography and bibliography, and also under motion picture actors and actresses. The Google Books record dates it to June 15, 1990. Gardner died in London on January 25, 1990. The Wikipedia article on Gardner includes the book in its further reading list, with the ISBN 0-313-26776-6.

The publisher’s description in the Google Books record lays out the book’s parts. A biography makes up most of the book. According to the description, it follows Gardner from a possible family tree and her small-town start to world stardom, and it gives attention to her three marriages and to her many roles. After the biography come a chronological list of her achievements and a listing of her film, television and radio appearances and her musical recordings. The book ends with a bibliography of writings about Gardner, a record of the archival sources Fowler used, an index of personal names and titles, and photographs. The publisher names film lovers, libraries, drama instructors and historians as its readers.

For fans

Next to the other Gardner books

Of the Gardner books in the catalog, this is the only one whose title calls it a bio-bibliography. The catalog lists most of the others as biographies. The oldest is Charles Higham’s Ava: A Life Story, from 1974, 16 years before Fowler’s book. Judith M. Kass wrote an Ava Gardner for Pyramid Publications in 1977. John Daniell’s book of the same title came out from W.H. Allen in 1982. Roland Flamini’s Ava appeared from Berkley in 1983.

Two more Gardner books share Fowler’s 1990 date. One is Gardner’s own memoir, Ava, which the catalog lists under Bantam. The other is Jane Ellen Wayne’s Ava’s Men, which the catalog lists under Random House Value Publishing. The further reading list on Wikipedia cites a 2004 Robson Books edition of Wayne’s book instead. Every later biography in the catalog came well after Fowler’s, starting with Lee Server’s Ava Gardner in 2006 and followed by books from Peter Evans, John Joseph Brady and Kendra Bean. The catalog also holds two novels about Gardner, by Alton Rivers and Edward Ifkovic.

What the records leave out

The publisher’s description is the only account of the contents in the records. It is written in the present tense, as if Gardner were still living, and calls her career one that “has spanned five decades.” The records give no reviews of the book and do not say how it was received.