End of the Affair

At a cozy little resort spot called Zephyr Cove on the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe, sultry Cinemactress Ava Gardner, 31, settled down for six weeks while awaiting a divorce from Husband No. 3, Crooner-Cinemactor Frank Sinatra (No.1: Cinemugger Mickey Rooney; No. 2: Bandleader Artie Shaw). Though well on her way to challenging the marriage records of such Hollywood veterans as Arline Judge (six husbands) and Hedy Lamarr (only five), Ava seemed momentarily weary. Just back from Italy, she was on the mend after a bout with two kidney stones. Nor had she got a warm welcome from her studio, which last week suspended her for stalling at playing the lead in Love Me or Leave Me, the film biography of Singer Ruth Etting.

But Ava, nothing if not resilient, continued to face life with a moist smile, though her expression was a trifle more jaded than it was when she first emerged from the North Carolina hills and crashed Hollywood 13 years ago. Preening her finery, she allowed: "Men are necessary, definitely not evil." Trusting to her lawyers' discretion, Ava supposed that her divorce will be "on the usual grounds" (i.e., mental cruelty). Once free of each other, she and Frankie, like casual room mates, will simply pack up and go their own ways. The agreement: "He'll take what he has, and I'll take what I have."

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