Living With Miss G

Delivery was prompt, and item is just as advertised.

i do not know who actually wrote this book, but it was funny, fast and fascinating. it was a quick read and i have no regrets. i don't what was true or what was made of whole cloth, but it was entertaining.

Ava Gardner became a somewhat reluctant movie star after someone spotted her photo in a store window. A similar twist of fate led Mearene Jordan to become her maid, at first reluctant drinking buddy and ultimately lifelong confidante. Jordan, now 90, shares all rather than tells all, revealing Ava's flamenco feet of clay while still defending and protecting the frequently overly-candid Miss G. It's a fascinating read, with elegantly phrased accounts of Ava's stand-off with Howard Hughes, her abusive affair with George C. Scott -- why did she keep going back for more? -- her close encounters with everyone from Hemingway to Churchill, her long and enduring friendships with fellow MGM alumni Grace Kelly and Deborah Kerr, and her mercurial relationship with the great love of her life, Frank Sinatra. (Gardner and Sinatra couldn't live without each other, but they couldn't live with each other, either, as 'Rene' takes considerable pains to point out.) Ava liked her fellas to be "good in the feathers" and seldom slept alone, keeping tennis studs and beach boys on call until she tired of them. What makes this such a good read is Jordan's unabashed loyalty to her boss, even when she suffers the consequences of battling with Ava's demons. And yes, she has those too. Halfway through this memoir you start to taste the gin and smell the cigarette smoke that became the blue haze of Ava's existence, and at the end of her life Jordan's Miss G. asks for, and receives,no pity. Which is about as close to Ava Gardner's real credo as you can get.Living with Miss G. is a wonderful Rashomon companion to Peter Evans' Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, which recounts the same history, and many of the same incidents, as experienced by Ava and, even more significantly, as seen through her eyes.

An excellent view of an amazing woman by her close friend and assistant. I liked the completeness of her reporting, solidly backed by data. I was astonished at the stamina of "Miss G.," as Rene calls her, who could drink anyone under the table but still work in the morning looking fresh as a daisy ... for some years, at least. Rene doesn't whitewash any of Ava's predations, including going after other women's husbands, which the husbands themselves (Stewart Grange) have reported. I had some problems with her affair with George C. Scott, who beat her unmercifully when he was drunk, and apparently couldn't hurt her enough to make her mad. It seemed as though that part of her life just didn't fit with her independent personality, but she was besotted with him, according to Rene, who was smart enough to get out of there rather than let him beat HER up. Ava kept going to back to him, buying his apologies and vows to do better. Go figure. If you like the inside story presented by someone who has no ax to grind, who loved Ava, and who saw her without rose-colored glasses, this is the book for you, full of descriptions of the high life as lived by a barefoot North Carolina girl who made it big in Hollywood, more or less by accident, and enjoyed every minute of it.

Very good book. I have always been a fan of Ava Gardner and this book written by her friend and maid is a very good book. Ms Jordan joined Ava Gardner just after Gardner's divorce from Artie Shaw and remained with her as an employee and then as a friend until Gardner's death. Ms Jordan obviously had a great affection for Miss G, as she called her, and shared many an adventure with her "digbat" employer. Ms Gardner lived life to the hilt; yes she drank too much, smoked too much, drove too fast and loved a little too freely but she always was able to laugh at her own foibles and was a good and loyal friend. For the most part it is a funny book with only one dark part about Gardner's abusive affair with George C. Scott which Ms Jordan describes with more candor than the kind hearted Gardner did in her own autobiography (based on tapes she made before her death another good book). This is story about friendship more than about Hollywood gossip and when Ms Gardner died I too felt like I lost a friend. Ms Jordan is now in her 90s and we are lucky she has decided to share her remarkable life with us.

I read this book as a follow up to "Ava Gardner The Secret Conversations" by Peter Evans. It is a great accompanying book and reading them both gives you a fantastic look at the life and times of one of the most beautiful women to ever come out of Hollywood. Throughout most of the book, Rene writes in such a way that you feel you are along on the countless adventures shared by Ava Garner and her much loved personal assistant. Not all of the adventures will have a happy ending as in all three of Ava's failed marriages, or her suffering physical abuse at the hand of a drunken monster named George C. Scott. This is a very candid look at the life of Ava Gardner and all of the movies, men, and mischief, that it entails from a source that was there to share it all, first-hand. I read the entire book in one sitting.....once started, you won't be able to put it down! Highly recommended and a must-read for any Ava fan!

I have been a collector of books about the cinema from 1930, 1940, 1050 and 1960, a library of books about the Golden Years of Hollywood. I loved this book because of the intimate relationship between Ava Gardner and her maid. Because of Ava's rearing in the Carolinas she was comfortable and protective of her "maid" who was with her through Ava's adventure from her living in Hollywood, Spain, and London...with all of Ava's lovers at that time. WOW!! If you are a Ava Gardner, this is a MUST read.

I love love loved this book. So many later interviews ended with "she was a real GAL" and this books shows that, yes indeedy, she was!

I loved this book. A real insiders look into the life of Ava Gardner and the old Hollywood system.

Excellent book.

Very good read

Wonderful portrait of Ava Gardner drawn masterfully by one of her closest confidents. Heartwarming and hilarious tales more often that not, and at times, terrifying =A Humanzing account of Avas life and their friendship.