Gardner, Ava & Grace Kelly

Autograph letter signed ("Ava"), 6 pages (8 x 6 in.; 203 x 152 mm), [envelope return: London, UK, January 1953, but written in Africa], to her sister Mrs. B.C. ("Myra") Pearce in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with stamped and addressed envelope; dated in another hand in top margin.



With:



Kelly, Grace. Autograph letter signed ("Grace"), 4 pages (7 1/4 x 5 1/8 in.; 184 x 130 mm), Nice, Monaco, August 1956, to Ava Gardner in Rome, with stamped and addressed envelope; folded.

Fine letters written by two goddesses of the silver screen.

Ava Gardner (1922-1990) writes during a break in the filming of Mogambo (released 9 October 1953), a film in which she starred with Grace Kelly, and for which she received an Academy Award nomination. She was two years into her final marriage, with Frank Sinatra. She had fallen sick and had gone to London for treatment, but was now back in Africa, writing to her sister Myra: " ... this place gets more unbearable every day — & any word from home is like a breath of fresh air. Frank just left a few days ago & now I'm really lonesome — this time he is going to be gone for four months or more — looks like we'll never live together long enough to really find out if we can live together or not. ... We're hoping to get out of here in another week or ten days — I'm going back by the jet plane as far as Rome where I'll spend a couple of days having fun & eating some good food."

She goes on to tell her sister of her anniversary present from Frank: "It was a beautiful diamond ring — I can't draw very well but it looked something like this. [sketch] That's a side view — it is dome shape & is filled with little round diamonds — And for my birthday he brought me another diamond ring like this [sketch] a marquis diamond with three baguettes on each side & for Xmas a beautiful mink stole. ... Sweetie, I must stop & get ready to leave on the plane — we're going to our last location ... it's another safari where we live in tents right out in the open with all the lions & hippos and everything. We were in one safari for 8 weeks, that's where we spent the holidays ..."

Three years later, just four months after her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco, Princess Grace (1929-1982) writes, a bit enviously, to Ava who is in Rome filming The Little Hut (released 3 May 1957): "Hope the heat isn't too unbearable in Rome — but the picture must be great fun — We are getting lazier by the minute and we are not even quite sure what day it is — We have been drifting around the southern part of Corsica and are now headed for an old town called Bonifacio. ... We have had two successful séances which were absolutely amazing ... It is so hard for me to believe that I am actually pregnant. Having babies has always been something that happened to other people." She will be returning to New York to close her apartment and ship her belongings to Monaco. "It was so wonderful that you were able to come to our wedding & I hope some time after we get back from N.Y. you will come to visit, when it can be calm & unhectic."