Ava Gardner spins discs in 1949. A lifelong music lover, Ava stated in her 1990 autobiography Ava: My Story that she'd "grown up in the big-band era, adoring every sound the great ones made." Her record collection, now stored at the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, North Carolina, included music by Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and her third husband Frank Sinatra. Ava's second husband was bandleader Artie Shaw, who wrote the song The Grabtown Grapple for Gardner during their relationship. Admitting her weakness for music-makers, Ava wrote in her autobiography: "I've always loved musicians. I'm absolutely intoxicated with them. All they have to do is stand in front of a bandstand and I'm in love with the whole band. It's not only the beautiful swell of the music that emerges from the group, it's the instruments, and the whole ensemble look—I think it’s sexy as hell. Some women fall for writers, some for sailors, some for fighters. I’m hooked on bands." The Grabtown Grapple, recorded by Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five in January 1945, can be listened to below.
