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Actually, referring to Ava Gardner as a man eater is a bit sexist, but the term matched her outfit, so we went with it. It’s fairer to say that she went after what she wanted. She wanted and got Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes, Artie Shaw, Luis Miguel Dominguín, and a string of lucky others stretching from Hollywood to Madrid. This shot, from a famous session that produced many images, dates from the mid-1950s.
This issue of Exposed from October 1957 gives top billing to British sex symbol Sabrina, aka Norma Ann Sykes, and tells us she lost her dress in the street and caused a riot. How did it happen? During a public appearance in London someone supposedly stepped on the hem of her dress. The garment came off, the Brits went bonkers over her 41-inch bare bust, and Sabrina was so distressed that she fainted, so we’re told. Is this story true? We tend to think so, because Exposed goes on to ponder whether the whole fiasco was a publicity stunt. Their ruminations lend the tale just the right element of verisimilitude, so we’re going to say yes, it probably happened. Also on the cover of Exposed, like clockwork, appears Ava Gardner. Readers are told she’s doing the dirty with Italian actor Walter Chiari. This would have been after splitting with Frank Sinatra but before the official divorce. But wait—didn’t we just write about her seeing Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín while also still married to Frankie? Come on people—that was so 1956. Sometimes you have to wonder how Gardner had time for all these affairs, but let’s just say that if she liked a man she always found a way to squeeze him in.
The cover of this December 1956 issue of the American tabloid Exposed offers teasers on Kim Novak, Laurence Olivier, and Hollywood bad boy William Holden, but it’s Ava Gardner who’s front and center as readers learn about her mingling with Spanish bullfighters. Gardner had been introduced to the spectacle of the plaza de toros several years earlier by Ernest Hemingway, and she became a fixture at both the fights and on the Madrid social circuit. Since she was married to Frank Sinatra, this was of great interest to U.S. readers, not to mention Sinatra himself, and all the tabloids were reporting on it. The publicity didn’t help what was already a stormy marriage. Gardner eventually pursued and bedded matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, and not very discreetly. Everyone knew. Sinatra knew, and it tortured him. His buddy Humphrey Bogart rebuked Gardner, telling her, “Half the world’s female population would throw themselves at Frank’s feet and you are flouncing around with guys who wear capes and ballerina slippers.” Sinatra knew he was losing the love of his life, and he wasn’t about to let it happen without a fight. He flew to Spain in a desperate bid to win his wife back, but it was no use—seven months after this Exposed hit newsstands, he and Gardner were divorced.
Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison in Folson, California, where he records a live album that includes a version of his 1955 hit “Folsom Prison Blues.” Cash had always been interested in performing at a prison, but was unable to until personnel changes at his record company brought in people who were amenable to the idea. The Folsom album was Cash’s biggest commercial success for years, reaching number 1 on the country music charts.
British serial killer Harold Shipman is found dead in his prison cell, after hanging himself with a bedsheet. Shipman, a former doctor who preyed on his patients, was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, with two-hundred and eighteen murders positively attributed to him, and another two-hundred of which he is suspected.
English novelist Nevil Shute, who wrote the books A Town Like Alice and The Pied Piper, dies in Melbourne, Australia at age sixty-one. Seven of his novels were adapted to film, but his most famous was the cautionary post-nuclear war classic On the Beach.
Dr. James Bedford, a University of California psychology professor, becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation. Bedford had kidney cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and was untreatable. His body was maintained for years by his family before being moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona.
Jack Gilbert Graham is executed in Colorado, U.S.A., for killing 44 people by planting a dynamite bomb in a suitcase that was subsequently loaded aboard United Airlines Flight 629. The flight took off from Denver and exploded in mid-air. Graham was executed by means of poison gas in the Colorado State Penitentiary, in Cañon City.
The League of Nations holds its first meeting, at which it ratifies the Treaty of Versailles, thereby officially ending World War I. At its greatest extent, from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, the League had 58 members. Its final meeting was held in April 1946 in Geneva.
Harold Macmillan accepts the Queen of England’s invitation to become Prime Minister following the sudden resignation of Sir Anthony Eden. Eden had resigned due to ill health in the wake of the Suez Crisis. Macmillan is remembered for helping negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He served as PM until 1963.
