Customer Reviews

Grabtown Girl: Ava Gardner's North Carolina Childhood and Her Enduring Ties to Home

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This biography is intensely researched and informative. The story is exactly what the title states, "Ava Gardner's North Carolina Childhood and Her Enduring Ties To Home". This biography puts most of its focus on Ava's childhood and how it shaped her attitudes toward her life and her fame. Although the last third of the book overviews her life as a star, if you are looking for a detailed account of Ava's Hollywood life, this is not the book for you. This is simply the story (told mainly through antecdotes and memories of family and friends) of a woman with strong roots who happened to become a movie star but who never forgot where she came from. The author introduces the reader to Ava's North Carolina family and friends and I love the fact that she tells the reader what happened to everyone mentioned in the book. I have a whole new respect and perspective for Ava Gardner. I was really struck by the fact that even though Ava became a big star, she never thought of herself as any better than anyone else and continued to be a loving and supportive friend, sister, and aunt. The book is short (about 130 pages, I read it in two nights, maybe took 3 hours total) and has some great pictures throughout. I highly recommend it!!!

A wonderful Biography - the author does a wonderful job depicting who Ava Gardner was in both roles of her life - "Grabtown Girl" and "Hollywood Star". I appreciate her dedication and no doubt the timeless hours she spent in writing such a wonderful book.

I found this book very disappointing. I was excited to learn about a star I have admired but knew very little about. Unfortunately, this book reads like a newspaper obituary. It gives useless, detailed information regarding her childhood but blazes past the more interesting parts of her life (like her marriages to Mickey Rooney, Art Shaw and Frank Sinatra).

Save your money and look up the same info on the internet.

It's difficult to juxtapose a breathtakingly beautiful legendary movie goddess with a simple country childhood, so it's therefore hard to portray Ava Gardner in both worlds.

I give the author credit for being very straightforward with the simple known facts about Ava's childhood and early life in North Carolina. She didn't indulge in wild speculation, nor did she attribute thoughts or qualities to Ava that coudn't be verified. Instead, she told the simple story of Ava's simple life, documented by interviews with Ava's childhood friends, some family members, and letters written by young Ava.

This book portrays a rather sweet and simple childhood for Ava, not too many traumas (other than losing her beloved father at a young age). They were not dirt-poor hillbillies, which is the image that Ava sometimes invested herself with when it suited her purposes. Piedmont-area North Carolina is not hillbilly country.

I would have liked the book to have had much more substance, and I was particularly interested in knowing more about the lives of her siblings, of which only the briefest of portraits were given in this book.

"Grabtown Girl" is a love letter written by Doris Rollins Cannon to the legend of Ava Gardner and her North Carolina Tarheel roots. It is a wonderful read from start to finish.

When I was a boy growing up in NC, (I was born in in 1960) I was always fascinated with the Hollywood MGM stars of the 40's and 50's. When I was about 12, I found out Ava came from Smithfield. I tried to find any photo, article or book on her I could find. At that time Ava, was living in London and not making very many motion pictures so I was eager to learn about her NC roots and how she got to Hollywood. I read all the old biographies that were in the library but they only briefly covered the NC years.

I finally met her sister Myra that lived in Winston-Salem near me in 1981 and begin to hear some of the Gardner family stories. Myra would tell me how it would upset her how Hollywood would always get Ava's bio wrong and how MGM would embellish stories about her "dirt poor" background. Myra stated this upset her when they would write things about their parents that was not factual but she knew Hollywood would say anything about Ava for publicity right or wrong.

But it was not until Mrs. Cannon took years and years of information, research, and interviews with the Gardner family and friends that this book was written to state the truth. It is a wonderful read not only for the " North Carolina native" but for anyone of any age that is interested in the story of Ava before, during and after all the stardom. Many of you have read the same old "Ava Gardner Hollywood/Madrid years" over and over. I know there is a new book out that just recycles a lot of the same gossip, romances, late nights, lovers, etc. So if you want something different, a factual account of Ava's life and her interactions with her family and friends, this is a wonderful experience. You will see that Ava was a true Tarheel throughout her life. The North Carolina state motto fit her perfectly! "Esse quam videri" To be, rather than to seem.

"Grabtown Girl" is a most candid tribute to Ava Gardner that focuses on her relationships with the people she knew and loved in her beloved North Carolina before and after she became a world-renown actress. It is interesting to discover the diversity of the people who had such a profound and everlasting impact on Ava's life, from her most cherished childhood friend in elementary school to a most trusted friend during her adolescent years who later became a prominent N.C. businessman.

The author includes extraordinary, never before published photographs and letters. I appreciate how Ms. Cannon ingeniously captures the core of Ava's innermost being, her heart and soul, via authentic documentation. This is the stuff good books are made of.

"Grabtown Girl": what a treasure, what a gift! This is, in fact, the "real deal" and that's what I call "priceless!" Once you begin reading "Grabtown Girl," you may find that you are unable to put it down until you read every single page from start to finish!

It's a great book. Just great! 5 stars for the Author and the Book!