Ava Gardner's 'Affair' With Fidel Castro Ended Before It Even Began

Publish date: 2024-05-03

Ava Gardner, besides being a Hollywood star known for roles in such classics as "Mogambo" and "The Barefoot Contessa," was famous for her tempestuous romantic relationships. By age 23, when she began an affair with a married Frank Sinatra, she'd been divorced twice. Her first husband was the actor Mickey Rooney, with whom she lasted a little over a year. Her second marriage, to the bandleader Artie Shaw, was equally short-lived, per Britannica. When she arrived in Cuba, her third marriage, to Sinatra, which was the stormiest of them all, had been over for two years, though the pair had briefly reunited in Australia that spring, per "Love is Nothing." That summer, Gardner was on the prowl.

Fidel Castro, while unmarried, was then in a relationship with his 19-year-old interpreter, Marita Lorenz, who stood in the way of Gardner's efforts to spark a romance with Castro, according to Vanity Fair. Lorenz, who was German, was no pushover (she would help foil an assassination attempt on Castro the next year, per The New York Times, and made sure Gardner's plans would come to naught.

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