Here's Why MGM Covered Up Frank Sinatra And Ava Gardner's Wild First Date

Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra were two of the most popular actors to have emerged from Hollywood’s Golden Age. So they inevitably became the talk of the town when news of their increasingly fiery relationship first surfaced. But details about the night they truly fell in love remained under wraps for years!

And with good reason, too. If the story of that wild evening had made it into the press, then both Sinatra’s and Gardner’s careers could well have imploded. Little wonder, then, that a publicist working for MGM Studios did their utmost to keep all the shenanigans out of the public eye.

Of course, that eventful late-night encounter back in the late 1940s was just a sign of things to come. Gardner and Sinatra famously had a tempestuous relationship. Yes, they certainly weren’t averse to airing their dirty laundry in public, regularly getting into fights both in and outside their marital home.

Once part of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ crew, Tony Oppedisano wrote about the marriage in his 2021 book, Sinatra and Me: In the Wee Small Hours. And during an interview with Fox News, he recalled a conversation in which the singer claimed Gardner could drink him “under the table.” Oppedisano also alleged that the actress had something of a potty mouth, too.

“Frank told me that was a very intense relationship, a very tempestuous one,” Oppedisano added. “He also said, ‘I should have known upfront that anything that burned that hot was bound to burn out. But while it was going on, I was having a ball.’”