Ava Gardner

I do owe Mickey one thing: he taught me how much I enjoyed sex.

I was born with good health and a strong body and spent years abusing them.

It's fine being stared at as a pretty girl, but not as a freak. When I tried to make myself ugly, they said, 'Oh, she's lost her looks.'

It's a shame that it didn't work out with Mick. I was hopelessly in love with him.

The marriages to Mickey and Artie were easy come, easy go. I called them my 'starter husbands!'

There was no way the marriages could have survived. Nor do I regret that they didn't.

I suffered, I really suffered, with all three of my husbands. And I tried damn hard with all three, starting each marriage certain that it was going to last until the end of my life. Yet none of them lasted more than a year or two.

Mickey - the smallest husband I ever had and the biggest mistake I ever made - well, that year, it was.

Nobody could pile on the applesauce like Mickey. He was the best liar in the world - well, Frank Sinatra can tell a good story, too, but I don't believe he was ever unfaithful to me.

I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.

I go on tremendous health kicks - exercise, yogurt, no booze. Of course, I smoke too much.

Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn't have been more wrong.