Who knew Cora Crawley, Duchess of Grantham, had such a potty mouth? Well, kind of. Right now, starring as Hollywood icon Ava Gardner in Ava: The Secret Conversations (New York City Center, to Sept. 14), the f-word tumbles repeatedly from Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGovern’s mouth.

Written by McGovern, the play is based on the book The Secret Conversations by Gardner and her biographer Peter Evans. In the play, we see Gardner and Evans (Aaron Costa Ganis) in a cat-and-mouse game of revelation and reticence, as in her plush London apartment he tries to get her to divulge the spiciest details of her private life, principally around her relationships and marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra (also played by Ganis). We watch Gardner open up to Evans, and then close down

See Full Page