DOWNTOWN — Actor Elizabeth McGovern has just closed a major chapter in her career, with the recent release of the film “Downtown Abbey: The Grand Finale” bringing the long-running English franchise to an end. McGovern played the sole American in the main cast, the matriarch of the illustrious Crawley clan that lived in the titular estate.

But the Evanston native and Oscar-nominated actor — who has appeared in legendary films like “Ordinary People,” “Ragtime” and “Once Upon a Time in America” — has already leapt into her next project. She turned from actor to playwright to pen “Ava: The Secret Conversations,” a play based on celebrity biographer Peter Evans’ attempt to help Ava Gardner, the iconic actress from Hollywood’s Golden Age, write a memoir.

Gardner lit up the screen in movies lik

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