Pandora's Influence

#AvaGardner#JamesMason#TossadeMar

In the Spring of 1950 Ava Gardner and James Mason arrived in Tossa de Mar to film ... The British drama "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman".

                     

                         Photo credit ... Kino International

A film about a woman unable to love and a man unable to die ... based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman.

In 1998 a bronze statue of Ava Gardner was erected on the hill (Vila Vella) overlooking the town's main beach.

Here is Señor Honey (my own old blue eyes) as close as he ever would get to the beautiful Ava.

   

           

   

                      There is also a scupture in the Museum.

                  

Research suggests that Ava Gardner stayed at the Hotel Diana with her then husband, Frank Sinatra during the filming of the movie.

At lunch the other day, chatting with the older waiter and then Señor Honey showing him some of his old black and white photographs of Tossa some 50 years ago ... the conversation evolved to Ms.Gardner and how Tossa went from a sleepy village to a tourist destination ... that it was her presence that put Tossa de Mar on the map.

He told us about Chagall's visit in the summer of 1934 and calling Tossa "paradis bleu"... "blue paradise" but it did not have same impact as the arrival of the beautiful starlet Ava Gardener.

There is evidence of Ms. Gardner's character "Pandora" throughout the town and I believe she was a true friend to the locals that lived here at the time.