Elizabeth McGovern to play Ava Gardner on London stage.

McGovern, who [played] the Countess of Grantham in [Downton Abbey], reveals she is to become the fabled Gardner on stage.

'I came across a book of conversations she had with her ghost-writer,' says McGovern, 59. 'I've written a play based on this book. I'd like to play Ava. We've got a producer and we're going to stage it in London.'

McGovern moved to [London] in 1992 when she married theatre producer Simon Curtis, and in 2016 attended the unveiling of the blue plaque outside the former Knightsbridge home of Gardner, who died in 1990 aged 67.