Howard and Ava...

The thing was, she really was that way, and men seemed to eat it up. The more she treated them like dirt, the more they wanted her. The way she bullied, dominated and humiliated Frank Sinatra is legendary, and tough-guy Frank just kept asking for more.

Ava may have come from poverty, but she was a classic Southern Belle. None of that behavior surprised me. My mother is one, and from NC. I think she also learned another important life lesson early on: act like a Diva, and you'll get treated like one. Think of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind".

Don't forget the later scene where she was also very kind and compassionate to Howard, when she came to his house and helped him get cleaned up for the senate hearing.

And guess what? Most ladies of Ava's caliber expect the man they're dating to make the effort and show up at the door well dressed and well groomed.


We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

Ava was cool, she just resented the fact that Howard kept trying to buy her Even though she kept pointing out that she liked him for himself- as a friend.
He was pushy insulting suffocating overbearing and creepy! Planting bugs in her house to spy on her etc.
Howard was a loon