Actors - Ava Gardner

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	Actors - Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress.

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born in the small farming community of Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina, the last of seven children of poor tobacco farmers; her mother was a Baptist of Scots-Irish descent, while her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was an Irish American Catholic.

Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it wasn't until she starred in The Killers
that she became known as a sex symbol and hot movie star. She was married to Mickey Rooney when she was only 19 years old in 1941 (they divorced in 1943), then to Artie Shaw from 1945 to 1946, and to Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957. She was said to be the "true love" of Sinatra, although they were incompatible as a married couple. Gardner is credited with salvaging Sinatra's career in 1953 when she made a personal plea to the wife of Harry Cohn, the autocratic head of Columbia Pictures, to test the washed-up Sinatra for a part in the upcoming film From Here to Eternity. Sinatra won the role, which earned him an Oscar and newfound respect as an actor. Gardner was also regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. She also had affairs with the Spanish bullfighters Luis Miguel Dominguin and Mario Cabré, Howard Hughes, and George C. Scott.

Gardner was nominated for an Oscar for 1953's Mogambo
. She lost to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday
. Many thought Gardner's greatest performance was as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana
, for which she was not even nominated. Grayson Hall, as the hysterical Miss Judith Fellowes, however, was nominated, albeit in the best supporting actress category.

Gardner also had a recurring role as Ruth Galveston on the television series Knots Landing in 1985.

After a stroke in 1989, which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden, Frank Sinatra paid all her medical expenses. She died of pneumonia in London, England at the age of 67 in 1990.

Ava Gardner is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina; the town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.

Trivia

Ava Gardner is known to have convinced Mercedes-Benz, through mishap, to re-design the doors of the 300SL "Gullwing" to more conventional swing-outs in 1962, after she rolled hers, and could not exit.
She met author J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford University in November 1964. Neither was aware of the fame of the other.
Gardner publically admitted to having had an abortion during filming of Mogambo.
Gardner was portrayed by Kate Beckinsale
in The Aviator
(2004). In the 1998 TV movie "The Rat Pack" she was portrayed by Deborah Kara Unger
.
In her autobiography, Ava: My Story, Gardner, a native Southerner, displayed a long memory for slights by recalling that when The Barefoot Contessa
was released in 1954, "a lot of people thought it was either too talky or, like the good folks in Tupelo, Mississippi - birthplace of Elvis Presley, who banned it from their town, too risqué for public consumption."

Filmography

Fancy Answers (1941) (short subject)
H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941)
We Do It Because- (1942) (short subject)
Joe Smith - American (1942)
This Time for Keeps (1942)
Kid Glove Killer (1942)
Sunday Punch (1942)
Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
Mighty Lak a Goat (1942) (short subject)
Reunion in France (1942)
Hitler's Madman (1943)
Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Young Ideas (1943)
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
Swing Fever (1943)
Lost Angel (1943)
Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)
Three Men in White (1944)
Maisie Goes to Reno (1944)
Blonde Fever (1944)
Music for Millions (1944)
She Went to the Races (1945)
Whistle Stop
(1946)
The Killers
(1946)
Singapore (1947)
The Hucksters
(1947)
One Touch of Venus (1948)
The Bribe (1949)
The Great Sinner (1949)
East Side, West Side (1949)
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
(1951)
Show Boat
(1951)
Lone Star (1952)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
(1952)
Knights of the Round Table (1953)
Ride, Vaquero! (1953)
The Band Wagon
(1953) (Cameo)
Mogambo
(1953)
The Barefoot Contessa
(1954)
Bhowani Junction
(1956)
The Little Hut (1957)
The Sun Also Rises (1957)
The Naked Maja (1959)
On the Beach
(1959)
The Angel Wore Red (1960)
55 Days at Peking
(1963)
On the Trail of the Iguana (1964) (short subject)
Seven Days in May
(1964)
The Night of the Iguana
(1964)
The Bible: In The Beginning
(1966)
Vienna: The Years Remembered (1968) (short subject)
Mayerling (1968)
Tam-Lin (1970)
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
Earthquake
(1974)
Permission to Kill (1975)
The Blue Bird
(1976)
The Cassandra Crossing
(1976)
The Sentinel (1977)
City on Fire
(1979)
The Kidnapping of the President (1980)
Priest of Love (1981)
Regina Roma (1982)

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Actors - Ava Gardner

Trivia

Filmography

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