Film actress, born in Smithfield, North Carolina, USA. Signed by MGM as a teenager, she emerged from the ranks of decorative starlets with her portrayal of a ravishing femme fatale in The Killers (1946). A green-eyed brunette, once voted the world's most beautiful woman, she remained a leading lady for two decades, her films including Mogambo (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), and Night of the Iguana (1964). In later years she continued to work as a character actress in films and on television. She was married to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra. Her autobiography, Ava: My Story (1990), was published posthumously.
| Ava Gardner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
24 December 1922 Brogden, North Carolina, USA |
| Died |
25 January 1990 Westminster, London, England |
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and one of the great Hollywood film stars.
Biography
Early years
Gardner was born in the small farming community of Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children of poor tobacco farmers;
New York and Hollywood: MGM
In 1941, a Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in the Tarr Photography Studio on 5th Avenue in New York.
Marriages
Mickey Rooney
Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles, she met Mickey Rooney, and was married at the age of 19 on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California. Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it wasn't until she starred in The Killers opposite Burt Lancaster, that she became known as a movie star and sex symbol. Rooney later rhapsodised about Gardner's performance in bed, though upon hearing this Gardner retorted 'Well honey, he may have enjoyed the sex, but I sure as hell didn't.'
Howard Hughes
After divorcing Rooney, she was pursued by Howard Hughes who offered her any sum she named, as much jewelry as she wanted and movie stardom if she married him.
Artie Shaw
Her second marriage was to Artie Shaw from 1945 to 1946 and it was even more disastrous than the first, and it was during this marriage that Gardner began to drink and take refuge in therapy.
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines.
Ernest Hemingway
She divorced Sinatra in 1957 and headed to Spain where her friendship with Ernest Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting, and bullfighters.
Oscar
Gardner was nominated for an Oscar for Mogambo (1953). Many thought Gardner's greatest performance was as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana (1964), for which she was not nominated. Adored him!'"
Gardner also had a recurring role as Ruth Galveston on the television series Knots Landing in 1985.
London: the last years
She moved to London in 1968, undergoing a hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had killed her mother.
Grave
Gardner is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina;
Lesbian Rumours
Printed in The Daily Mail on July 15, 2006 were extracts from a new biography of Gardner written by Lee Server. It contains a story of Frank Sinatra bursting into a restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1952 at which Gardner, Lana Turner and a companion were having dinner and screaming at them 'Lesbians! Lesbians!'
Lana Turner
A biography has previously alleged that Sinatra found Gardner and Turner in bed together and Gardner admitted an affair with Turner and a number of other high-profile female stars to the journalist Michael Thornton.
Betty Grable
Gardner is reported as saying that it was a visit to New York to see Cole Porter's musical Du Barry Was a Lady starring Ethel Merman, Bert Lahr and 23-year old Betty Grable that made her realise she could have feelings for another woman. She had a very sexual way of delivering her lines, with that pouting little mouth that made every word look like a kiss to the audience.'
Years later Gardner met Grable in Hollywood and tried to tell her about the effect she had had on her.
After leaving Shaw, Gardner went to stay with the self-confessed lesbian agent Minna Wallis, sister of the Hollywood producer Hal B. I had a deep-down fear of child-bearing.'
After the marriage to Sinatra ended, Gardner fled to London where she began an affair with Britain's reigning sex symbol Christine Norden, the openly bisexual mistress of movie mogul Alexander Korda.
User Comments Add a comment…