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| Birth Name(s) : Ava Lavinia Gardner |
Date of Birth: December 24, 1922 |
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| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Ava Gardner Biography
Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in-law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty. With zero acting experience, her first 17 film roles, 1942-5, were one-line bits or little better.
After her first starring role in B-grade Whistle Stop (1946), MGM loaned her to Universal for her first outstanding film, Killers, The (1946). Few of her best films were made at MGM which, keeping her under contract for 17 years, used her popularity to sell many mediocre films.
Perhaps as a result, she never believed in her own acting ability, but her latent talent shone brightly when brought out by a superior director, as with John Ford in Mogambo (1953) and George Cukor in Bhowani Junction (1956). After 3 failed marriages, dissatisfaction with Hollywood life prompted Ava to move to Spain in 1955; most of her subsequent films were made abroad.
By this time, stardom had made the country girl a cosmopolitan, but she never overcame a deep insecurity about acting and life in the spotlight. Her last quality starring film role was in Night of the Iguana, The (1964), her later work being (as she said) strictly "for the loot". In 1968, tax trouble in Spain prompted a move to London, where she spent her last 22 years in reasonable comfort. Her film career did not bring her great fulfillment, but her looks may have made it inevitable; many fans still consider her the most beautiful actress in Hollywood history. |
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Additional Ava Gardner Biography
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an Academy Award-nominated American film and television actress. She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time.
Gardner was born in the small farming community of Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children (she had two brothers and four sisters) of poor cotton and tobacco farmers; her mother, Molly, was a Baptist of Scots-Irish and English descent, while her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was a Catholic of Irish American and Tuscarora Indian descent. While the children were still young, the Gardners lost their property, forcing Jonas Gardner to work at a sawmill and Molly to begin working as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for teachers at the nearby Brogden School.
Gardner, who by age eighteen had become a stunning, green-eyed brunette, was visiting her sister Beatrice in New York in 1941 when Beatrice's husband Larry, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait. He liked the results and displayed the final product in the front window of his Fifth Avenue studio.
Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California. She was just a 19 year old girl. 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 and Gardner divorced in 1943, mainly because Rooney wouldn't give up his partying ways). Rooney later rhapsodized 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." She once characterised their marriage as "Love Finds Andy Hardy".
Her second marriage was to Artie Shaw from 1945 to 1946 and it was even more disastrous than the first. It was during this marriage that Gardner began to drink and take refuge in therapy.
Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines. Sinatra was treated poorly by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, and his fans for leaving his "good wife" for this exotic femme fatale. His career suffered, while Ava's prospered -- the headlines only solidified her sexy screen siren image. The marriage to Sinatra was stormy -- passionate fighting, jealousy, numerous separations. Gardner used her considerable clout to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). That role and the award revitalized Sinatra's acting and singing careers. Ava said of her relationship with Sinatra, "We were great in bed. It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began." During their marriage, Ava became pregnant, but she terminated the pregnancy due to the volatility of her marriage. She had always wanted children, but she said years later, "We couldn't even take care of ourselves. How were we going to take care of a baby?" Gardner and Sinatra remained good friends for the rest of her life.
She dated aviator/film director Howard Hughes in the early-mid 1940's. She soon after rejected him, and their relationship ended. She did not approve of him at the very least and complained as he was an invasion to her privacy and left their house in a mess of objects arranged in clutter.
She divorced Sinatra in 1957 and headed to Spain where her friendship with famed writer Ernest Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters. "It was a sort of madness, honey," she said later of the time. He later committed suicide.
Gardner was nominated for an Oscar for Mogambo (1953). She lost to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Many thought Gardner's greatest performance was as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana (1964), for which she was not nominated. Grayson Hall, as the repressed Judith Fellowes, however, was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category. Gardner showed her depth as an actress in 55 Days at Peking (1963).
"Off-camera, she gave off sparks of wit, as in her assessment of John Ford, who directed her in Mogambo: 'The meanest man on earth. Thoroughly evil. Adored him!'"
She moved to London in 1968, undergoing a hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had killed her mother. That year she made what some consider one of her best films, a Technicolor, English-language remake of Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph. Later in life she suffered from a severe case of emphysema. After two strokes in 1986, which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden, Frank Sinatra paid her $50,000 medical expenses. Her last words were 'I'm tired' to her housekeeper Carmen. She died of pneumonia in London, England at the age of 67 in 1990. After her death, Sinatra's daughter found him slumped in his room, face wet with tears, unable to raise his voice above a whisper. Ava was not only the love of his life but also the inspiration to one of his most personal and magic songs, "I Am a Fool to Want You", recorded after their separation. Reportedly, a lone black limousine parked behind the crowd of 500 mourners at Ava's funeral. No one exited the vehicle, but it was assumed the anonymous mourner inside, was indeed Frank Sinatra. A floral arrangement at Ava's graveside simply read, "With My Love, Francis". |
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Ava Gardner Quote(s)
| I have only one rule in acting -- trust the director and give him heart and soul. |
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