Comprehensive information and links about 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 Scottish 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 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 , 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 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.

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.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."