 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 youngest 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.
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. The photo had
been taken in 1939 by the proprietor, Ava's brother-in-law Larry Tarr, who was
married to Ava's older sister, Bappie. At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM
talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that Loews was a subsidiary of MGM.
Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Ava's number, but was rebuffed by the
receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment that Somebody should send her info
to MGM, and the Tarr's did so immediately. Shortly after, Ava, who at the time
was a student at Atlantic Christian College, travelled to New York to be
interviewed at MGM's New York office. She was offered a standard contract by
MGM, and Ava left school for Hollywood in 1941, with her sister Bappie
accompanying her.
Soon after her arrival in LA, 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 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.' After they were divorced 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. Of Hughes, Gardner said 'I just never liked Howard.
Apart from the fact that he smelled like a sewer, he so irritated me I once
knocked him out with a paperweight.' Hughes had her followed by private
detectives and when Gardner broke off their relationship and started dating
actor Howard Duff he responded by having a car that he had purchased for her,
taken apart, piece by piece and left in her driveway. 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. The third and last was to Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957.
Frank 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 Sinatra's 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. 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 would remain good friends for the rest of her life.
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. It
was a sort of madness, honey, she said later of the time. Three months after the
divorce her legendary beauty was damaged when a drunken visit to the Andalusian
bull ranch of Angelo Peralta, a friend of Hemingway's, led to her being thrown
from a horse, damaging the right side of her face. The right-side of her face
was never the same and she subsequently became afraid of the camera, and even
the gaze of friends.
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.
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!
Gardner also had a recurring role as Ruth Galveston on the television series
Knots Landing in 1985.
She moved to London in 1968, undergoing a hysterectomy to allay her worries of
contracting the uterine cancer that had killed her mother. After a stroke in
1989, 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.
Gardner is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina; the
town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
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