Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

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

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born in the small farming
community of Grabtown, North Carolina|Grabtown,
Johnston County, North Carolina, the last of seven
children of poor tobacco farmers, said to be of
Melungeon bloodline.

Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it
wasn't until she starred in The Killers (1946
film)|The Killers that she became known as a sex
symbol and hot movie star. She married 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. She 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, industrialist Howard
Hughes, and actor George C. Scott, in the
mid-1960s. 

(Scott, known for beating other women such as
wives Colleen Dewhurst and Trish Van Devere, was
rumored to have beaten Gardner during their
relationship so badly that her retina became
detached.)

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.

She met author J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford University
in November 1964. Neither was aware of the fame of
the other.

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. 

Gardner is portrayed by Kate Beckinsale in The
Aviator (2004), a film by Martin Scorsese about
Howard Hughes.

==Filmography==

* Fancy Answers (1941) (short subject)
* H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)
* Sunday Punch (1942)
* We Do It Because- (1942) (short subject)
* This Time for Keeps (1942)
* Kid Glove Killer (1942)
* Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
* Mighty Lak a Goat (1942) (short subject)
* Reunion in France (1942)
* Pilot #5 (1943)
* Hitler's Madman (1943)
* Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
* Young Ideas (1943)
* Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
* Swing Fever (1943)
* Lost Angel (1943)
* Three Men in White (1944)
* Two Girls and a Sailor (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 film)|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)
* My Forbidden Past (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 (film)|The Bible (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 movie)|City on Fire (1979)
* The Kidnapping of the President (1980)
* Priest of Love (1981)
* Regina Roma (1982)

== External links ==
* http://www.classicactresses.com/ava.html Ava
Gardner at Classic Actresses
*http://www.movietreasures.com/main/Ava_Gardner/av
a_gardner.html Ava Gardner on movietreasures.com
*http://www.avagardner.org/ Ava Gardner Museum
*imdb name|id=0001257|name=Ava Gardner