Ava Gardner
| Ava Gardner | |
 Publicity photograph | |
| Birth name: | Ava Lavinia Gardner |
|---|---|
| Date of birth: | 24 December 1922 |
| Birth location: | Brogden, North Carolina, USA 25px |
| Date of death: | January 25 1990 (aged 67) |
| Death location: | Westminster, London, England |
| Notable role(s): | Kitty Collins in The Killers Honey Bear Kelly in Mogambo Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana |
| Spouse: | Mickey Rooney (1942-1943) Artie Shaw (1945-1946) Frank Sinatra (1951-1957) |
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an Academy Award-nominated American screen actress who encompassed a true rags-to-riches story. Born to a poor farming family in the south, Gardner was discovered in New York City and soon began acting in both film and television. Her impressive aray of work, including The Barefoot Contessa, Mogambo, and Showboat led to a lifelong career that shot her to world-wide fame. Gardner is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time. She was also known as one of the most beautiful women to grace Hollywood.
Early years
Gardner was the seventh and final child born to Jonas and Molly Gardner. Born on Christmas Eve, 1922, Gardner had two brothers and four sisters, and she claims, one dress during her childhood. The family lived in the very small farming community of Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina. Her father worked for several years as a cotton and tobacco farmer. The family was very, very poor. The children received little education, and Gardner remembers going around barefoot, helping on the farm and playing with her brothers. Her mother, Molly, was a Baptist of Scots-Irish descent, while her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was a Catholic of Irish American and Tuscarora Indian descent. The family struggled to make ends meet, but met with severe hardship when Jonas and Molly lost all of their property. This started the Gardner's off on a long search for steady income. Jonas went and worked at a sawmill nearby and Molly as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for teachers that Brogden School.
Jonas and Molly were unable to earn enough money to support their big family in the country, so, when Ava was 13 years old, the family moved to the city of Newport News, Virginia. Again, it was Molly who had to find a job, as Jonas was often sick. She worked again as the manager of a boardinghouse for the many shipworkers of the city. The family moved again to Wilson, North Carolina and Molly ran yet another boarding house. Jonas did not work much the last few years of his life, he contracted bronchitis and died in 1935, leaving Molly to care for all of the children on her own. Ava attended high school in Rock Ridge, and graduated in 1939, however, her lack of true education and her heavy southern accents were always huge insecurities to her. Many of her siblings had left home by the time Ava graduated, including her elder sister Beatrice. Beatrice had married a photographer and moved to New York City.
After graduation, Ava attended Atlantic Christian College in the small town of Wilson for a year. She was busy taking secretarial classes and had decided on being a secretary by profession. She went to New York in 1941 to visit her sister. It was at this time that Beatrice's husband, Larry, offered to take Ava's protrait. Ava, just eighteen years old at the time, was a stunning, incandescent, green-eyed, voluptuous brunette. When Ava's portraits turned out to be some of the best shots Larry had ever taken, he posted them in the display window of his little shop on Fifth Avenue. A short time later, Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in the Tarr Photography Studio, and went in to inquire about Ava's photo and get her number for Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer (MGM) Film Studios. Duhan was refused the number, but when he made the comment "Somebody should send her info to MGM," then Larry Tarr took it upon himself to do so immediately. Ava was offered a screen test at MGM, even though she had no acting experience whatsoever. The screen test was strictly silent, because of her heavy Southern drawl. Gardner recalled that after the test the director " "clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, 'She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational! Sign her!' " [2].
New York and Hollywood: MGM
Ava Gardner was offered a standard MGM contract in 1941. She quit school, packed her bag, and ventured to Hollywood with her sister Beatrice (Bappie) who had recently divorced Larry Tarr. Beatrice ended up serving as Ava's manager of sort. The first part of Ava's life in Hollywood included a voice coach to help rid her of her Carolina drawl that was nearly incomprehensible.[1] She also received acting lessons as well as make-up lessons. Even with her training, MGM was hesitant to cast Ava in any major role because she was unknown and inexperienced. Thus, for the next few years, Ava took part in 17 films, none of which she said more than two lines. The first of these was We Were Dancing. Two years later she had a bit more screen time in Three Men in White, where she played a sexy enchantress who tries to seduce Van Johnson's character. Other bit roles were in This Time for Keeps, Reunion in France, and Sunday Punch.
The time she spent in small roles did not keep her invisible to everyone. Many of the male stars in Hollywood had noticed this raging beauty around the various nightclubs and parties. Gardner liked to party and she often spent all night drinking and staying out with other Hollywood icons.
Marriages and relationships
Mickey Rooney
While partying and cavorting with other Hollywood stars, Gardner was introduced to the top ranked movie star of the time, Mickey Rooney. Rooney courted her relentlessly until Gardner finally accepted his proposal. The couple was married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California. After the marriage, it was hard for Rooney to give up his bachelor ways and his partying, and he often left Gardner home alone. She was only 19 years old at the time and became very unhappy. She later said of the year-long marriage, "We were a couple of kids. We didn't have a chance." [[3]]
In 1946 Gardner got her big break, she starred in The Killers opposite Burt Lancaster. This was the film that landed Gardner the status of not only a movie star, but as a sex symbol. In later interviews, Rooney would allude to 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."
Howard Hughes
In 1943, she was introduced to Texas billionaire Howard Hughes. The two were instantly attracted to each other and would carry on a tempestuous, often violent, on - again - off - again romance that would last twenty years, mainly during the periods when Gardner was between husbands.
Artie Shaw
Her second marriage was to clarinetist and bandleader 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.
Frank Sinatra
The third and last marriage was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957.
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. 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.
Ernest Hemingway
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.
Later Years
Oscar Nomination
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!'"[2]
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. One of her best films, Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph, she made in the same year. 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.
Death and Burial
Gardner is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina; the town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
Filmography
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ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Cannon, Dorris Rollins, "Grabtown Girl: Ava Gardner's North Carolina Childhood and Her Enduring Ties to Home" ISBN 1-878086-89-8
- ↑ [1] "Movie Stars: The odd and amazing careers of Ava Gardner, Barbra Streisand, Patricia Neal and Ed Sullivan," short reviews by Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World, Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page BW08, "One Woman Riot" section, reviewing Lee Server's "Ava Gardner: 'Love Is Nothing'"
External links
- "Ava Gardner", IMDb, Retrieved May 31, 2007.
- "Ava Gardner", Movie Treasures.com, Retrieved May 31, 2007.
- "Home Page", Ava Gardner Museum, Retrieved May 31, 2007.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gardner, Ava |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | American actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 24 December 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina |
| DATE OF DEATH | 25 January 1990 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | London, England |
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