Ava Gardner

Daughter of Jonas Bailey (1878-1938) and Mary Elizabeth Gardner (1883-1943). Both were born, raised, married and died in North Carolina.

Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. 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, 1942-1945, were one-line bits or little better.

Her early education was sketchy; by 1945 she had read two books, the Bible and "Gone with the Wind." In later life she more than made up for this lack by continual self-education.

After her first starring role in B-grade Whistle Stop (1946), MGM loaned her to Universal for her first outstanding film The Killers (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.

She and Robert Taylor had a brief love affair during the filming of The Bribe (1949).

Once named "The World's Most Beautiful Animal" (in a 1950s publicity campaign).

Her singing voice in Show Boat (1951) was dubbed by Annette Warren, although her voice is left in on the soundtrack album.

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).

Flamenco became one of her favorite pastimes after she learned it for The Barefoot Contessa (1954); increasingly proficient and needing little sleep, she often danced all night.

After three 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.

Was considered for the role of Leslie Benedict in Giant (1956) but was unable to leave Pakistan, where she was filming Bhowani Junction (1956).

In a promotion for The Little Hut (1957), a small island in Fiji was renamed Ava Ava and leased to a contest winner.

Her The Angel Wore Red (1960) co-star Dirk Bogarde nicknamed her "Snowdrop" because, he said, anything less likely was difficult to imagine.

In Charlton Heston's autobiography "In the Arena" he revealed that she behaved badly during the troubled shoot of 55 Days at Peking (1963). For example, she stopped the filming when a Chinese extra took her picture without permission. Heston also stated that her character was killed off to keep the producers and director from having to deal with her anymore.

Her last quality starring film role was in The Night of the Iguana (1964), her later work being (as she said) strictly "for the loot".

She sought the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), and reportedly called Mike Nichols saying,"I want to see you! I want to talk about this 'Graduate' thing!" Nichols did not seriously consider her for the role, but did end up visiting her hotel. He later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody'".

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.

When shooting Earthquake (1974), she surprised director Mark Robson by insisting that she do her own stuntwork, which included dodging blocks of concrete and heavy steel pipes.

When her first husband, Mickey Rooney, brought his hugely successful musical "Sugar Babies" to London in the late 1980s, she confessed to him that she had contemplated suicide after being left partially paralyzed by two strokes in 1986.

She spent her final years as a recluse in her London apartment--her only companions were her longtime housekeeper Carmen Vargas and her beloved Welsh Corgi, Morgan. Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although she could easily afford her medical expenses, Frank Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the US, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically-staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen) were, "I'm so tired", before she died of pneumonia at age 67. Vargas took her body home to her native North Carolina for private burial. None of her ex-husbands attended.

After her death in 1990, her longtime housekeeper, Carmen Vargas, and her dog, a Welsh Corgi named Morgan, were taken in by her former co-star Gregory Peck.

Is portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in Sinatra (1992) , Deborah Kara Unger in The Rat Pack (1998), by Christine Andreas in Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (1995), Jon Mack in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), and by Kate Beckinsale in The Aviator (2004).

In 1995 she was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#68).