American actress Ava Gardner (1922-1990) was signed to a contract by MGM in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading stars and was considered one of the most beautiful women of her day. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953). She appeared in several high-profile films from the 1950s to the 1970s, both in Hollywood and Europe. She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death at the age of 67.
Belgian collectors card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C 234. Photo: M.G.M. Publicity still for
East Side, West Side (Mervyn LeRoy, 1949).
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 224.
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 500.
Ava Gardner.
Italian postcard by B.F.F. (Casa Edit. Ballerini & Fratini), Milano, no. 2659. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Publicity still for
Show Boat (George Sidney, 1951).
British Greetings card, no. D. Photo: Virgil Apger / Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
French postcard, no. 116. Photo: Virgil Apger.
She can't sing, she can't act, she can't talk, she's terrific!
Ava Lavinia Gardner was born in 1922 near the farming community of Smithfield, North Carolina, USA. She was the youngest of seven children of
Mary Elizabeth ‘Molly’ (Baker) and
Jonas Bailey Gardner, poor cotton and tobacco farmers. While the children were still young, the Gardners lost their property, forcing
Jonas Gardner to work at a sawmill and Molly to begin working as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for teachers at the nearby Brogden School.
When Gardner was seven years old, the family decided to try their luck in Newport News, Virginia, where Molly Gardner found work managing a boarding house for the city's many ship workers. While in Newport News, Gardner's father became ill and died from bronchitis in 1938, when Ava was 15 years old. After Jonas Gardner's death, the family moved to Rock Ridge near Wilson, North Carolina, where Mollie Gardner ran another boarding house for teachers. Gardner attended high school in Rock Ridge and she graduated from there in 1939. She then attended secretarial classes at Atlantic Christian College in Wilson for about a year.
Gardner was visiting her sister
Beatrice in New York in 1941 when Beatrice's husband
Larry Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his Tarr Photography Studio on Fifth Avenue. The Tarrs sent her picture to Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Ava was interviewed at MGM's New York office by
Al Altman, head of MGM's New York talent department. With cameras rolling, he directed the eighteen-year-old to walk towards the camera, turn and walk away, and then rearrange some flowers in a vase. He did not attempt to record her voice because her Southern accent made it almost impossible for him to understand her.
Louis B. Mayer, head of the studio, however, sent a telegram to Al: "She can't sing, she can't act, she can't talk, She's terrific!"
Ava was offered a standard contract by MGM and left school for Hollywood in 1941 with her sister Beatrice accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a speech coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them. Soon after she arrived in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player
Mickey Rooney. They married in 1942 when she was 19 years old and he was 21. Largely due to Rooney's serial adultery, Gardner divorced him in 1943 but agreed not to reveal the cause so as not to affect his career. Gardner's second marriage was brief as well, to jazz musician and bandleader
Artie Shaw, from 1945 to 1946.
Till then, she had appeared in 17 film roles, but mainly one-line bits or little better. She had her first bigger role in the B-film
Whistle Stop (Léonide Moguy 1946) starring
George Raft. Then, MGM loaned her to Universal for the Film Noir
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946), based on a story by
Ernest Hemingway. Her performance as an incredibly beautiful femme fatale opposite
Burt Lancaster became her breakthrough.
The Killers became a smash hit and Gardner was an instant star.
French postcard by Editions P.I., La Garenne-Colombes, no. 208, 1950. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Spanish postcard by Belfo, no. 133.
Ava Gardner and
Fred MacMurray in
Singapore (John Brahm, 1947). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
German postcard. Photo: Universal International Pictures.
Ava Gardner in
One Touch of Venus (William A. Seiter, 1948).
West-German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 507. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Ava Gardner and
Gregory Peck in
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Henry King, 1952).
Yugoslavian postcard by Sedma Sila. Photo: IOM, Beograd.
Robert Taylor and
Ava Gardner in
Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953).
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 881. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for
The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954).
Vintage collector's card. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for
The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954).
A fan of bullfighting and bullfighters
Ava Gardner became more and more prominent with her next films, including
The Hucksters (Jack Conway, 1947) with
Clark Gable, the musical
Show Boat (George Sidney, 1951), and
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Henry King, 1952). In 1951,
Frank Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Gardner, and their subsequent marriage, her third and last, made headlines. The tumultuous marriage ended in 1957, but Gardner remained good friends with Sinatra for the remainder of her life. She would later say in her autobiography
Ava: My Story, that he was the love of her life.
In 1953, Ava was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in
Mogambo (John Ford, 1953). She appeared in several more high-profile films during the 1950s, including
The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954),
Bhowani Junction (George Cukor, 1956), and
The Sun Also Rises (Henry King, 1957). After Gardner divorced Sinatra in 1957, she headed for Spain, where she began a friendship with writer
Ernest Hemingway, the author of
The Sun Also Rises. Several years earlier, Hemingway had successfully urged producer
Darryl F. Zanuck to cast Gardner in
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), which adapted several of his short stories. Her friendship with Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters, such as
Luis Miguel Dominguín, who became her lover.
Most of her subsequent films were outside the US. In 1963, Gardner was billed between
Charlton Heston and
David Niven in the historical epic
55 Days at Peking (Nicholas Ray, 1963), which was set in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The following year, she played her last great leading role as Maxine Faulk in the critically acclaimed
The Night of the Iguana (John Huston, 1964). The film, based upon a
Tennessee Williams play, starred
Richard Burton as an atheist clergyman and
Deborah Kerr as a gentle artist travelling with her aged poet grandfather. Gardner was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award for her hearty performance in this signature role.
Gardner next appeared again with
Burt Lancaster in
Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964), a fascinating thriller based on a script by
Rod Sterling about an attempted military takeover of the US government. In 1968, tax trouble in Spain prompted her to move to London. There she underwent an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her own mother. That year, she made what some consider to be one of her
Empress Elisabeth of Austria opposite
James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph I.
She appeared in several disaster films throughout the 1970s, notably
Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974) with
Charlton Heston, the Italian-British disaster-thriller
The Cassandra Crossing (George Pan Cosmatos, 1976) with
Richard Harris and
Sophia Loren, and the Canadian film
City on Fire (Alvin Rakoff, 1979). She appeared briefly as legendary actress
Lillie Langtry at the end of
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (John Huston, 1972) featuring
Paul Newman, and in the American/Soviet fantasy film
The Blue Bird (George Cukor, 1976). Her last film was
Regina Roma (Jean-Yves Prate, 1982), with
Anthony Quinn and
Anna Karina. In the 1980s Ava Gardner acted primarily on television, including the mini-series remake of
The Long, Hot Summer (Stuart Cooper, 1985), based on the novel by
William Faulkner. She continued to act regularly until 1986 when two strokes left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Four years later,
Ava Gardner died of pneumonia at the age of 67, at her London home, where she had lived since 1968.
Italian postcard in the series Artisti di Sempre by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 299.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 48.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 126.
German postcard by ISV, no. D 4. Photo: Civiani.
Italian postcard by Rotalcolor (Rotalfoto), Milano (Milan), no. 13.
Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano, no. 124.
Russian postcard. Photo:
Oleg Popov,
Ava Gardner, and
Todd Lookinland in
The Blue Bird (George Cukor, 1976).
Sources:
Rod Crawford (IMDb),
Wikipedia, and
IMDb.
This post was last updated on 4 May 2024.