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Hi, my name is Ava Lavinia Gardner. I was born on December 24, 1922 on a farm in Johnston, North Carolina.
I wanted to be a secretary after i graduated from Rock Ridge High School in 1939,
but then I changed my mind after I went and visited my sister in New York.
Her husband, who is a professional commercial photographer,
took pictures of me, and sent them to studio talent scouts. A little after that, I got myself
involved into movies and T.V shows!Ava Gardner was born in 1922 in the small farming community
of Brogden, Johnston County, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children (she had two brothers and four sisters) of poor cotton and tobacco farmers; her mother, Molly, was a Baptist of Scots-Irish and English descent, while her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was a Catholic of Irish American and American Indian (Tuscarora) descent. When 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 Ava was thirteen years old, the family decided to try their luck in a bigger town, Newport News, Virginia, where Molly Gardner found work managing a boardinghouse for the city's many shipworkers. That job did not last long, and the family moved to the Rock Ridge suburb of Wilson, North Carolina, where Molly Gardner ran another boarding house. Gardner's father died of bronchitis in 1935. Ava and some of her siblings 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, who by age eighteen had become a stunning, green-eyed brunette, was visiting her sister Beatrice in New York in 1941 when Beatrice's husband Larry, 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 Fifth Avenue studio.Early career 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 (Beatrice). At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Ava's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM," and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, Ava, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled 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. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a voice coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible.Oscar NominationGardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo (1953), however she lost to Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday. Many thought Gardner's finest 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).Other films include The Hucksters (1947), Showboat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), 1954's The Barefoot Contessa (which some consider to be her "signature film" which mirrored her real life custom of going barefoot), Bhowani Junction (1956), The Sun Also Rises in which she played party-girl "Brett Ashley", 1957), and the film version of Neville Shute's best-selling On the Beach, co-starring Gregory Peck.Gardner also 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!'"Marriages and relationships
Mickey RooneySoon after her arrival in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California. She was 19 years old. 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 retortedm "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".Artie ShawHer second marriage was to jazz musician and band leader 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 SinatraHer third and last marriage (1951-1957) was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra.Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines. Sinatra was savaged by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, and by 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, at least one suicide attempt (by Sinatra), and 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 both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. Ava said of her relationship with Sinatra, "We were great in bed. It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began." (This quote inspired the song "Frank and Ava" by Suzanne Vega.) During their marriage Ava became pregnant, but she had an abortion 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.Howard HughesShe began dating billionaire aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940's, a relationship that lasted into the 1950's. Despite his initial claims that she would be a easy catch, they were never intimate.Ernest HemingwayShe 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 such as Luis Miguel González, with whom she had a tempestuous affair. "It was a sort of madness, honey," she said later of the time.London: the last yearsShe moved to London, England in 1968, undergoing a hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had killed her mother. That year she made what some consider to be one of her best films, a technicolor, English-language remake of Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph.After a lifetime of smoking, Gardner suffered from emphysema, in addition to an autoimmune disorder (which may have been lupus). After two strokes in 1986, which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden, Frank Sinatra paid the cost of her ($50,000) medical expenses. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were, "I'm so tired", before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67. After her death, one of Frank Sinatra's daughters found him slumped in his room, crying, and unable to speak. Ava was not only the love of his life but also the inspiration for one of his most personal and magical songs, "I Am a Fool to Want You", recorded after their separation. Reportedly, a lone black limousine parked behind the crowd of 500 mourners at Ava's funeral. No one exited the vehicle, but it was assumed that the anonymous mourner was indeed Frank Sinatra. A floral arrangement at Ava's graveside simply read: "With My Love, Francis".GravesiteGardner was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her brothers and their much-loved parents, Jonah (1878-1938) and Mollie Gardner (1883-1943). The town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.