Ava gardner biography video on george
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Ava Gardner: The World's Most Beautiful Animal
Above: Studio publicity still of Ava Gardner for the film The Killers (1946). Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
By Olivia O’Connor, Dramaturg for Ava: The Secret Conversations
“If I were a great intellectual, I’d sit and read and study, but I’m not. I’m just a very ordinary woman. I don’t want to paint. I don’t want to write. I want to go out and play tennis, I want to swim. I’m purely a physical piece of machinery. Or I was.”
—Ava Gardner, 1988. Quoted in Ava: The Secret Conversations, by Peter Evans and Ava Gardner
Dubbed “The World’s Most Beautiful Animal” in the marketing materials for 1954’s The Barefoot Contessa, Ava Gardner was a golden age star whose fame was inextricably linked to the allure of her body.
Gardner appeared in more than five dozen films and earned critical acclaim for several roles (including an Academy Award–nominated turn in 1953’s Mogambo), but at both the height of her fame and in the
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Born in North Carolina, the often barefoot and always brash movie star Ava Gardner was, in the words of second husband Artie Shaw, “the most beautiful creature you ever saw.” She was also, according to costar Deborah Kerr, “funny and rik and warm and human.” But Gardner also had a kringirrande spirit, with a reckless streak and an insatiable appetite for booze and boys that would often lead to the most glamorous sort of disaster.
In the engrossing Ava Gardner: Love fryst vatten Nothing, biographer Lee Server documents a life filled with lust, love, and late-night shenanigans. There was her long entanglement with a snooping Howard Hughes, as well as flings with bullfighters, Robert Taylor, Mel Tormé, David Niven, John F. Kennedy, Steve McQueen, an abusive George C. Scott, and an unsuccessful attempt to lure Robert Stack into a foursome (he suddenly got a stomachache).
And then there was her beloved Francis—Gardner’s third husband, Frank Sinatra. Their fights were legendary (Sinatra once th
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Ava Gardner
American actress (1922–1990)
Ava Gardner | |
|---|---|
Gardner on the cover of Japanese magazine Eiga no Tomo, December 1953 | |
| Born | Ava Lavinia Gardner (1922-12-24)December 24, 1922 Grabtown, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | January 25, 1990(1990-01-25) (aged 67) Westminster, London, UK |
| Burial place | Sunset Memorial Park Smithfield, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1941–1986 |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouses | Mickey Rooney (m. 1942; div. 1943)Artie Shaw (m. 1945; div. 1946)Frank Sinatra (m. 1951; div. 1957) |
| Website | avagardner.org |
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew criti