18 Facts About Ava Gardner

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on December 24,1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children.

Ava Gardner attended high school in Rock Ridge and she graduated from there in 1939.

Ava Gardner was visiting her sister Beatrice in New York City in the summer of 1940, when Beatrice's husband Larry Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait as a gift for her mother Molly.

Shortly after, Ava Gardner, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's New York office by Al Altman, head of MGM's New York talent department.

Ava Gardner played the role of Guinevere in Knights of the Round Table, opposite actor Robert Taylor as Sir Lancelot.

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Ava Gardner played the role of Soledad in The Angel Wore Red with Dirk Bogarde as the male lead.

Ava Gardner played a former love interest of Lancaster's who could have been instrumental in Douglas's preventing a coup against the President of the United States.

Two years later, in 1966, Ava Gardner briefly sought the role of Mrs Robinson in Mike Nichols' The Graduate .

Ava Gardner moved to London in 1968, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her mother.

Ava Gardner divorced Rooney in 1943, citing mental cruelty; privately blaming his gambling and womanizing, she didn't ruin his on-screen image as the clean-cut, judge's son Andy Hardy that the public adored.

Ava Gardner used her considerable influence, particularly with Harry Cohn, to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity .

Ava Gardner became a friend of businessman and aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, and the relationship lasted into the 1950s.

In 1957, Ava Gardner traveled to Spain and began a friendship with writer Ernest Hemingway.

Ava Gardner was involved in a relationship with her live-in boyfriend and companion, American actor Benjamin Tatar, who worked in Spain as a foreign-language dubbing director.

Ava Gardner was a staunch supporter of civil rights for African-Americans throughout her life.

Ava Gardner is buried in Sunset Memorial Park in Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her siblings and their parents, Jonas and Molly Ava Gardner.

Ava Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo ; the award was won by Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday.

Additionally, Ava Gardner won the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1964 for her performance in The Night of the Iguana.