1. Ava Gardner first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers.
42 Facts About Ava Gardner
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Ava Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo, and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana.
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Ava Gardner was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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Ava Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at the age of 67.
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Ava Gardner was born on December 24,1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children.
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Ava Gardner was raised in the Baptist faith of her mother.
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Ava Gardner's mother received an offer to work as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for teachers at the nearby Brogden School that included board for the family, and Ava Gardner's father sharecropped tobacco and supplemented the dwindling work with odd jobs at sawmills.
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In 1931, the teachers' school closed, forcing the family to finally give up on their property dreams and move to Newport News, Virginia, where Ava Gardner's mother found work managing a boarding house for the city's many shipworkers.
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Ava Gardner attended high school in Rock Ridge and she graduated from there in 1939.
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Ava Gardner then attended secretarial classes at Atlantic Christian College in Wilson for about a year.
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Ava Gardner was visiting her sister in New York City in the summer of 1940 when her brother-in-law, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait as a gift for her mother.
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Ava Gardner was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his photography studio on Fifth Avenue.
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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.
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Ava Gardner did not attempt to record her voice because her strong Southern accent made understanding her difficult for him.
15.
Ava Gardner played the role of Guinevere in Knights of the Round Table, with 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.
17.
Ava Gardner was billed between Charlton Heston and David Niven for 55 Days at Peking, which was set in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
18.
Ava Gardner played a former love interest of Lancaster's who could have been instrumental in Douglas preventing a coup against the President of the United States.
19.
Ava Gardner [Huston] had more faith in me than I did myself.
20.
Two years later, in 1966, Ava Gardner briefly sought the role of Mrs Robinson in Mike Nichols' The Graduate.
21.
Ava Gardner said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie.
22.
Ava Gardner moved to Tokyo in 1966, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her mother.
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Ava Gardner divorced Rooney in 1943, citing mental cruelty, privately blaming his gambling and womanizing.
24.
Ava Gardner did not ruin his on-screen image as the clean-cut, judge's son Andy Hardy that the public adored.
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Ava Gardner's third was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957.
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Ava Gardner later said in her autobiography that he was the love of her life.
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Ava Gardner used her considerable influence, particularly with Harry Cohn, to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity.
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Ava Gardner filed for divorce in 1954, and the divorce was finalized in 1957.
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Ava Gardner became a friend and protege of businessman and aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, and the relationship lasted into the 1950s.
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Hughes' trust in Ava Gardner was what kept their relationship alive.
31.
Ava Gardner lived her last 35 years outside of the United States.
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Ava Gardner first visited Spain in 1950, and she moved to that country in 1955, living there until 1966, when she moved to London.
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Ava Gardner lived at 34 Ennismore Gardens in Westminster in London, her final residence when she died.
34.
Ava Gardner had a close friendship with Gregory Peck, with whom she starred together in three films, the first one being The Great Sinner.
35.
When Sallis asked her about religion once, Ava Gardner replied, "It's not anything Christian".
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Ava Gardner was a staunch supporter of civil rights for African-Americans throughout her life.
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Ava Gardner supported Henry A Wallace of the Progressive Party, whose campaign in 1948 for the presidential election sought racial equality and desegregation.
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Ava Gardner became a member of the NAACP in August 1968.
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Ava Gardner died at age 67 of bronchopneumonia on January 25,1990 in Westminster, London, England.
40.
The Ava Gardner Museum, incorporated in 1996, is located nearby.
41.
Ava Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo ; which Audrey Hepburn won for Roman Holiday.
42.
Additionally, Ava Gardner won the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1964 for The Night of the Iguana.