18 Facts About Ava Gardner

1.

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

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2.

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

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3.

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.

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4.

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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5.

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

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6.

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

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7.

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.

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8.

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

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9.

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.

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10.

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.

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11.

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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12.

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

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13.

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

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14.

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.

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15.

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

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16.

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

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17.

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

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18.

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.

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