Ava Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990)
was an American actress.
Ava Lavinia Gardner was born in the small farming community of Grabtown, Johnston County, North Carolina, the last of seven children of poor tobacco farmers.
She was married to Mickey Rooney from 1941 to 1943, to Artie Shaw from 1945 to 1946, and to Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957. She was regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. She also had affairs with the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin
and Mario Cabré, industrialist
Howard Hughes, and actor George C. Scott, in the mid-1960s. (Scott was rumored to have
beaten Gardner during their relationship.)
She met author J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford University in November 1964. Neither was aware of the fame of the other.
After a stroke in 1989, which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden, Frank Sinatra paid all her medical expenses. She died of pneumonia in London, England.
Ava Gardner is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina; the town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
Gardner is portrayed by Kate Beckinsale in The Aviator (2004), a film by Martin Scorsese about Howard Hughes.
Filmography
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