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Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and singer. She 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. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), 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 (1964). During the 1950s, Gardner established herself as a leading lady and one of the era's top stars with films like Show Boat, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (both 1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959). She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in the films 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), Tam-Lin (1970), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at the age of 67. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gardner No. 25 on their greatest female screen legends of classic American cinema list. Early life Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on December 24, 1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, the youngest of seven children. She had two older brothers, Raymond and Melvin, and four older sisters, Beatrice, Elsie Mae, Inez and Myra. Her parents, Mary Elizabeth "Molly" (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner, were poor tobacco sharecroppers. She was of English and Scots-Irish ancestry.She was raised in the Baptist faith of her mother. While the children were still young, the Gardners lost their property, and Molly 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 where Jonas continued sharecropping tobacco and supplemented the dwindling work with odd jobs at sawmills. In 1931, the teachers’ school closed, forcing the family to finally give up on their property dreams and they moved to a larger city, Newport News, Virginia, where Molly found work managing a boarding house for the city's many shipworkers. While in Newport News, Jonas became ill and died from bronchitis in 1938, when Ava was 15 years old. After her father's death, the family moved to Rock Ridge near Wilson, North Carolina, where Molly ran another boarding house for teachers. Ava attended high school in Rock Ridge and she graduated from there in 1939. She then attended secretarial classes at Atlantic Christian College in Wilson for about a year. Career 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. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his Tarr Photography Studio on Fifth Avenue.A Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard Duhan, spotted Gardner's portrait in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's studio and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, 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. With cameras rolling, he directed the 18-year-old to walk towards the camera, turn and walk away, then rearrange some flowers in a vase. He did not attempt to record her voice because her strong Southern accent made understanding her difficult for him. Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, however, sent a telegram to Altman: "She can't sing, she can't act, she can't talk, she's terrific!" She was offered a standard contract by the studio and left school for Hollywood in 1941, with her sister Beatrice accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her with a speech coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them, and Harriet Lee as her singing teacher.Her first appearance in a feature film was as a walk-on in the Norma Shearer vehicle We Were Dancing (1942). Fifteen bit parts later she received her first screen billing in Ghosts on the Loose (1943) and is featured by name on the theatrical poster. After five years of bit parts, mostly at MGM and many of them uncredited, Gardner came to prominence in the Mark Hellinger production The Killers (1946), playing the femme fatale Kitty Collins. Films from the next decade or so include The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), Lone Star (1952), Mogambo (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), The Sun Also Rises (1957) and On the Beach (1959). Off-camera, she could be witty and pithy, as in her assessment of director John Ford, who directed Mogambo ("The meanest man on earth. Thoroughly evil. Adored him!"). In The Barefoot Contessa, she played the role of doomed beauty Maria Vargas, a fiercely independent woman who goes from Spanish dancer to international movie star with the help of a Hollywood director played by Humphrey Bogart, with tragic consequences. Gardner's decision to accept the role was influenced by her own lifelong habit of going barefoot. Gardner played the role of Guinevere in Knights of the Round Table (1953), opposite actor Robert Taylor as Sir Lancelot. Indicative of her sophistication, she portrayed a duchess, a baroness and other women of noble lineage in her films of the 1950s. Gardner played the role of Soledad in The Angel Wore Red (1960) with Dirk Bogarde as the male lead. She was billed between Charlton Heston and David Niven for 55 Days at Peking (1963), which was set in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The following year, she played her last major leading role in the critically acclaimed The Night of the Iguana (1964), based upon a Tennessee Williams play, and starring Richard Burton as an atheist clergyman and Deborah Kerr as a gentle artist traveling with her aged poet grandfather. John Huston directed the movie in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, insisting on making the film in black and white – a decision he later regretted because of the vivid colors of the flora. Gardner received billing below Burton, but above Kerr. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance. She next appeared again with Burt Lancaster, her co-star from The Killers, this time along with Kirk Douglas and Fredric March, in Seven .... Discover the Ava Strong popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ava Strong books.
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Not Like She Thought: An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 5 (Unabridged)
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His Other Mistress: A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller, Book 4 (Unabridged)
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The Vengeance Code (A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 4)
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His Other Wife: A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller, Book 1 (Unabridged)
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His Other Secret (A Stella Falls Psychological Thriller series—Book 3)
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His Other Lie: A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller, Book Two (Unabridged)
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His Other Life (A Stella Fall Psychological Thriller series—Book 5)
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His Other Secret: A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller, Book 3 (Unabridged)
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His Other Life: A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller, Book 5 (Unabridged)
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Not Like She Thought (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 5)
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Not Like Us (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)
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Not Like Yesterday (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)
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The Death Code (A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)
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Not Like Yesterday: An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 3 (Unabridged)
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Not Like He Seemed (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 2)
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His Other Lie (A Stella Falls Psychological Thriller series—Book 2)
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The Murder Code (A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 2)
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The Death Code: A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 1 (Unabridged)
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The Vengeance Code: A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 4 (Unabridged)
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His Other Mistress (A Stella Fall Psychological Thriller series—Book 4)
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The Malice Code: A Remi Laurent FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 3 (Unabridged)
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Not Like This (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 4)
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Not Like This: An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller, Book 4 (Unabridged)
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His Other Wife (The Stella Falls Psychological Thriller series—Book 1)
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