IMDB
Trivia
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#68). [1995]
Her singing voice in
Show Boat (1951) was dubbed by
Annette Warren, although her voice is left in on the soundtrack album.
Her mother, Mary Elizabeth ('Molly') Gardner, née Baker, was of Scottish-Irish and English descent; her father, Jonas Gardner, was of Irish and Native American (Tuscarora) descent, a tobacco farmer who died of bronchitis 1935.
Youngest of seven children, her older siblings were Raymond, Melvin ('Jack'), Beatrice ('Bappie'), Elsie Mae, Inez and Myra.
Her early education was sketchy; by 1945, she had read two books, the Bible and "Gone with the Wind." In later life, she more than made up for this lack by continual self-education.
She sang in her own voice for
The Killers (1946) but in all MGM films her singing voice was dubbed (much to her disgust).
Flamenco became one of Ava's favorite pastimes after she learned it for
The Barefoot Contessa (1954); increasingly proficient and needing little sleep, she often danced all night.
In a promotion for
The Little Hut (1957), a small island in Fiji was renamed Ava Ava and leased to a contest winner.
She was continuously under contract at MGM, 1941-1958.
There is an Ava Gardner Museum of memorabilia in Smithfield, North Carolina.
She spent her final years as a recluse in her London apartment -- her only companions were her longtime housekeeper Carmen Vargas and her beloved Welsh Corgi, Morgan.
Frank Sinatra paid all her medical expenses after her 1989 stroke, which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Vargas took her body home to her native North Carolina for private burial. None of her ex-husbands attended.
After her death in 1990, Ava's longtime housekeeper, Carmen Vargas, and her dog, a Welsh Corgi named Morgan, were taken in by her former co-star
Gregory Peck.
Once met
J.R.R. Tolkien and neither knew why the other was famous.
Ex-daughter-in-law of
Joe Yule (
Mickey Rooney's father).
Was a good friend of
Lena Horne, despite the fact that they both competed for the part of Julie in
Show Boat (1951).
When shooting
Earthquake (1974), she surprised director
Mark Robson by insisting that she do her own stuntwork, which included dodging blocks of concrete and heavy steel pipes.
A statue of her from
The Barefoot Contessa (1954) was given to
Frank Sinatra as a gift. He kept it in his backyard garden well after their divorce. When he married
Barbara Marx, she forced him to get rid of it.
During the first two years of her marriage to
Frank Sinatra, he was at the lowest point of his career. She often had to lend him money so he could buy presents for his children. He was so broke by 1951 that Gardner had to pay fir his plane ticket so that he could accompany her to Africa, where she was shooting
Mogambo (1953). This all changed after he won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in the 1953 film
From Here to Eternity (1953).
Part of
On the Beach (1959) was filmed in Berwick, a suburb of Melbourne. Ava had a street which was being developed at the time named after her. It is of course called "Gardner Street".