Ava Gardner
Birthday: 1922-12-24
Place of Birth: Grabtown, North Carolina, USA
Biography: Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was a renowned American actress and one of the most iconic stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. Born on December 24, 1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, she grew up in a rural setting before being discovered by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1941. Initially cast in minor roles, her breakthrough came with the film noir classic The Killers (1946), which established her as a leading lady. Gardner's career flourished in the 1950s with notable performances in films like Mogambo (1953), for which she received an Academy Award nomination, The Barefoot Contessa (1954), and The Night of the Iguana (1964). Known for her beauty and talent, she worked with some of the most celebrated directors and actors of her time. Off-screen, Gardner's personal life attracted significant attention, including her marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra. She spent her later years in Spain and London, continuing to act until the mid-1980s. Ava Gardner passed away on January 25, 1990, in London, leaving behind a legacy as one of Hollywood's most enduring legends.
Movies
John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick
Biography of risk-taker and raconteur John Huston from his childhood to become one of the most highl...
View Movie
The Bible: In the Beginning...
Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicki...
View Movie
Calling Dr. Gillespie
Dr. Kildare's friend Dr. Gillespie is called in to investigate when a young man suffering from menta...
View Movie
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Writer Harry Street reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection while on safari in the s...
View Movie
Earthquake
Various interconnected people struggle to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits ...
View Movie
Seven Days in May
A U.S. Marine Corps colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him....
View Movie
The Cassandra Crossing
Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off t...
View Movie
Mogambo
On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American sociali...
View Movie
The Sun Also Rises
A group of disillusioned American expatriate writers live a dissolute, hedonistic lifestyle in 1920'...
View Movie
The Bribe
United States Federal agent Rigby travels to the Central American island Carlotta to investigate a s...
View Movie
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no acc...
View Movie
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradu...
View Movie
55 Days at Peking
Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the Internati...
View Movie
The Barefoot Contessa
A washed-up filmmaker gets a second chance at stardom when he discovers stunning peasant Maria Varga...
View Movie
On the Beach
In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temp...
View Movie
The Band Wagon
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop....
View Movie
Shadow of the Thin Man
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigatin...
View Movie
The Killers
Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, ...
View Movie
The Night of the Iguana
A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexic...
View Movie
One Touch of Venus
A window dresser's kiss brings a statue of the Roman goddess of love to life....
View Movie
Lone Star
Rip-roaring big star, big budget semi-historical story about cattle baron Devereaux Burke, who is en...
View Movie
Mayerling
Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, over impl...
View Movie
Kid Glove Killer
Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by ...
View Movie
Reunion in France
Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed ...
View Movie
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When sh...
View Movie
Ride, Vaquero!
Two Mexican outlaws, Rio and Esqueda, raised as stepbrothers, have a showdown over the issue of whet...
View Movie
Show Boat
A dashing Mississippi river gambler wins the affections of the daughter of the owner of the Show Boa...
View Movie
We Do It Because
This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short explores the origins of various customs such as shaking han...
View Movie
The Sentinel
As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual expl...
View Movie
Priest of Love
Following the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, m...
View Movie
Knights of the Round Table
In Camelot, kingdom of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot is well known for his courage and honor. But one ...
View Movie
Two Girls and a Sailor
A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous s...
View Movie
Bhowani Junction
Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from In...
View Movie
Singapore
After the war, Matt Gordon returns to Singapore to retrieve a fortune in smuggled pearls. Arrived, h...
View Movie
Ghosts on the Loose
The East Side Kids try to fix up a house for newlyweds, but find the place next door "haunted" by my...
View Movie
Whistle Stop
When beautiful Mary returns to her "whistle stop" hometown, long-standing feelings of animosity betw...
View Movie
Chavela
Inspired by an exclusive interview and performance footage of Chavela Vargas shot in 1991 and guided...
View Movie
The Naked Maja
A historical fiction based on the lives of artist Goya and the Duchess of Alba...
View Movie
The Blue Bird
Peasant children Mytyl and Tyltyl are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness...
View Movie
This Time for Keeps
A young newlywed (Robert Sterling) finds working for his nasty father-in-law difficult....
View Movie
The Hucksters
A World War II veteran wants to return to advertising on his own terms, but finds it difficult to be...
View Movie
My Forbidden Past
An 1890s New Orleans heiress tries to buy a married doctor's love with her tainted family fortune....
View Movie
East Side, West Side
A vain businessman puts strains on his happy marriage to a rich, beautiful socialite by allowing him...
View Movie
The Kidnapping of the President
A South American quasi-revolutionary/guerilla/terrorist and a misled, admiring girl compatriot manag...
View Movie
City on Fire
An ex-employee of a city oil refinery creates an explosion at the facility which starts a chain-reac...
View Movie
The Ballad of Tam Lin
Based upon the Celtic legend Tam Lin, a young man is bewitched by a beautiful, heartless, aging sorc...
View Movie
Permission to Kill
Western intelligence agents try, by all means necessary, to prevent a Communist-bloc defector from l...
View Movie
Legends of the West
Host Jack Palance explores how Hollywood has depicted Western legends like George Armstrong Custer, ...
View Movie
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir...
View Movie
The Little Hut
Sir Philip Ashlow (Stewart Granger), his neglected wife, Lady Ashlow (Ava Gardner) and his best frie...
View Movie
The Angel Wore Red
A clergyman travels to Spain to join the Loyalist side during the Spanish Civil War and finds himsel...
View Movie
3 Men in White
Gillespie has to finally choose his official assistant, or Red and Lee are going to kill themselves ...
View Movie
Regina Roma
An aging couple search for peace and family harmony when their only son returns home after a long ab...
View Movie
Maisie Goes to Reno
A Brooklyn showgirl gets mixed up in a divorce between a soldier and his wife....
View Movie
Ava Gardner: Life Is Bigger Than the Movies
A barefoot contessa, a screwed-up princess, an exquisite drunk, a bawdy aristocrat, a nightmare for ...
View Movie
Du Barry Was a Lady
Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is in love with a p...
View Movie
She Went to the Races
A group of scientists develop a system to pick winners at the racetrack. Comedy....
View Movie
H.M. Pulham, Esq.
A middle-aged businessman who has lived a conservative life according to the routine conventions of ...
View Movie
Rat Pack
In the 1950s, a small group of artists monopolized the attention of the cameras and the public. Fran...
View Movie
That's Entertainment!
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year hi...
View Movie
All Night Long
Like so many other actors, Ava Gardner hated to watch her films. She said that the woman on the scre...
View Movie
Kennedy, Sinatra and the Mafia
With his mafia wiseguy links and access to entertainment industry star power, Frank Sinatra helped J...
View Movie
Harem
A young British woman is kidnapped by an Arabian sheikh and held captive in his harem. At first she ...
View Movie
Fallout
During the 1940s, Nevil Shute had a steady job as an engineer in the British military but in his spa...
View Movie
Sunday Punch
Ma Galestrum (Connie Gilchrist) is a boardinghouse owner whose tenants are a group of aspiring boxer...
View Movie
Frank Sinatra glömde aldrig Finspång
Frank Sinatra was at rock bottom as far as his career in Hollywood was concerned, but made his way b...
View Movie
Hitler's Madman
In 1942, a young paratrooper in the RAF returns to Czechoslovakia to encourage his fellow countrymen...
View Movie
Young Ideas
A widow's grown children try to break up her romance with a college professor....
View Movie
That's Entertainment! III
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929...
View Movie
Fancy Answers
In this Pete Smith Speciality, the audience is asked a series of multiple-choice questions on variou...
View Movie
Frank Sinatra: The Voice of the Century
Acknowledged as one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Arena explores the rise of the...
View Movie
Lost Angel
Alpha's been raised along scientific principles, and will make Mike Regan a great human interest sto...
View Movie
On the Trail of the Iguana
Behind the scenes documentary of the filming of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana....
View Movie
Ava Gardner, the Gypsy of Hollywood
At the height of her fame in 1954, actress Ava Gardner transplanted herself from Hollywood to the co...
View Movie
Twenty Years After
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then ...
View Movie
The Costume Designer
This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The cost...
View Movie
Strange Testament
This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Julian Poydras, whose encounter with a girl ...
View Movie
I'm a Civilian Here Myself
A comic training film designed to help sailors readjust to civilain life after World War II....
View Movie
Mighty Lak a Goat
The Our Gang gets splashed by mud from a passing car and so using some cleaning fluid to get rid of ...
View Movie
La Rabbia
Documentary footage (from the 1950s) and accompanying commentary to attempt to answer the existentia...
View Movie
Joe Smith, American
Joe Smith is an ordinary American family man who works in an aircraft factory. Shortly after being a...
View Movie
Blonde Fever
Peter and Delilah are a married couple running a roadside café in Nevada. Their stable partnership t...
View Movie
Screen Actors
This short film takes a look at the off-screen personas of screen actors. Preserved by the Academy ...
View Movie
Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Acad...
View Movie
Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1950s: The Golden Era of the Musical
During the 1950s, musical masterpieces that have yet to be equaled were produced in Cinemascope with...
View Movie
Året var 1953
1953 - this is the year when Frank Sinatra tours Sweden and Stockholm celebrates 700 years with the ...
View Movie
Beautiful Like a Poem
I have a lot of interest and respect for classic cinema. I tried to make a film with at least 20 por...
View Movie