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73-454: The Ava Gardner Museum is a museum dedicated to American actress Ava Gardner . Located in downtown Smithfield, North Carolina , the museum holds an extensive collection of artifacts from Gardner's career and private life. The museum usually attracts 7,000 visitors a year. The original collection was started in 1941 by a fan, Thomas "Tom" Banks, who at age 12 met Ava on the campus of Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College ), where she

146-644: A boarding house for the city's many shipworkers. While in Newport News, Gardner's father became ill and died from bronchitis in 1938, when Gardner was 15 years old. After her father's death, the family moved to Rock Ridge near Wilson, North Carolina, where Gardner's mother ran another boarding house for teachers. Gardner 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

219-569: 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

292-617: 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 she 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

365-566: A friendship with writer Ernest Hemingway . She had starred in an adaptation of his The Sun Also Rises that year. Five years earlier, Hemingway had successfully urged producer Darryl F. Zanuck to cast Gardner in The Snows of Kilimanjaro , a film which adapted several of his short stories. While staying with Hemingway at his villa in San Francisco de Paula in Havana, Gardner once swam alone without

438-463: A great deal of land but no liquid assets to pay for labor. They also maintained the "belief that gangs afforded the most efficient means of labor organization", something nearly all formerly enslaved people resisted. Preferring "to organize themselves into kin groups", as well as "minimize chances for white male-black female contact by removing their female kin from work environments supervised closely by whites", black southerners were "determined to resist

511-425: A planter or merchant extended a line of credit to the sharecropper while taking the year's crop as collateral. The sharecropper could then draw food and supplies all year long. When the crop was harvested, the planter or merchants who held the lien sold the harvest for the sharecropper and settled the debt. Sociologist Jeffery M. Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and

584-715: A significant institution in many states for decades following the Civil War. By the early 1930s, there were 5.5 million white tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and mixed cropping/laborers in the United States; and 3 million Blacks. In Tennessee, sharecroppers operated approximately one-third of all farm units in the state in the 1930s, with white people making up two thirds or more of the sharecroppers. In Mississippi, by 1900, 36% of all white farmers were tenants or sharecroppers, while 85% of black farmers were. In Georgia, fewer than 16,000 farms were operated by black owners in 1910, while, at

657-602: A specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically staffed private plane. She died on January 25, 1990, at the age of 67, of pneumonia and fibrosing alveolitis at her London home 34 Ennismore Gardens , where she had lived since 1968. Gardner was buried on January 29 in Sunset Memorial Park in Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her siblings and their parents, Jonas and Molly Gardner. The Ava Gardner Museum , incorporated in 1996,

730-455: A swimsuit in his pool. After watching her, Hemingway ordered his staff: "The water is not to be emptied". Her time spent in Spain in the 1950s made her a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters, such as Luis Miguel Dominguín , who became her lover. She began dating Dominguín in 1954, around the time she filed for divorce from Sinatra. "It was a sort of madness, honey", she later said of the time. She

803-415: 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 accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her with a speech coach because her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them, and Harriet Lee as her singing teacher. Her first appearance in

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876-429: A variable rental payment, paid in arrears . There are three different types of contracts. According to sociologist Edward Royce, "adherents of the neoclassical approach" argued that sharecropping incentivized laborers by giving them a vested interest in the crop. American plantations were wary of this interest, as they felt that would lead to African Americans demanding rights of partnership. Many black laborers denied

949-408: A woman. He's so gentle. It's as though he thinks I'll break, as though I'm a piece of Dresden china , and he's gonna hurt me." During their marriage, Gardner became pregnant twice, but aborted both pregnancies. "MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies", according to her autobiography, which was published eight months after her death. Gardner filed for divorce in 1954, and

1022-502: A year. Gardner was visiting her sister in New York City in the summer of 1940 when her brother-in-law, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait as a gift for her mother. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his photography studio on Fifth Avenue . Barnard Duhan, a legal clerk at Loews Theatres , spotted Gardner's portrait in her brother-in-law's studio. At

1095-464: Is located nearby. In the last years of her life, Gardner asked Peter Evans to ghostwrite her autobiography, stating: "I either write the book or sell the jewels." Despite meeting with Evans frequently, and approving of most of his copy, Gardner eventually learned that Evans, along with the BBC, had once been sued by her ex-husband Frank Sinatra. Gardner and Evans's friendship subsequently cooled, and Evans left

1168-404: Is not as exploitative as it is often perceived. John Heath and Hans P. Binswanger write that "evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is often a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit, overcoming credit restraints and helping to manage risk." Sharecropping agreements can be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has

1241-607: Is portrayed by Debi Mazar . Sharecropping Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The French métayage , the Catalan masoveria , the Castilian mediero , the Slavic połownictwo and izdolshchina, the Italian mezzadria , and

1314-661: The femme fatale Kitty Collins. Films from the next decade or so include The Hucksters (1947), One Touch of Venus (1948), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), Lone Star (1952), Mogambo , nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award (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

1387-457: The Islamic system of muzara‘a (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping. Under a sharecropping system, landowners provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or working animals . Local merchants usually provide food and other supplies to the sharecropper on credit. In exchange for

1460-608: The Progressive Party , whose campaign in 1948 for the presidential election sought racial equality and desegregation. She became a member of the NAACP in August 1968. A bout of pneumonia, after a lifetime of smoking, coupled with her underlying condition of lupus erythematosus brought on a stroke in 1986 that left Gardner partially paralyzed. Although she could afford her medical expenses, Frank Sinatra wanted to pay for her visit to

1533-476: The Western United States during World War II . By the end of the 1960s, sharecropping had disappeared in the United States. About two-thirds of sharecroppers were white, the rest black. Sharecroppers, the poorest of the poor, organized for better conditions. The racially integrated Southern Tenant Farmers Union made gains for sharecroppers in the 1930s. Sharecropping had diminished in the 1940s due to

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1606-467: The 1960s, generous subsidies to white farmers meant that most farmers could afford to work their entire farms, and sharecropping faded out. The arrangement has reappeared in other African countries in modern times, including Ghana and Zimbabwe . Economic historian Pius S. Nyambara argued that Eurocentric historiographical devices such as "feudalism" or "slavery" often qualified by weak prefixes like "semi-" or "quasi-" are not helpful in understanding

1679-553: The 2012 Italian TV film Walter Chiari – Fino all'ultima risata , and Emily Elicia Low in Frank & Ava (2018). The images of Gardner and Clark Gable are featured on the cover of Robin Gibb 's 1983 album How Old Are You? The 2018 Spanish television series Arde Madrid is a comedy-drama with thriller elements based on elements of Ava Gardner's life in Francoist Spain . Gardner

1752-518: The Great Depression, farm mechanization, and other factors. Sharecropping may have been harmful to tenants, with many cases of high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often keeping tenant farm families severely indebted. The debt was often compounded year on year leaving the cropper vulnerable to intimidation and shortchanging. Nevertheless, it appeared to be inevitable, with no serious alternative unless

1825-648: The Hollywood establishment, the Catholic Church, and by his fans for leaving his wife. Gardner used her considerable influence, particularly with Harry Cohn , to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar -winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). This role and the award revitalized both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. The Gardner–Sinatra marriage was tumultuous. Gardner confided to Artie Shaw, her second husband, that, "With him [Frank], it's impossible...It's like being with

1898-620: The Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood . 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), Mogambo (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959). She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in

1971-531: The U.S. increased during the Great Depression with the creation of tenant farmers following the failure of many small farms throughout the Dustbowl . Traditional sharecropping declined after mechanization of farm work became economical beginning in the late 1930s and early 1940s. As a result, many sharecroppers were forced off the farms, and migrated to cities to work in factories, or became migrant workers in

2044-695: The US government. Gardner played a former love interest of Lancaster's who could have been instrumental in Douglas preventing a coup against the President of the United States. John Huston chose Gardner for the part of Sarah , the wife of Abraham (played by George C. Scott ), in the Dino De Laurentiis film The Bible: In the Beginning... , which was released in 1966. In a 1964 interview, she talked about why she accepted

2117-587: The United States originated in the Natchez District , roughly centered in Adams County, Mississippi with its county seat, Natchez . After the war, plantations and other lands throughout the South were seized by the federal government. In January 1865, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15 , which announced that he would temporarily grant newly freed families 40 acres of this seized land on

2190-565: The age of 67. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gardner No. 25 on its greatest female screen legends list. Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on December 24, 1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina , the youngest of seven children. Her parents were poor tobacco sharecroppers . She was of English and Scots-Irish ancestry. She was raised in the Baptist faith of her mother. While

2263-629: The antecedents and functions of sharecropping in Africa. Prior to the Civil War, sharecropping is known to have existed in Mississippi and is believed to have been in place in Tennessee . However, it was not until the economic upheaval caused by the American Civil War and the end of slavery during and after Reconstruction that it became widespread in the South. It is theorized that sharecropping in

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2336-530: The children were still young, the family lost their property, and Gardner's mother 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 Gardner's father 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 move to Newport News, Virginia, where Gardner's mother found work managing

2409-465: 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

2482-448: The cropper received half of cash paid for the crop on his parcel. Sharecroppers also often received their farming tools and all other goods from the landowner they were contracted with. Landowners dictated decisions relating to the crop mix, and sharecroppers were often in agreements to sell their portion of the crop back to the landowner, thus being subjected to manipulated prices. In addition to this, landowners, threatening to not renew

2555-408: The croppers left agriculture. Landlords opt for sharecropping to avoid the administrative costs and shirking that occurs on plantations and haciendas . It is preferred to cash tenancy because cash tenants take all the risks, and any harvest failure will hurt them and not the landlord. Therefore, they tend to demand lower rents than sharecroppers. Some economists have argued that sharecropping

2628-480: The crops. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate. Farmers who farmed land belonging to others but owned their own mule and plow were called tenant farmers ; they owed the landowner a smaller share of their crops, as the landowner did not have to provide them with as much in the way of supplies. Historically, sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland , Ireland and colonial Africa . Use of

2701-410: The decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by long lasting tenure. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store . This form of tenure tends to be replaced by paid salaries as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord: plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor and the landowners do not manufacture

2774-491: The divorce was finalized in 1957. Following their divorce, Gardner and Sinatra remained good friends for the rest of her life. Gardner became a lover of businessman and aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, and the relationship lasted into the 1950s. Gardner stated in her autobiography, Ava: My Story , that she was never in love with Hughes, but he was in and out of her life for about 20 years. Hughes' trust in Gardner

2847-547: The end of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), and in The Blue Bird (1976). Her last movie was Regina Roma (1982). In the 1980s, she acted primarily on television, including the miniseries remake of The Long, Hot Summer and in a story arc on Knots Landing (both 1985). Soon after Gardner arrived in Los Angeles, she met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney ; they married on January 10, 1942. The ceremony

2920-484: The films 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). And in 1985, she had the major recurring role of Ruth Galveston on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing . She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at

2993-422: The first one being The Great Sinner (1949). Their friendship lasted the rest of Gardner's life, and, upon her death in 1990, Peck took in both her housekeeper and her dog. Although Gardner was raised Baptist , she was an atheist later in life. Religion never played a positive role in her life, according to biographers and Gardner, in her autobiography Ava: My Story . Her friend Zoe Sallis, who met her on

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3066-496: 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 with Kirk Douglas and Fredric March , in Seven Days in May (1964), a thriller about an attempted military takeover of

3139-419: The inefficiency of agricultural share-contracting. Steven N.S. Cheung (1969), challenged this view, showing that with sufficient competition and in the absence of transaction costs, share tenancy will be equivalent to competitive labor markets and therefore efficient. He also showed that in the presence of transaction costs, share-contracting may be preferred to either wage contracts or rent contracts—due to

3212-448: The islands and coastal regions of Georgia . Many believed that this policy would be extended to all formerly enslaved people and their families as repayment for their treatment at the end of the war. In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson , as one of the first acts of Reconstruction, instead ordered all land under federal control be returned to the owners from whom it had been seized. Southern landowners thus found themselves with

3285-438: The land and supplies, the cropper would pay the owner a share of the crop at the end of the season, typically one-half to two-thirds. The cropper used his share to pay off their debt to the merchant. If there was any cash left over, the cropper kept it—but if their share came to less than what they owed, they remained in debt. A new system of credit, the crop lien , became closely associated with sharecropping. Under this system,

3358-508: The lease at the end of the growing season, were able to apply pressure to their tenants. Sharecropping often proved economically problematic, as the landowners held significant economic control. In the Reconstruction Era, sharecropping was one of few options for penniless freedmen to support themselves and their families. Other solutions included the crop-lien system (where the farmer was extended credit for seed and other supplies by

3431-483: The merchant), a rent labor system (where the farmer rents the land but keeps their entire crop), and the wage system (worker earns a fixed wage but keeps none of their crop). Sharecropping as historically practiced in the American South was more economically productive than the gang system plantations using enslaved workers, though less productive than modern agricultural techniques. Sharecropping continued to be

3504-482: The mitigation of labor shirking and the provision of risk sharing. Joseph Stiglitz (1974, 1988), suggested that if share tenancy is only a labor contract, then it is only pairwise-efficient and that land-to-the-tiller reform would improve social efficiency by removing the necessity for labor contracts in the first place. Reid (1973), Murrel (1983), Roumasset (1995) and Allen and Lueck (2004) provided transaction cost theories of share-contracting, wherein tenancy

3577-520: The museum's collection to the town of Smithfield. In 1999, the museum purchased its current home, a renovated 6,400 square foot building in downtown Smithfield. In 2020, the building experienced a flood due to a broken toilet. None of the collections were damaged, but repairs required the museum to close for a few weeks. 35°30′39″N 78°20′42″W  /  35.5109°N 78.3451°W  / 35.5109; -78.3451 Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990)

3650-524: The old slave ways". Not with standing, many formerly enslaved people, now called freedmen , having no land or other assets of their own, needed to work to support their families. A sharecropping system centered on cotton , a major cash crop , developed as a result. Large plantations were subdivided into plots that could be worked by sharecroppers. Initially, sharecroppers in the American South were almost all formerly enslaved black people, but eventually cash-strapped indigent white farmers were integrated into

3723-465: The project. Evans' notes and sections of his draft of Gardner's autobiography, which he based on their taped conversations, were published in the book Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations after Evans' death in 2012. Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo (1953); which Audrey Hepburn won for Roman Holiday . Her role in The Night of the Iguana (1964) was well reviewed, and she

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3796-699: The role of Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols ' The Graduate (1967). She reportedly called Nichols and said "I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols never seriously considered her for the part, preferring to cast a younger woman ( Anne Bancroft was 35, while Gardner was 44), but he did visit her hotel, where he later said "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'" Gardner moved to London in 1968, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting

3869-594: 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), with actor Robert Taylor as Sir Lancelot . Indicative of her sophistication, she portrayed

3942-422: The role: He [Huston] had more faith in me than I did myself. Now I'm glad I listened, for it is a challenging role and a very demanding one. I start out as a young wife, and age through various periods, forcing me to adjust psychologically to each age. It is a complete departure for me, and most intriguing. In this role, I must create a character, not just play one. Two years later, in 1966, Gardner briefly sought

4015-658: The same time, African-Americans managed 106,738 farms as tenants. Around this time, sharecroppers began to form unions protesting against poor treatment, beginning in Tallapoosa County , Alabama in 1931 and Arkansas in 1934. Membership in the Southern Tenant Farmers Union included both blacks and poor whites, who used meetings, protests, and labor strikes to push for better treatment. The success of these actions frightened and enraged landlords, who responded with aggressive tactics. Landless farmers who fought

4088-459: The set of The Bible: In the Beginning... when Gardner was living with John Huston in Puerto Vallarta, said Gardner always seemed unconcerned about religion. When Sallis asked her about religion once, Gardner replied, "It doesn't exist". Another factor that contributed to this was the death of Gardner's father in her youth, "Nobody wanted to know Daddy when he was dying. He was so alone. He

4161-739: The sharecropper system has also been identified in England (as the practice of "farming to halves"). It was widely used in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) that followed the American Civil War , which was economically devastating to the Southern states. It is still used in many rural poor areas of the world today, notably in Pakistan , India , and Bangladesh . In settler colonies of colonial Africa, sharecropping

4234-618: The sharecropping system were socially denounced, harassed by legal and illegal means, and physically attacked by officials, landlords' agents, or in extreme cases, angry mobs. Sharecroppers' strikes in Arkansas and the Missouri Bootheel , the 1939 Missouri Sharecroppers' Strike, were documented in the newsreel Oh Freedom After While . The plight of a sharecropper was addressed in the song Sharecropper's Blues , recorded by Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra in 1944. The sharecropping system in

4307-410: The system. During Reconstruction, the federal Freedmen's Bureau ordered the arrangements for freedmen and wrote and enforced their contracts. American sharecroppers worked a section of the plantation independently. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the dominant crop was usually cotton. In other areas it could be tobacco , rice , or sugar . At harvest time the crop was sold and

4380-403: 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 Gardner's brother-in-law's studio and tried to get her number, but he was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the comment "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and her brother-in-law did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time

4453-476: The unilateral authority that landowners hoped to achieve, further complicating relations between landowners and sharecroppers. Sharecropping may allow women to have access to arable land , albeit not as owners, in places where ownership rights are vested only in men. The theory of share tenancy was long dominated by Alfred Marshall 's famous footnote in Book VI, Chapter X.14 of Principles where he illustrated

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4526-576: The uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her mother. That year, she appeared in Mayerling , in which she played the supporting role of Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria , with James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph I . She appeared in disaster films throughout the 1970s, notably Earthquake (1974) with Heston, The Cassandra Crossing (1976) with Lancaster, and the Canadian movie City on Fire (1979). She appeared briefly as Lillie Langtry at

4599-478: Was a feature of the agricultural life. White farmers, who owned most of the land, were frequently unable to work the whole of their farm for lack of capital. They, therefore, had African farmers to work the excess on a sharecropping basis. In South Africa the 1913 Natives' Land Act outlawed the ownership of land by Africans in areas designated for white ownership and effectively reduced the status of most sharecroppers to tenant farmers and then to farm laborers. In

4672-563: Was a lifelong Democrat , and she supported Adlai Stevenson II in the 1952 United States presidential election . Gardner was a staunch supporter of civil rights for African-Americans throughout her life. As a child growing up in North Carolina, she would often sit with African-American children in segregated parts of movie theaters. Her personal assistant, Rene Jordan, was African-American, and Gardner would often take her to clubs that were for whites only. She supported Henry A. Wallace of

4745-461: 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 toward 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

4818-519: Was also linked to another bullfighter, Mario Cabre, in 1950. Gardner was also 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. Tatar later wrote an autobiography in which he discussed his relationship with Gardner, though the book was never published. Gardner had a close friendship with Gregory Peck , with whom she starred together in three films,

4891-636: Was an American actress. 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

4964-455: Was equally brief, to jazz musician and bandleader Artie Shaw , from 1945 to 1946. Shaw previously had been married to Lana Turner . Gardner's third and last marriage was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957. She later said in her autobiography that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife Nancy for Gardner, and their marriage made headlines. Sinatra was blasted by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons ,

5037-445: Was held in the remote town of Ballard, California because MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer was worried that fans would desert Rooney's Andy Hardy movie series if it became known that their star was married. Gardner divorced Rooney in 1943, citing mental cruelty; privately blaming his gambling and womanizing, she did not ruin his on-screen image as the clean-cut, judge's son Andy Hardy that the public adored. Gardner's second marriage

5110-594: Was nominated for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe . Additionally, Gardner won the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1964 for The Night of the Iguana . Gardner has been portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in the 1992 miniseries Sinatra , by Deborah Kara Unger in the 1998 television film The Rat Pack , by Kate Beckinsale in the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator , Anna Drijver in

5183-494: Was scared. I could see the fear in his eyes when he was smiling. I went to see the preacher, the guy who'd baptized me. I begged him to come and visit Daddy, just to talk to him, you know? Give him a blessing or something. But he never did. He never came. God, I hated him. Cold-arse bastards like that ought to...I don't know...they should be in some other racket, I know that. I had no time for religion after that. I never prayed. I never said another prayer". Concerning politics, Gardner

5256-530: Was studying to become a secretary. When she did not return to school the next year, he saw a photograph of Gardner in a newspaper and learned that she had been signed to a movie contract with MGM . Banks and his wife, Lorraine, collected memorabilia and artifacts related to Gardner. In the early 1980s, Dr. Banks purchased the Brogden Teacherage building, the house where Ava lived from ages 2 to 13. Following Thomas Banks' death in 1989, Lorraine Banks donated

5329-426: Was what kept their relationship alive. She described him as "painfully shy, completely enigmatic, and more eccentric...than anyone [she] had ever met". Gardner lived her last 35 years outside of the United States. She first visited Spain during the filming of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman in 1950, and she moved to that country in 1955, living there until 1968, when she moved to London. While in Spain, she began

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