Ava Gardner

In life Ava Gardner was a goddess. She is undoubtedly one of the brightest stars that cinema has given. The screen, the public and the tabloid newspapers adored her and gave her the most important attention, also because the actress provided a lot of meat with her love affairs. She was called “the most beautiful animal in the world”, with the clear intention of alluding to the wild side of men, who often fell under the influence of her beauty. Ava, she had all the characteristics to be a “femme fatale”, because to her physique she added a presence and a character of superlative density, so that it was impossible for her not to impregnate everything around her. This is what happened with one of her first accredited films of hers, Outlaws , a formidable film noir show by Robert Siodmak, where Ava had a few brief but intense minutes, enough to snack on the poor protagonist, a Burt Lancaster in low hours.

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born in Brogden, North Carolina, on Christmas Eve 1922. She grew up on a tobacco farm, and many years later that humble origin was reflected in one of her most famous characters, María Vargas from The Countess . barefoot. The story told of how she became an actress is something of a legend and truly amazing. Apparently her brother-in-law, a lawyer in New York, had a studio photo of Ava in a window of her office. The scouts from Metro Goldwyn Mayer noticed this beautiful young woman and offered her a job in Hollywood directly because of her beauty, without tests or castings. Without any acting experience, Ava then participated in minimal but numerous low-key movie roles from 1941 to 1946, the year in which she landed her first leading role in the notable Stop Signal , where she wooed Richard Conte . That same year, MGM ceded Gardner to Universal to shoot a film noir, based on a story by Ernest Hemingway ., which would mean the catapult of the actress. We are talking about the aforementioned Outlaws , where her role as Kitty Collins left her breathless. Aware of the jewel that she had in her hands, Universal continued to exploit her beauty in films such as A Life and a Love (1947) and Venus was a Woman (1948). Her face became very well known and a handful of movies soon made her a star, although she still had a long way to go. She excelled in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), Arthur Lewin’s mysterious fantasy; in Magnolia (1951), one of the great classic musicals produced by Arthur Freed and where Ava showed her singing skills; in the sensitive western Destiny Star(1952), opposite Clark Gable , and in another John Farrow western , One Life for Another (1953).

From the beginning, Ava Gardner was never seen as the type of woman-mother, suffering, kind, at the husband’s side, devoted to family life… No, hers was the “other” femininity directly related to the attraction between the sexes. The fact is that, with some slight exceptions, throughout her career Ava Gardner was always the object of desire, the woman as a love claim, the dream of conquest. Perhaps she could not or did not want to get rid of that feminine stereotype, the fact is that she ended up taking its toll on her personal life as well. Phrases like “I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood” or that other one in which he says “I would like to live to be 150 years old, but on the day I die I would like to have a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other”, they speak clearly of their way of life, dissipated,

It is known that his sentimental relationships were many and very turbulent. In 1942 Ava Gardner married Mickey Rooney , a fleeting marriage that only lasted a year and five months. Two years later, in 1945, the actress married Artie Shaw , legendary jazz musician, clarinet virtuoso, and director of one of the most popular big bands in the United States after World War II. But that union lasted even less, as it did not last thirteen months. Her most famous wedding would take place in 1951, when she married the very famous Frank Sinatra .. The event had a huge impact in the world of cinema and entertainment, but the marriage also ended in divorce six years later. It is clear that married life was difficult for Ava Gardner, but it is also very likely that the men she chose were to blame. Specifically, it is striking that Rooney married 8 times in her life, the same as Artie Shaw, while Sinatra did it 4 times. A total of 20 marriages between the three. Crazy, come on. So maybe what Ava Gardner did really wrong was pick her husband. In any case, her love life lent itself to many whispers throughout her life, since her conquests seem to have been innumerable, including the vaunted one with the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. And it is that, After the disappointment of her marriages in Hollywood, the diva moved to live in Spain in 1955. Her visits to the Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, her cocktails at the Chicote Museum on Madrid’s Gran Vía, etc. are famous. That personal union with Spain would be reinforced with the role of María Vargas inThe barefoot countess . Somehow her own life was narrated there, a beautiful and poor young woman, of very humble origins, who suddenly became a movie star and who ended up longing for her days of simple life. She would remain in Spain until 1968, when she, apparently due to tax pressure, she decided to move to London, where she would reside until her death.

Shortly before moving to Europe, Ava Garner did some memorable jobs with exotic roles, which went very well with that indomitable character that was attributed to the actress. In 1952 she was the impossible love of Gregory Peck in The Snows of Kilimanjaro , a new adaptation by Hemingway, and the following year she was Queen Guinevere of The Knights of King Arthur , along with Robert Taylor , but above all she played the unforgettable Eloise Kelly from Mogambo . In this formidable film by John Ford , the Gardner ate her female opponent with potatoes. Of her, Grace Kelly , and made Clark Gable lose his sanity, with whom he worked for the third and last time. The role of Miss Kelly earned Ava Gardner her only Oscar nomination, which would ultimately be won that year by Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday .

In the next thirty years of her career, Ava Gardner would shoot a few big movies, but overall her roles dwindled. Fiesta (1957) was Hemingway’s third adaptation of her; The final hour (1959) is an outstanding science fiction film, directed by Stanley Kramer and with Gregory Peck as co-star; while Seven Days in May (1964) is a memorable political thriller signed by John Frankenheimer . But in the 1960s, her best contributions were Samuel Bronston’s blockbuster 55 Days in Peking (1963), shot in Spain and again in the company of Peck, and the turbulent The Night of the Iguana.(1964), based on the play by the controversial Tennessee Williams .

Little by little his roles were more spaced and also did not have the prominence of yesteryear. She was Sarah, Abraham’s wife, in John Huston ‘s The Bible (In Its Beginning) (1966), and an aristocrat in the historical drama Mayerling (1968). With Huston she shot the estimable western The Hanging Judge (1972), in the company of Paul Newman . The actress had turned 50 and her artistic career was declining at a rapid pace. She signed up for catastrophic cinema in Terremoto (1974) and Emergencia (1979), terror in La sentinel (1977), and she shot discreet thrillers like The Man Who Decided Death (1975) orThe kidnapping of the president (1980). In her later years, she appeared in television series such as Anno Domini and California , until her definitive swan song, which took place in the telefilm Maggie , in 1986. Four years later, the actress would die in London of pneumonia.