Crush of the Week : Birthday Girl Ava Gardner

As Victoria Jones in Cukor's Bhowani Junction

A force of nature. The last goddess. The barefoot contessa. Whatever name one chooses to apply, crush of the week Ava Gardner was one the greatest sex symbols of the 20th century.

Resting during filming of 1956's Bhowani Junction

Ava Gardner, born December 24, 1922 in Smithfield, North Carolina was from a family of dirt poor  cotton and tobacco farmers. How she came to Hollywood is kismet. Fate. Visiting older sister Beatrice [ Bappie, to family and friends ] in New York City, Bappie's husband Larry Tarr, who was a photographer, took her portrait. So pleased with the results, Tarr put the picture in the window of his studio on 5th Avenue. A Loews Theater employee saw the picture went inside the Tarr studio and impressed with the girl in the picture said " somebody should send that picture to MGM " or words to that effect [Loews Inc; was and still is a movie theater company and in 1924 founder Marcus Loew started a movie company called MGM. The rest is history ] Tarr did just that and MGM sent for Gardner, who had since went back home to North Carolina, to be interviewed and screen tested. In the test Gardner didn't do much, walked around a bit, arranged some flowers etc. She did not speak because her southern accent made it near impossible to understand a word Ava said. On screen, she was magical and highly photogenic. Somehow MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer saw the test, thought Ava magnificent and sent for her. She was offered the standard studio contract and was given speech and acting lessons. She arrived in Hollywood with sister Bappie on August 23, 1941. Her life was about to change forever. She was 18.

At the bullfights. Doesn't she look like she could just eat you alive?

 6 months after arriving at the fabled studio, Ava Gardner married #1 box office star and perennial teenager Mickey Rooney. Born in 1920, Rooney had been a big box office name when he portrayed Andy Hardy in the 1937 film A Family Affair and 1939's Babes In Arms, one of 9 films Rooney would make with Judy Garland. The union was a bust and they divorced in 1943 as Rooney would rather gamble and chase after other women rather than be domestic with the gorgeous Gardner. Ava was growing up fast. As for her career at MGM, Gardner was cast in a series of small and bit parts in several movies, many uncredited, more like extra work: Shadow of the Thin Man, Babes on Broadway, Calling Dr. Gillespie, This Time For Keeps and so on. Ava's first credited film was on loan out in the Poverty Row quickie Ghosts on the Loose starring Bela Lugosi and the East Side Kids, in 1943. It would take Ava a long time to develop and feel natural in front of the camera.

Beautiful

 Meanwhile, Ava had a life to live and she was learning to live it up to the fullest. In 1945, Ava married band leader Artie Shaw becoming the 5th of his 8 wives. They divorced in 1946, yet Shaw had a tremendous influence in regard to her social and educational life. Going out to nightclubs and drinking with the likes of Lana Turner or Ann Sheridan was also one of Ava's frequent activities. Gardner found she had quite a capacity for alcohol. At first it helped to calm her nerves at the studio or ease her in social situations, premieres. Sometimes the effect had a tendency to turn the shy, southern country girl into a fiery, man-eating, angry, paranoid, at times violent, woman. It was a Jekyll and Hyde personality that many friends and co-workers would comment on and it would get worse with age.

Publicity for The Killers, 1946

1946 brought big changes to Ava. At MGM Gardner's career had pretty much ground to a halt. She's been at the studio for nearly 5 years with not a lot to show for it. So when indy producer Seymour Nebenzal borrowed her to play opposite George Raft and Victor McLaglen the studio said yes. A noir B-picture, Whistle Stop was her biggest part to date. Based on a book by Maritta Wolff  in which the main characters were brother and sister who had an incestuous relationship, Whistle Stop had to be changed considerably for the screen as industry censors wouldn't allow such stuff in the 1940's, however the fact that Mary, Gardner's character, had supported herself as a prostitute, before returning to her small town home after living in the big city, was more or less retained. The film was a precursor to her real break, the noir classic The Killers, based on an Ernest Hemingway short story. In it Ava played Kitty, the girlfriend of the swede a muscular, not -to-bright boxer played by Burt Lancaster, in his film debut. Ava's casting was the direct result of Killers producer Mark Hellinger viewing Whistle Stop and realizing he had his femme fatale, the girl for whom men would do anything to be with. With direction by noir specialist Robert Siodmak [ Phantom Lady, Criss-Cross, Spiral Staircase ], moody, shadowy camera work by Elwood Bredell and a terrific score by Miklos Rosza [ Spellbound, Double Indemnity, Lost Weekend ], and a screenplay by newcomer Richard Brooks [ with an uncredited assist from John Huston ]  The Killers was an instant hit when released on August 28, 1946 and has strong reputation to this day as a prime example of  classic film noir.

Looking like one of the most dangerous women in the world

Around the time of The Killers, Ava met and became friends with billionaire Howard Hughes. The two have been linked romantically thru the years yet Ava always maintained they were only friends, not lovers. In the films she made at this time it seems MGM still wasn't quite sure what to do with their new star. Since she was now a star thanks to The Killers, a film far from the MGM tradition, Mayer and Company decided cast her in : The Hucksters her first with " The King " Clark Gable, East Side, West Side, The Bribe with Robert Taylor, The Great Sinner along side Gregory Peck. In these films from 1947-1951 Ava was usually the other woman or the second lead to the main actress. They also loaned her out again this tim to indy producer Albert Lewin for Pandora and the Flying Dutchman  looking transplendent in color with James Mason and with Robert Mitchum in My Forbidden Past.  She was also partying hard, staying out late, drinking and carousing til all hours of the night. And she was never alone. In 1949, she fell hard for the biggest singer the country had ever seen at that time, bobby sox idol and movie star Frank Sinatra. The love affair was doomed from the start: Catholic, married, family man Frank and hot headed, free spirit Ava were not a match made in heaven. There was a long, scandalous two year affair before they finally tied the knot on November 7, 1951.

With Frank in what Ava described as that " sad picture ". The morning after their wedding, 1951

1951 was significant for Ava in the movies too as she starred in Showboat Arthur Freed's production of the classic Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical. Though not known for her singing ability, Ava recorded all of her own songs for the movie but the MGM higher-ups thought her voice not strong and professional enough. Outtakes exist that prove Ava could handle the songs fine, but they were dubbed over by a professional singer. Ava became bitter over the issue and it was one of the things that drove a wedge between her and the studio. However, Ava is wonderful as Julie the half white/half black star of Captain Andy's river boat show.

Spending some down time with Frank and friends

However the marriage to Sinatra was showing strain. His career was in disarray which added tension to the couple. Add the fact that both were extremely jealous types, their domestic bliss interrupted with fights, the work that separated them and the union was bound to snap under the pressure. In 1953 Ava, with Frank along for the ride, went to Africa to begin filming Mogambo the remake of 1932's Red Dust, with Gable recreating his role from the earlier film and Grace Kelly as the married woman he falls for. Ava  played 'Honey Bear' Kelly a stranded showgirl trying to make the best of the situation but also falling for Gable. The John Ford directed film was one of the top ten moneymaking films of year with Ava pulling down her one and only Oscar nomination for Best Actress [ she lost to Audrey Hepburn ].

With Frank at a Stevenson rally in the early 50's

Despite the professional success, Ava and Frank's marriage was over. Later in 1953 they formally separated, though the divorce wasn't final until 1957. Sinatra would marry twice more [ in 1966 when Sinatra wed Mia Farrow, her hair recently cut ultra-short and with a figure reed-thin, Ava quipped that she always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy ]. Ava would never marry again. They were the love of each others lives, but they couldn't live together. Gardner could never love again, not like that. As she once said, " I don't trust love anymore. It has led me astray."                                                                                                                                                

With Errol Flynn in The Sun Also Rises, 1957

Being playful

 In 1954 Ava was off to Spain to film Joseph L. Mankiewicz' Barefoot Contessa opposite a pal of Sinatra's Humphrey Bogart. Ava was at the very top of her profession, finding that once she reached the peak, there was no where to go but down. Contessa was hit, although just barely as most critics found it a bit on the talkie side. For the remainder of the 50's Gardner went from one movie to another in one country after another. George Cukor's Bhowani Junction in 1956, The Sun Also Rises from 1957, On The Beach in 1959, all filmed in European or exotic locales. In the late 50's Ava settled in Spain. She loved bullfights and the spanish custom's and way of life. As the 50's turned into the 60's her appearance was changing. The years of booze, cigarettes and late nights, along with just the natural process of aging, were beginning to take a toll on her looks, yet just slightly. She was still being offered starring parts in big budget productions but she didn't care anymore. She never considered herself an "Actress " and she had grown distant and bitter about her job and profession. Taking the money and then causing trouble on set like in 1963's 55 Days at Peking with Charlton Heston. In one instance a script conference turned ugly when Ava started commenting on the " fucking script " and lousy dialogue. Heston snuck away after Ava went on for nearly an hour. In his diary he commented " A macabre evening ". Then things got worse. Ava objected to cameramen taking candids on set, though it was their job to do so for publicity. The movie's writer Phillip Yordan who years ago had penned Ava's 1946 film Whistle Stop, felt she " really didn't want to work ". There were rumors of drinking before noon. Director Nicholas Ray had a heart attack and had to be replaced. And at 40 Ava was starting to worry about something she had never given a second thought about: her looks. Or her specifically, her face. The production finally wrapped, limped into release and did ok, but was never the blockbuster it was suppose to be. Luckily Ava still had friends and some of those friends thought she still had it. John Huston had known Ava since their work on The Killers back in 1946 and gave her a good terrific part in a good film, Night of the Iguana based on Tennessee Williams play. Filming took place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Sue Lyon in the cast. Elizabeth Taylor was also on the scene, her affair with Burton still front page news and the world's press was on the scene, taking bets who would kill whom first. Prankster that he was, Huston presented each of his lead's with gold plated derringers on first day of filming. He also gave each one five bullets with the others name on them. No one was killed but the movie was a hit and a good presentation of the Williams play. Ava got strong notices and may have given the performance of her career. It is my favorite performance of hers.

With Paul Newman on set of Judge Roy Bean

Despite the threats to quit the movies Ava was semi-active until 1986. She did disaster movies like Earthquake, went horror with The Sentinel, cameos in Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean and Mayerling. The last 5 or 6 years she was on television with mini-series, TV movies and some guest spots on Falcon Crest, a popular nighttime soap along the lines of the mega-ratings magnet Dallas. She made occasional headlines like the time she had a stormy affair with George C. Scott [ including physical fights and threatened suicide attempts by the unstable Scott ] in the mid-60's during the making of The Bible, again under the direction of Huston. But her real impact as a sex symbol and movie star was from 1946 to 1964. Though only 42 when she was in Iguana, after that her best movies were behind her. Hollywood can be a cruel town and when an actress is at a certain age or loses it's money making power Hollywood can cut her loose faster than a shooting star falling from the sky. And the world had moved on. On to the 60's, other actress' ready to claim the title Goddess. Ava never asked for the fame and glory she was given, it was offered to her and she took it without knowing the personal sacrifice she was making until it was too late. She died at her London home on January 25, 1990. She was only 67.