An earthy brunette from Grabtown, N.C., Ava Gardner (1922-1990) was one of the screen's great beauties--and anyone who has seen her color close-ups in Show Boat (1951) or Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) might argue she was the most gorgeous of them all. When challenged by interesting material and an imaginative director, she could also register strongly as an actress.

The daughter of an itinerant farmer, Gardner was preparing to become a secretary when a photograph of her inspired MGM's casting department to arrange a screen test. She made her film debut in some short subjects for MGM and then moved into bit parts in Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) and the Hedy Lamarr vehicle H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941). Her apprenticeship in some 20 MGM films such as the B-movie comedy Maisie Goes to Reno (1944) ended after she landed leads in Whistle Stop (1946) and, on loan-out to Universal in an attention-getting role, The Killers (1946).

The Hucksters (1947) found Gardner as the second female lead, billed below Deborah Kerr. However, her scenes as a nightclub singer in love with advertising man Clark Gable offered early glimpses of the sexual sparks that the pair would later generate in such co-starring vehicles as the Western Lone Star (1952) and the African adventure Mogambo (1953). The latter film earned Gardner her only Oscar® nomination for her performance as a wisecracking adventuress who challenges Grace Kelly for Gable's love.

The other MGM leading man with whom Gardner shared a special chemistry was Robert Taylor, her co-star in the Western Ride, Vaquero! (1953) and the costume drama Knights of the Round Table (1953), in which she was a ravishing Guinevere to Taylor's Lancelot. One of her most striking performances of the 1950s was in The Barefoot Contessa (1954), in a rags-to-riches story that held parallels to her own life. But her best performance of the period came in George Cukor's Bhowani Junction (1956), in which she is a beautiful half-caste caught up in India's battle for independence from Britain.

After a time Gardner's taste for high living began to take a toll on her stunning features, although she still remained alluring in such film as The Naked Maja (1959) and The Angel Wore Red (1960). Her fading beauty was used to especially vivid effect in Stanley Kramer's On the Beach (1959), as a party girl facing the end of the world; and John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964), as a worldly wise survivor of tough times.

Gardner, who turned to television late in her career, made her final feature-film appearance in the German/Italian production Regina Roma (1982). She had three marriages that ended in divorce--to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra.

by Roger Fristoe