She was an American actress who was regarded as one of the world’s most attractive ladies. She enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle and had multiple love affairs throughout her life. She was recognized as one of the best actors of the 20th century by the American Film Institute. She embodied everything that made a movie star.
In 1941, she started her career and soon rose to fame. Although Audrey Hepburn won that year for her performance in Roman Holiday, she was nominated for an Oscar for her part in the movie Mogambo. One of Ava’s best roles was in The Night of the Iguana, where she played Maxine Faulk. The Barefoot Contessa, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 55 Days at Peking, and many more are among her most well-known motion pictures.
Unsettling Relationships
Ava had three marriages. Mickey Rooney was an actor and her first spouse. Due to Rooney’s outrageous lifestyle, they filed for divorce in 1943 after being married in Ballard, California, in 1942. Afterwards, Rooney boasted about their personal lives, saying Ava was excellent in bed. Ava sarcastically retorted, “Well, he might have enjoyed the relationship, but heaven knows I didn’t,” upon hearing this.
She temporarily wed jazz artist Artie Shaw for less than a year after Mickey.
For her, Sinatra abandoned his wife.
Frank Sinatra, an actor and singer, was Ava Gardner’s third and last husband. When Sinatra married Ava instead of Nancy, their union made headlines back then. While Sinatra’s career suffered as a result of being chastised for leaving his “good wife” for a “loose woman,” Ava’s reputation as a seductress and sex icon was cemented.
Upon learning she was pregnant, Ava decided to put her profession ahead of parenting and had an abortion.
Author Ernest Hemingway and Ava Gardner
Following their many controversies and achievements in the mid-1950s, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra opted to start over in Spain when their six-year marriage ended in divorce in 1957. It was in Spain that Ava got to know renowned author Ernest Hemingway. Having been married four times before, Hemingway fell in love with her right away.
In 1968, fed up with a nomadic existence, Ava relocated to London. She kept making the odd movie, but her previous level of popularity never returned.
She had an autoimmune disease and emphysema as a result of her heavy smoking. Ava Gardner, who suffered two strokes in 1986 that left her bedridden and partially paralyzed, died on January 25, 1990, at the age of 67, from pneumonia.
“I’m so tired,” Ava Gardner said to her maid Carmen in her final words.
