page_title: Ava Gardner
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Ava Gardner / Career
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Ava Gardner from the trailer for the film Bhowani Junction.
context_page_description: Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress and singer. 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 Noir film The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1953 for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo, and in 1964 for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana.
  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, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Barefoot Contessa, Bhowani Junction and On the Beach. She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in the films 55 Days at Peking, Seven Days in May, The Bible: In the Beginning..., Mayerling, Tam-Lin, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Earthquake and The Cassandra Crossing. She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at the age of 67.
context_section_description: Gardner was visiting her sister Beatrice in New York City in the summer of 1940, when Beatrice's husband Larry Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait as a gift for her mother Molly. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his Tarr Photography Studio on Fifth Avenue.
  A Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard Duhan, spotted Gardner's portrait in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as an Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's studio and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarr's did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time 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 towards 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 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 Beatrice accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her with a speech coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them.
  Her first appearance in 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 3 Men in White (1944), a Dr. Kildare film in which she brings her mother to the hospital for treatment. 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 the femme fatale Kitty Collins.
  Other notable films are The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), Lone Star (1952), Mogambo (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 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 then played the role of Guinevere in Knights of the Round Table (1953), opposite actor Robert Taylor as Sir Lancelot. Indicative of her sophistication, she portrayed a duchess, a baroness and other ladies of royal lineage in her films of the 1950s.
  In 1960, she played the role of Soledad in The Angel Wore Red. 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 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 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 along 
caption: Gardner in a trailer for Bhowani Junction (1956)
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