Frank Sinatra bought her a puppy for her birthday during their courtship, a Corgi she named Rags. For the rest of her life she always had a Corgi with her. After Rags died, she had Cara and then Morgan.
Frank Sinatra nicknamed her "Angel".
A distant cousin of Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
A statue of her from The Barefoot Contessa (1954) was given to Frank Sinatra as a gift. He kept it in his backyard garden well after their divorce. When he married Barbara Marx, she forced him to get rid of it.
After her death in 1990, Ava's longtime housekeeper, Carmen Vargas, and her dog, a Welsh Corgi named Morgan, were taken in by her former co-star Gregory Peck.
Although she often gave the name of her North Carolina hometown as Grabtown, and at other times as Smithfield, the town's name is actually Brogden. "Grabtown" is a nickname given to it by locals. Smithfield is a larger town nearby.
An Australian reporter found that Gardner was quite adept at foul language, and her swearing was "like a sailor and a truck driver were having a competition." She threw a glass of champagne at the reporter, who said that at the moment she did so "the only thing I could think was how bloody gorgeous the woman was.".
Appeared in three films based on Ernest Hemingway stories--The Sun Also Rises (1957), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), and The Killers (1946).
Became pregnant twice by Frank Sinatra during their marriage; both times she had abortions.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 319-321. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Charlton Heston revealed that Gardner behaved badly during the troubled shoot of 55 Days At Peking (1963) in his autobiography "In The Arena", such as bringing production to a halt when a Chinese extra took her picture without permission. Heston further claimed that Gardner's character was killed off simply so that the producers would no longer have to deal with her.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#68). [1995]
Chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest American female screen legends (Number 25).
During her final years living in London, she became the dinner companion of director Michael Winner.
During the first two years of her marriage to Frank Sinatra, he was at the lowest point of his career. She often had to lend him money so he could buy presents for his children. He was so broke by 1951 that Gardner had to pay for his plane ticket so that he could accompany her to Africa, where she was shooting Mogambo (1953). This all changed after he won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity (1953).
Ex-daughter-in-law of Joe Yule (Mickey Rooney's father).
Flamenco became one of Ava's favorite pastimes after she learned it for The Barefoot Contessa (1954); increasingly proficient and needing little sleep, she often danced all night.
Good friend of Kathryn Grayson.
Her The Angel Wore Red (1960) co-star Dirk Bogarde nicknamed her "Snowdrop" because, he said, anything less likely was difficult to imagine.
Her early education was sketchy; by 1945, she had read two books, the Bible and "Gone with the Wind." In later life, she more than made up for this lack by continual self-education.