Her mother, Mary Elizabeth ('Molly') Gardner, née Baker, was of Scottish-Irish and English descent; her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was of Irish and Native American (Tuscarora) descent, a tobacco farmer who died of bronchitis in 1935.
Her singing voice in Show Boat (1951) was dubbed by Annette Warren, although her voice is left in on the soundtrack album.
Her three husbands were married a total of twenty times between them.
In a promotion for The Little Hut (1957), a small island in Fiji was renamed Ava Ava and leased to a contest winner.
In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta. She was occasionally dubbed by Dhia Cristiani, Lidia Simoneschi and Andreina Pagnani.
Is portrayed by Deborah Kara Unger in The Rat Pack (1998) (TV), by Christine Andreas in Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (1995) (TV), and by Jon Mack in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999) (TV).
London neighbor and close friend of Charles Gray.
Measurements: 36-23 1/2-37 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Once met J.R.R. Tolkien and neither knew why the other was famous.
Once named "The World's Most Beautiful Animal" (in a 1950s publicity campaign).
Part of On the Beach (1959) was filmed in Berwick, a suburb of Melbourne. Ava had a street which was being developed at the time named after her. It is of course called "Gardner Street".
Production designer John Hawkesworth, an Englishman who was the set-dresser on her starring vehicle Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), said of Gardner that she "could eat twice as much as anyone and drink three times as much.".
She and Robert Taylor had a brief love affair during the filming of The Bribe (1949).
She sang in her own voice for The Killers (1946) but in all MGM films her singing voice was dubbed (much to her disgust).
She spent her final years as a recluse in her London apartment -- her only companions were her longtime housekeeper Carmen Vargas and her beloved Welsh Corgi, Morgan. Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although Gardner could easily afford her medical expenses, Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the U.S., and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically-staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were, "I'm so tired", before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67. Vargas took her body home to her native North Carolina for private burial. None of her ex-husbands attended.
She was continuously under contract at MGM, 1941-1958.
Suffered from a severe case of emphysema in later life and could not travel far without an oxygen tank.
There is an Ava Gardner Museum of memorabilia in Smithfield, North Carolina.
Underwent a hysterectomy in 1968 out of fear of contracting uterine cancer, which had previously claimed her mother's life.
Was a good friend of Lena Horne, despite the fact that they both competed for the part of Julie in Show Boat (1951).