Page 197 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

Ava Gardner

th
10 Cousin
3 times removed

Common Ancestor

Father: Thomas Bond
Warwickshire, England
1520 - 1598

Born: Mother: Elizabeth Heaton Died:
December 24, 1922 Lincolnshire, England January 25, 1990
Grabtown, North Carolina, USA 1524 – 1592 London, England
Ava Lavinia Gardner was born the youngest of seven children. She had two older brothers,
Raymond and Melvin, and four older sisters, Beatrice, Elsie Mae, Inez, and Myra. Her parents,
Mary Elizabeth "Molly" (née Baker; 1883–1943) and Jonas Bailey Gardner (1878–1938), were
poor cotton and tobacco farmers. While accounts of her background vary, Gardner's only
documented ancestry was English.

While the children were still young, the Gardner’s lost their property, forcing Jonas Gardner to
work at a sawmill and Molly to begin working as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for
teachers at the nearby Brogden School. When Gardner was seven years old, the family decided
to try their luck in a larger city, Newport News, Virginia, where Molly Gardner found work
managing a boarding house for the city's many ship workers. While in Newport News, Gardner's
father became ill, and died from bronchitis in 1938, when Ava was 15 years old. After Jonas
Gardner's death, the family moved to Rock Ridge near Wilson, North Carolina, where Molly
Gardner ran another boarding house for teachers. Gardner attended high school in Rock Ridge,
and she graduated from there in 1939. She then attended secretarial classes at Atlantic
Christian College in Wilson for about a year.
Gardner was visiting her sister Beatrice in New York in 1941, when Beatrice's husband Larry
Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait. 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 spotted Gardner's photo in Tarr's studio and made the comment,
"Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs 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 Southern accent made understanding her difficult for him. Louis B. Mayer,
head of the studio, however, sent a telegram to Altman: "She can't sing, she can't act, she can't

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