Page 198 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

talk, she's terrific!" She was offered a standard contract by MGM, 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 Three Men in White
(1944), a Dr. Kildare film. After five years of bit parts, mostly at MGM, and many of them
uncredited, Gardner came to prominence in the Mark Hellinger-produced smash-hit film
noir The Killers (1946), playing the femme fatale Kitty Collins.

She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953), and also
received BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for other films.

Gardner appeared in several high-profile films from the 1940s to 1970s, including The
Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), The Snows of
Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the
Beach (1959), 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the
Iguana (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), Tam-Lin (1970), The Life
and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976).
Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in London in 1990, at
the age of 67.
Soon after Gardner arrived in Los Angeles, she met fellow MGM contract player Mickey
Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942. The ceremony was held in the remote town
of Ballard, California, because MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer was worried that fans would
desert Rooney's Andy Hardy movie series if it became known that their star was married.
Largely due to Rooney's serial adultery, Gardner divorced him in 1943.
Gardner's second marriage was equally brief, to jazz musician and bandleader Artie Shaw, from
th
1945 to 1946. Shaw had previously been married to Lana Turner (14 cousin, 1 time removed).
Gardner's third and last marriage was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra, from 1951 to 1957. She
later said in her autobiography that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for
Gardner, and their subsequent marriage made headlines.
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She is also known to have had relationships with Howard Hughes (11 cousin), Ernest
Hemingway, Spanish bull fighter Miguel Dominguin, and actor Benjamin Tatar.

Despite her renowned beauty and sensuality, she successfully resisted being typecast as a sex
symbol, and is listed 25th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of
Classic Hollywood Cinema.

References:
1. Relative Finder, associated with FamilySearch, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)
2. Biography.com
3. Wikipedia.org
4. Learn more – Ava Gardner Documentary
5. LDS Family Tree attached

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