Ava Gardner Autograph Signed Page

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and singer.  During the 1950s, Gardner established herself as a leading lady and one of the era’s top stars with films like Show Boat (1951), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959).

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.  Gardner’s second marriage was equally brief, to jazz musician and bandleader Artie Shaw, from 1945 to 1946.  rdner’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.

Gardner suffered from emphysema and lupus.[24] Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden,  Sinatra wanted to pay for her visit to a specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically staffed private plane.  She died of pneumonia at the age of 67, at her London home, 34 Ennismore Gardens, where she had lived since 1968.