Ava Gardner is still considered one of the greatest actresses of American film. She was born the last of seven children to poor North Carolina farmers. Life was a struggle for the young Ava and her family, but her story is one of Hollywood lore. After high school, Ava visited her older sister in New York City. The sister’s husband happened to be a photographer and took Ava’s picture. It was so lovely that he hung it in the front window where her image was discovered by a talent scout. Ava began her career with MGM Studios in the early 1940s before the age of twenty, but it wasn’t until she was featured in a 1946 film noir “The Killers†that she gained national notice. He career was long and illustrious lasting through the 1970s, but she was also famous for her high profile (but brief) marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra (as well as a long-lasting relationship with the neurotic Howard Hughes). Ava died of emphysema at the early age of 67.
