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Ava Gardner: Mgm Hollywood
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Although Ava Gardner appeared in more than 25 films during the 1940s, her screen identity did not really emerge until the 1950s. A product of the studio system, Gardner was put under long-term contract at MGM in the early 1940s. After playing small roles in mostly minor films, she won acclaim in Robert Siodmak's The Killers, emerging (along with Burt Lancaster) as a star, and she is a radiant presence in The Hucksters, Singapore, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, and Showboat, among others. To an extent, the studio succeeded in promoting her as a sex goddess because of her extraordinary beauty and sensuality. Gardner... never fulfilled the expectation that she would become a sex symbol.
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Born 1922, December - Ava Gardner began her career first as a model, then as a contract player at MGM, where her gawky, unsophisticated demeanor was totally made over by the studio into an image of inaccessible glamour. Gardner toiled in tiny bit roles, finally getting a worthwhile one on loan-out to Universal in The Killers (1946).
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Trusting it would be different this time, Gardner married band leader Artie Shaw in 1945. However, they divorced within a year, as their busy schedules and Shaw's insistence that Gardner improve her education to meet his high standards quickly drove them apart. In 1946 Gardner, on loan briefly to United Artists, finally got a coveted role. Appearing opposite George Raft in the grade - B western film noir Whistle Stop, she played a woman who returns home to her small town after spending time in the big city. She appeared later that year in the melodramatic hit The Killers, while on loan to Universal Studios. Acting opposite another new star, Burt Lancaster, as the treacherous and deadly but smolderingly seductive Kitty Collins, one of Gardner's most memorable lines from the film is, "I'm poison to myself, Swede, and everyone around me." Unlike in many of her other films, MGM allowed Gardner to sing in her own voice for this one.
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Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California. She was 19 years old. Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it wasn't until she starred in The Killers opposite Burt Lancaster, that she became known as a movie star and sex symbol. (Rooney and Gardner divorced in 1943, mainly because Rooney wouldn't give up his partying ways). Rooney later rhapsodized about Gardner's performance in bed, though upon hearing this Gardner retorted "Well, honey, he may have enjoyed the sex, but I sure as hell didn't." She once characterised their marriage as "Love Finds Andy Hardy".
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For some time [Ava Gardner] had been pursued by the prestigious, much-loved Charles Feldman, who specialized in women clients. Feldman was top-drawer Hollywood, a good-looking man whom his friends called "the Jewish Clark Gable." His wife, Jean Howard, was the only woman over whom L. B. Mayer as known to have lost his head. When Jean married Feldman, L.B. attempted to blackball all his clients and tried to get other studios to do the same. By then Feldman represented such a large slice of Metro's talent that had the order been obeyed the studio would have ground to a standstill.
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One of the most intriguing rags-to-riches tales of cinema, farm girl Ava Gardner rose to hit the heights of Hollywood stardom, with a swathe of hit movies, a string of illustrious husbands (including Ol' Blue Eyes himself) and countless affairs. Not as well-known as other cinema belles of the era - such as Audrey Hepburn, Brigette Bardot or Marilyn Monroe - Ava Gardner is a somewhat undiscovered beauty for all but the most hardened film buffs, and the oldest of cinema-goers. Quite why is a mystery, given her undeniable attraction as a leading lady and the high standards of many of her films.
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