LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ava Gardner: North Carolina
built 642 days ago
Ava Lavinia Gardner [W]as born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina. She was the youngest of six children of Mary Elizabeth and Jonas Gardner, an impoverished cotton and tobacco farmer. Gardner’s father lost his farm when she was two, and the family moved to Newport News, Virginia, where he worked in a sawmill and her mother ran a boarding house
Source:
Born in North Carolina in 1922, Ava Gardner took the world by storm and refused to bow down throughout her exciting and sometimes too-wild life. Ever the tomboy, Ava grew up with her six brothers and sisters on her father's tobacco farm, barely scraping by in the harsh 1920s and 30s.
Source:
Ava Lavinia Gardner came into this world on December 24, 1922 in a little southern town of Grabtown, North Carolina. Born to a farmer and his wife, Ava grew up on a tobacco farm deep in burley country of North Carolina. She was the last of seven children
Source:
An older sister had married a New York photographer who took some pictures of Ava when she visited them in 1941. He deposited the photos with the New York office of MGM who were so impressed that they invited Ava to make a screen test. MGM were delighted with the results of Ava's test but alarmed by her North Carolina accent, and sent a silent print to Hollywood. MGM Hollywood took one look at the test and instructed their East Coast office to send Ava out to California.
Source:
One of her older sisters was living in New York with her boyfriend, a photographer, and when Ava was 16 she went to visit them. He insisted on taking her picture, and he put a copy in his Fifth Avenue store window. An MGM messenger who was looking for a date happened to see the picture and called the shop to find out where that girl in the window was. Ava had already gone back to North Carolina, so the messenger forgot about her, but Ava's sister jumped at the inquiry, and her boyfriend took a bunch of Ava's photos to the MGM talent department in New York. Sure enough, young Miss Gardner was invited to come to the big city for an interview.
Source:
Ava married again in 1945 - this time to musician Artie Shaw. However, that marriage only lasted one year, as Shaw seemed determined to "improve" Ava's intelligence (he felt she was not smart since she barely had any education in North Carolina). It got to the point where Ava was afraid to speak around Shaw for fear that he would call her stupid in front of their friends. No wonder she divorced him!
Source:
MORE ABOUT
North Carolina