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Ava Gardner: Roles
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At the peak of her beauty, Gardner, having convinced Hollywood of her acting ability, got bigger and better film roles. In 1947 she starred opposite childhood idol Clark Gable in The Hucksters, and in 1958, her tiny waist and ample bosom appeared to great effect during her lead role in One Touch of Venus. Many people took notice, and her movie roles began to be confined to that of glamorous seductress. She played a compulsive gambler in 1949's The Great Sinner and a murder victim opposite James Mason in East Side, West Side later that year.
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Unfortunately, by the end of the decade, Gardner already was appearing in films that required her to be a star presence projecting an image of ravaged beauty. When given a substantial role... she could offer a performance to match her character. Such was the case in The Night of the Iguana, in which she played a lusty hotel proprietor opposite Richard Burton's defrocked minister. Her last substantial portrayal came in Roddy McDowall's Tam Lin (The Devil's Widow), an interesting, but unsuccessful, attempt to explore a woman's fear of aging.
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Ava was never given the type of roles that bestow respectability upon an actress; nor did she appear in films that win awards and critical admiration. Ava worked in the salt mines of the movie industry; in melodramas, historical romances and safari movies, in crime films and westerns: movies that film critics affect to despise. However, although film critics were reluctant to show enthusiasm for Ava or her movies, cinema-goers had no such inhibitions.
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Gardner left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1958 and became an independent actress. She continued to appear in films through the 1960s and '70s, though usually in less-important roles than before. Gardner's typical screen persona was that of an earthy, free-spirited, and irreverent woman of the world.
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MGM ... still did not regard Ava as anything special. Instead of creating roles which would show Ava to advantage, they continued to give her routine parts in movies that are rarely screened today and have yet to be issued on DVD.
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