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Category: Ava's Friends

Gratitude for the Glamorous: Ava Gardner and Lana Turner

By Karis Crimson on Mar. 07, 2024

Now, this may come as a shock to some, but the muddy, rainy British countryside is not the most glamorous place to grow up. Don’t believe what “Downton Abbey” or “Bridgerton” show you; for most of us…

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Hollywood’s Hidden LGBTQ History

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Jun. 15, 2023

Ava Gardner was discovered and achieved international fame through the power and reach of the studio system which largely ruled the Hollywood film business from the late 1920s through the 1960s. While…

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Knightsbridge Neighbors

By Ava Thompson on Feb. 02, 2023

Tennessee Williams is noted to have said, Ava Gardner’s “ego was centered, it seems to me, around her friendships. ‘I’m a damn good friend,’ she always said.” The value Ava assigned to friendship…

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‘Greatest and most beloved friends:’ Dirk Bogarde & Ava Gardner

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Mar. 22, 2022

Ava Gardner and Dirk Bogarde first met on the set of their film The Angel Wore Red in 1959. While both actors personally considered the movie itself a disappointment, the production had a silver…

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Ava Gardner and Roddy McDowall: Loyal Friends

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Sep. 16, 2021

During a 1942 war bond rally at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles a 13-year-old British child actor named Roddy McDowall first met a 19-year-old, up-and-coming MGM contract-player named Ava…

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Celebrity Visitors to the Ava Gardner Museum

By Ava Gardner Museum on Aug. 31, 2021

The first incarnation of the Ava Gardner Museum opened in the summer of 1981. Operating as a seasonal attraction, the Museum was housed in a building where Ava once lived in the rural community of…

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Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck: Great Old Pals

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Aug. 12, 2021

On the surface Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner seemed like unlikely friends, but over the course of their professional and personal lives, the two formed a deep, lasting relationship built on mutual…

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The Bribe: Noir and Romance

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Jul. 08, 2021

In 1949, Ava Gardner starred in her fourth film noir, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Bribe . After Ava worked on loan-out for United Artists’ Whistle Stop (1946) and then in Universal Studios’ films The…

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Lena Horne: Legend, Icon, and Friend

By Beth Nevarez and Lora Stocker on Jun. 29, 2021

Lena Horne was born on June 30, 1917. A talented triple-threat, she was a gifted actress, dancer, and singer as well as a civil rights activist and female trailblazer. Horne's career spanned over 70…

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I Remember Ava

By Dewey Sheffield on May. 11, 2021

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on December 24, 1922, in a community known as Grabtown near the town of Smithfield, North Carolina. According to Doris Rollins Cannon, author of the Ava Gardner biography…

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