Trivia of Ava Gardner

Trivia of Ava Gardner

*At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty.

*When she was a teenager she had a big crush on future co-star Clark Gable.

*Was basically shy , didn't like doing interviews and didn't believe she was very good at acting.She didn't like to watch her own performances.

*During the first two years of her marriage to Frank Sinatra, he was at the lowest point of his career. She often had to loan him money so he could buy presents for his children. He went broke in 1951, and she had to pay for plane tickets for him so that he could go with her to Africa, where she was shooting Mogambo (1953). This all changed after he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in From Here to Eternity (1953).

*A statue of her from The Barefoot Contessa (1954) was given to Frank Sinatra as a gift. He kept it in his backyard garden well after their divorce. When he married Barbara Marx, she forced him to get rid of it.

*In Charlton Heston's autobiography "In the Arena" he revealed that she behaved badly during the troubled shoot of 55 Days at Peking (1963). For example, she stopped the filming when a Chinese extra took her picture without permission. Heston also stated that her character was killed off to keep the producers and director from having to deal with her anymore.

*Ava was pretty tired of acting in the final 15 years of her life and when a reporter asked her why she continued acting, she gave her most famous quote: “I do it for the loot, honey—always for the loot.”