Born on a tobacco farm near Brogden, NC, the youngest of seven children. Green-eyed, brown-haired beauty, with MGM from 1941 to 1958, who landed her first featured role in the "Dr. Gillespie" movie THREE MEN IN WHITE (1944). Gardner achieved stardom playing femme fatale Kitty Collins opposite Burt Lancaster in THE KILLERS (1946), with her earthy charm and magnetic beauty combining to make her one of Hollywood's reigning sex symbols through the next decade. Much to her chagrin, her private life, which included three marriages (Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra) and some notorious escapades, was well documented in the press. She moved to Spain in the mid-1950s and then to England. Other notable non-nominated screen credits include ONE TOUCH OF VENUS (1948), THE BRIBE (1949), SHOW BOAT (1951), THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (1952), THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (1954), THE SUN ALSO RISES (1957), THE NAKED MAJA and ON THE BEACH (both 1959), 55 DAYS AT PEKING (1963), SEVEN DAYS IN MAY and THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (both 1964), THE BIBLE (1966), THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (1972), EARTHQUAKE 91974), THE BLUE BIRD (1976), THE SENTINEL (1977), CITY ON FIRE (1979), THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRESIDENT (1980), PRIEST OF LOVE (1981) and her last feature film, REGINA ROMA (1982). Some favorite Gardner quotes: (on stardom) "Maybe I just didn't have the temperament for stardom. I'll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, 'Miss Davis, I'm Ava Gardner and I'm a great fan of yours.' And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. 'Of course you are, my dear,' she said. 'Of course you are.' And she swept on. Now that's a star."    --   "What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted." (on her appetites): Production designer John Hawkesworth, an Englishman who was the set dresser on her starring vehicle PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951), said of Gardner that she "could eat twice as much as anyone and drink three times as much."    Said Garnder herself: "I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood." Gardner spent her final years as a recluse in her London apartment - her only companions were her longtime housekeeper Carmen Vargas and her beloved Welsh corgi, Morgan. Frank Sinatra paid all her medical expenses after her 1989 stroke which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. After her death in 1990, Vargas took Gardner's body home to her native North Carolina for private burial. None of her ex-husbands attended. Former co-star Gregory Peck took in Vargas and the dog.  Nominated for Actress 1953: MOGAMBO 1 nomination