By Ahmet Abdulaziz……..
25th January 2018 was the 28th anniversary of the death of AVA GARDNER, an American film actress, who had sensationalised the film world not just by her beauty but also by her talent of acting in the mid twentieth century. Her acting career spanned a long period of time.
Born to poor parents, on 24th December 1922, in a small community outside North Carolina, she spent a pretty quiet period until the age of 18, when her brother-in-law introduced her to modelling in New York.
Then onwards it’s a long period of hard work and struggle for young Ava.
At the age of 24 she was established as a gorgeous actress in “The Killers”, where she played a gun moll who betrays her lover. “One Touch of Venus” in 1948, “The Great Sinner” in 1949 and “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” in 1951, were her most important films of that period. In total she starred in 60 movies during her professional acting career which spanned from 1942 to 1981.
She did have two early brief marriages, to Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw. Each marriage ended in separation after less than a year and finally in divorce. Subsequently she married Frank Sinatra in 1951. It was a highly publicized marriage of 
that era, but unfortunately ended in 1957.
In 1958 she left MGM and started working as an independent actress. She appeared in a number of movies including ”55 Days at Peking” (1963), ”Seven Days in May” (1964), ”Mayerling” (1969), ”The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972), ”The Blue Bird” (1976) .
For a large part of her acting career she was in competition with Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, but she did make a mark for herself in the field of acting and beauty.
She played in couple of Television plays too, but was not so much interested in that sphere. Later on she moved to London. On 25th January 1990 she died of chronic lung disease and the lingering effects of a couple of strokes. She was 67 when died.
She was buried beside her parents in North Carolina.
