Ava Gardner's Real Name: Ava Lavinia Gardner

Quick answer: Ava Gardner's documented also-known-as form is Ava Lavinia Gardner. Britannica lists that name and dates her birth to December 24, 1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, and her death to January 25, 1990, in London, England. A 2008 Guardian profile independently places the birth in an impoverished farming family in Grabtown, North Carolina, and says she later moved to London and died there at age 67 (Britannica; The Guardian).

Real name and early life

She is known professionally as Ava Gardner. Britannica's "also known as" line is Ava Lavinia Gardner; the Guardian piece cited here does not use a middle name. Both place her origins in Grabtown, North Carolina. Britannica dates the birth to December 24, 1922, and describes her as the daughter of a poor tobacco farmer, a tomboy who gave no thought to acting until age 18, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scouts spotted portraits of her in the window of her brother-in-law's New York City photography studio. The Guardian independently calls her the youngest of seven children in an impoverished farming family in Grabtown. Britannica recounts a screen test after which MGM chief Louis B. Mayer was quoted as saying she could not act or talk, then signing her anyway; she was heavily coached in acting, poise, and elocution.

Career highlights

The Guardian says The Killers (1946) made her and Burt Lancaster overnight stars, and later names Mogambo, The Sun Also Rises, and The Night of the Iguana among her films. Britannica independently resists reducing her to a sex-symbol type and treats her as a leading American film actress of the 1940s and 1950s, including work such as Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) and The Night of the Iguana (1964), the latter with Richard Burton. The two accounts agree on a major studio career that began in the mid-1940s and continued, with uneven later work, for decades.

Death

Britannica dates her death to January 25, 1990, in London, England. The Guardian, writing in 2008, says she moved to London and died there at age 67 after a period of seclusion, without giving a calendar day. Age 67 in 1990 is compatible with a 1922 birth.

Name notes for searchers

Ava Lavinia Gardner is the documented fuller name in Britannica; the professional name is Ava Gardner. Searchers looking for The Killers, Mogambo, or The Night of the Iguana are usually aiming at the same person.