Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner was a multi-award winning American actress known for her outstanding performances in movies Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers, John Ford's Mogambo (1953), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964) for which she won Best Actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award. Gardner established herself as one of the era's top stars with films like Show Boat, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (both 1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959). She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in the films 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). And in 1985, she had the major recurring role of Ruth Galveston on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gardner No. 25 on its greatest female screen legends of Classic American Cinema list.