An autographed photo of actress Ava Gardner

Ava Lavinia Gardner is an American actress and singer, one of the brightest Hollywood stars of the 1940s and 1950s. She was nominated for an Oscar. She was included in the list of the greatest movie stars in the history of Hollywood. The owner of "the face of an angel and the body of a goddess" was often called one of the most beautiful actresses of the XX century.

She began acting in films during World War II. The first tangible success came with the film "The Killers" (1946), a classic film in the post—war noir genre. In the 1950s, Gardner began to be promoted under the motto "the sexiest animal on earth." Ava's career peaked with starring roles in the films "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" with Gregory Peck (1952) and "Mogambo" with Clark Gable (1953), for which the actress was nominated for an Oscar.

In 1976, she starred in the Soviet-American film "The Blue Bird".