Marriages Ava Gardner was married three times, her first marriage being at age 19. Soon after Gardner arrived in Los Angeles, she met fellow MGM contract player
Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942. The ceremony was held in the remote town of
Ballard, California, because MGM studio head
Louis B. Mayer was worried that fans would desert Rooney's
Andy Hardy movie series if it became known that their star was married. Gardner divorced Rooney in 1943, citing mental cruelty, privately blaming his gambling and womanizing. She did not ruin his on-screen image as the clean-cut, judge's son Andy Hardy that the public adored. Gardner's second marriage was equally brief, to jazz musician and bandleader
Artie Shaw, from 1945 to 1946. Shaw previously had been married to
Lana Turner. Gardner's third was to singer and actor
Frank Sinatra from 1951 to 1957. She later said in her autobiography that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife Nancy for Gardner, and their marriage made headlines. and Gardner in 1951|alt=A man and woman sit next to each other at a table. The man eats while the woman smokes a cigarette. Sinatra was criticized by gossip columnists
Hedda Hopper and
Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, the Catholic Church, and by his fans for leaving his wife. Gardner used her considerable influence, particularly with
Harry Cohn, to get Sinatra cast in his
Oscar-winning role in
From Here to Eternity (1953). This role and the award revitalized both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. The Gardner–Sinatra marriage was tumultuous. During their marriage, Gardner became pregnant twice, but aborted both pregnancies. "MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies", according to her autobiography, which was published eight months after her death. Gardner filed for divorce in 1954, and the divorce was finalized in 1957. Following their divorce, Gardner and Sinatra remained good friends for the rest of her life. Gardner had several other affairs including with
matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, actor
George C. Scott, and Claude Terrail, the restaurateur of the Paris restaurant
La Tour d'Argent. Gardner lived her last 35 years outside the United States. She first visited Spain in 1950, and she moved to
Madrid in 1955, living there until 1966, when she moved to London. She lived at 34 Ennismore Gardens in
Knightsbridge in London, her final residence when she died. Their friendship lasted the rest of Gardner's life, and, upon her death in 1990, Peck took in both her housekeeper and her dog.
Religious and political views Although Gardner was raised
Baptist, at the end of her life she said she had no religion. Christianity never played a positive role in her life, according to biographers and Gardner, in her autobiography
Ava: My Story. Her friend Zoe Sallis, who met her on the set of
The Bible: In the Beginning... when Gardner was living with
John Huston in Puerto Vallarta, said Gardner always seemed unconcerned about religion. Gardner was a staunch supporter of civil rights for African Americans throughout her life. As a child growing up in North Carolina, she would often sit with African American children in segregated parts of movie theaters. Her personal assistant, Rene Jordan, was African American, and Gardner would often take her to clubs that were for whites only. She supported
Henry A. Wallace of the
Progressive Party, whose campaign in 1948 for the presidential election sought racial equality and desegregation. She became a member of the
NAACP in August 1968. ==Death==