Ava Gardner, 1922-1990

The portrait that got Gardner famous; taken at the Ava Gardner Museum, and a mural of Gardner at the Ava Gardner Museum. Photos credit - WWP team

Actress and singer, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of all time.

Born as Ava Lavinia Gardner in Grabtown, NC, to a poor family of tobacco farmers, the youngest of 7 children. After graduating high school, she attended secretarial classes for a year. At 18, while visiting her sister in NYC, her brother-in-law, who was a professional photographer, took her portrait and put it on display in the front window of his studio. A legal clerk who worked as an MGM talent scout spotted her photo and suggested to send her info to the studios. Despite her Carolina drawl and with zero acting experience, Gardner was offered a contract and moved to Hollywood.

Gardner began taking diction lessons as well as acting, gymnastics, fashion, and makeup lessons, and at 19, she made her first appearance in the film “We Were Dancing”. For the next 5 years, she played mainly small decorative parts, until in 1946, she came to prominence playing the femme fatale Kitty Collins in “The Killers”, a typecast that she would play over and over in her career.

During the following 18 years, she played in the biggest movies of the time, acting alongside A-list actors, such as Robert Taylor, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. As she aged, she struggled landing roles, and at age 42, she played her last major leading role in the film “The Night of the Iguana”. In the 70’s she appeared briefly in several movies, especially disaster films, and in the 80’s she acted mainly on television. At the age of 60, she filmed her last film, “Regina Roma”.

When she was 29 years old, after already getting divorced twice, she married Frank Sinatra. It lasted only six years, and after the failure of her third marriage and without children, she moved to Spain and then to London, where she lived for 22 years until her death at the age of 67. In her legendary career, Gardner appeared in more than 60 films and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award.

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“When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.”

“When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.”

Fun Facts

  • She had a Welsh Corgi named Morgan, given her by Sinatra.
  • She was a good friend of Howard Hughes and Ernest Hemingway.
  • A small island in Fiji was renamed “Ava Ava” as a promotion for the film “The Little Hut”.
  • A statue of her is located in Tossa de Mar, Spain.
  • The Ava Gardner Museum of memorabilia is located in Smithfield, NC.
  • She was portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in “Sinatra”, by Deborah Kara Unger in “The Rat Pack”, by Christine Andreas in “Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story”, by Jon Mack in ”Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” and by Kate Beckinsale in “The Aviator”.

Awards

  • Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
  • Was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history
  • Inducted into the American Film Institute's list of the greatest American female screen legends

Creations By and About Her

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Category: Theater & Cinema
Tags: Actress, NYC Women, and Singer

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Abby-Aldrich-Rockefeller-WWP
Arts

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1874-1948

A socialite and philanthropist. The co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and its biggest donor.

Abigail Aldrich Rockefeller was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Her father was a Republican senator, and she grew up traveling back and forth between Rhode Island and Washington, DC. She was educated by a Quaker governess till she was 17 years old, and then attended Miss Abbott’s School for Young Ladies in Providence. During her upbringing, she was introduced to socialite and political circles, and at 19 years old, she made her official social debut. The following year, she embarked on an extensive European tour, where she visited many museums and art galleries and began to sharpen her skills as an art collector. At 20 years old, she met John Davison Rockefeller Jr., the son of the businessman and philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller Sr. After five years of courtship, the couple married at a big society wedding. The young Rockefellers settled in NYC, first in 13 W. 54th Street in Manhattan and later in 10 W. 54th Street. Rockefeller was a philanthropist in the heart, and she devoted herself to various charities. She donated money to the girl scouts, chaired the Auxiliary 336 of the American Red Cross, was a member of the Young Women’s Christian Association National Board, and served as chairman of different committees of the organization. In 1918, Rockefeller was chosen to chair the Housing Committee of the War Work Council, in which she worked for the improvement of living conditions for working women. She later applied the concept to the employees of Standard Oil – her husband’s family firm, purchasing land and building homes for the workers as well as a Community Center that included a clinic, nursery school, gym, and even a bowling alley. In 1925, Rockefeller revived her love for art and began collecting paintings and drawings mainly of contemporary American artists as well as European modernists such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Within a few years, she converted part of the room in her 7th floor Manhattan apartment into a gallery, where visitors could view the art on display. In 1929, alongside Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, she co-founded the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC – the first museum in the US devoted entirely to the modern movement. Rockefeller held several positions in the museum management team, from treasurer to Vice-President and Vice-Chairman, as well as served in its committees. She pushed for establishing the museum’s film library and for the War Veterans’ Art Center – a rehabilitation program for WW2 veterans through art. Rockefeller’s dedication to art expanded outside of MoMA; she donated art pieces to other institutes, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Met Cloisters, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Ludwell-Paradise House at Colonial Williamsburg. She passed away after suffering a heart attack at the age of 73. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Ada Louise Huxtable WWP
Arts

Ada Louise Huxtable, 1921-2013

An architecture critic and a writer. Received the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Born Ada Louise Landman in NYC, an only child in a middle-class Jewish family. Growing up in Manhattan, Huxtable loved strolling along the streets, fascinated by its building, such as the Grand Central Terminal, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. She studied art at Hunter College, graduating magna cum laude, and then architectural history at NYU Institute of Fine Arts. At the time, she worked in Bloomingdale’s furnishings department, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Garth Huxtable. In 1946, at 25, Huxtable landed a job as an assistant curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. After five years, she left her job to study Italian architecture in Italy for a year. Upon her return, she began writing as a contributing editor for various art and architectural journals. At the age of 37, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, in which she examined the structural and design advances of American architecture. In 1963, 42 years old Huxtable was hired as the first architecture critic at The New York Times, a position she held for almost 20 years. In her column, she wrote about new and old buildings, threatened buildings, and bad-designed buildings. She also mentioned emerging architects, architectural trends, movements, and exhibitions. Huxtable encouraged the everyday readers to look at buildings from a new perspective, not as an assembly of bricks and pilasters but as a public statement with history and meaning. Raising awareness of the city’s heritage, the urban environment, and civic engagement, she set the tone for modern architecture criticism, for which, at the age of 49, she was the first-ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In 1981, at the age of 60, Huxtable received a MacArthur grant that allowed her in-depth research on subjects she was interested in, such as the development of the skyscraper, the negative impact of postmodernism building, and preservation vs. modernity. At 76, she returned to writing for the public as an architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal, publishing columns for the next 15 years. Throughout her career, Huxtable was involved in various committees, serving as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Architectural Selection and Building Design Committees for the Getty Center, Getty Villa, and as a Jury member for The Pritzker Architecture Prize. She published more than 10 books on architecture, including “Kicked a Building Lately?,” “Goodbye History,” “Hello Hamburger,” and a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Huxtable died in NYC at 91. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Adena Friedman WWP
Economics & Finance

Adena Friedman, 1969

A businesswoman, the president and CEO of Nasdaq, the first woman in this position and to lead a global exchange.

Born Adena Robinson Testa in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her BA in political science from Williams College in Massachusetts and an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. In 1993, at the age of 24, she married Michael Cameron Friedman. In that same year, she joined Nasdaq as an intern and soon began moving up. In her first 18 years at Nasdaq, Friedman served in various positions, such as marketing manager, head of data products, head of corporate strategy, and Chief Financial Officer. In 2011, at 42, Friedman left Nasdaq to join Carlyle Group, a private investment firm in Washington DC. There, she served as Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director. After three years, she returned to Nasdaq as president and Chief Operating Officer. In 2017, in addition to her role as president, 48 years old Freidman was appointed CEO of the Nasdaq. The first woman in this position and the first woman to lead a global exchange. She oversees the company’s business segments, focusing on efficiency, product development, expansion, and growth. Under her leadership, Nasdaq transformed into a leading global exchange and technology solutions company, operating across six continents. In addition to her work in Nasdaq, Freidman is also a member of several boards. Among them are – the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the board of FCLTGlobal – a non-profit organization that works on ways to encourage long-term investing, and the board of Greater Washington, DC. A Chapter of Junior Achievement – a non-profit organization that supports teens in their way to financial independence. Freidman often speaks about women in leadership positions, advocating for mentoring and creating career opportunities for women in the financial industry. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Politics & Leaders

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 1989

Democratic Socialist politician, the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress.

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