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Star of the Month: Ava Gardner: ‘’50s Star’ & ‘More 1950s’
TCM, Beginning at 7 p.m.
The nine-film lineup of Ava Gardner films beginning tonight and continuing into early tomorrow afternoon on Turner Classic
Movies features the star at the height of her fame in the 1950s. Up first is 1954’s The Barefoot Contessa (pictured), a drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and featuring Gardner as Maria Vargas, the titular Spanish sex symbol who is a fictional amalgam of real-life actresses Rita Hayworth and Anne Chevalier. Hum
phrey Bogart and Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Edmond O’Brien co-star. After that is Mogambo (1953), director John Ford’s romantic adventure drama shot on location in Africa. The film earned Gardner her only Oscar nomination, for Best Actress, thanks to her performance alongside Clark Gable and Best Supporting Actress nominee Grace Kelly. Next, in the 1953 British adventure film Knights of the Round Table, based on the Arthurian legends, Gardner
portrays Guinevere alongside Robert Taylor’s Lancelot and Mel Ferrer’s King Arthur. The actress received top billing in the next film, another British-made adventure: Bhowani Junction (1956), also featuring Stewart Granger and shot partly on location in Pakistan. Rounding out the lineup of ‘50s favorites from Gardner are: My Forbidden Past (1951), a film noir co-starring Robert
Mitchum; Show Boat (1951), the beloved musical also featuring Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel; Lone Star (1952), a Western
also led by Gable and featuring Lionel Barrymore; Ride, Vaquero! (1953), another Western, also with Taylor and Keel; and The Little Hut (1957), a British rom-com that gave Gardner top billing over co-stars Granger and David Niven.