The Secret Conversation,” the “Downton Abbey” star brings new life to an indomitable star of Hollywood’s golden age ...

Elizabeth McGovern is fired up when she talks about Ava Gardner, whom the Downton Abbey star portrays in a stage show that ...

Ava Gardner reportedly helped resuscitate Frank Sinatra’s career. By the time Gardner and Sinatra married in 1951, Sinatra’s career had taken a dip. His alleged mob ties, ...

A month before her passing, in 1990, Ava Gardner received a magazine clipping and a note from her friend Gregory Peck. “You are always on our minds. Try hard to get better,” he wrote to her ...

Ava Gardner poses in a sleek black satin dress in a scene from Robert Siodmak's film noir, "The Killers," in 1964. (Photo by Ray Jones/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images) ...

SMITHFIELD — During the 1940s and '50s, Hollywood actress Ava Gardner graced the screen as a larger-than-life presence. Some still consider her the most beautiful actress in Hollywood history.

In 1985, Ava Gardner and two of her sisters attempted to visit the Ava Gardner Museum, near the farm where she was born in Smithfield, North Carolina. Unfortunately, it was closed.

“Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations” by Peter Evans and Ava Gardner has an attention-grabbing title. “Secret” was a word seldom associated with the gorgeous movie star who lived it up ...