The Ava Gardner Museum hosts an annual festival in honor of the legendary actress, fashion icon, and humanitarian Ava Gardner, a North Carolina native who grew up just 7-miles east of Smithfield, NC.

Ava Gardner spent her later years living quietly in London, where she continued to engage with the arts and maintained close friendships until her death from pneumonia on Jan. 25, 1990.

Ava Gardner flashes a smile in this photo of her as a young girl at just 12 years old. 1940: The actress makes a splash. The actress pictured in 1940 Bettmann/Getty Images.

Ava Gardner, circa 1942. Photo by Getty Images Friends and flings. Gardner, by contrast, found herself comfortable socializing with Shaw’s Jewish literary friends like S.J. Perelman, co-writer ...

The Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, Johnston County, has restored the starlet’s original birth certificate showing her biography details from North Carolina where her family were tenant ...