Happy Birthday, Ava Gardner

Thanks to Roger Ebert's blog, I now know it is Ava Gardner's birthday.

If you don't know who Gardner was, this was Gardner:

Yeah.  I know.


That pic is from a terrific movie, The Killers from 1946.

Gardner was famously married to Frank Sinatra (as well as Artie Shaw and Mickey Rooney).  She also palled around with Howard Hughes, who...  Jesus, Howard, who DIDN'T you..?  Never mind.

I haven't seen Gardner in too many of her films, and she's probably better remembered for her relationships today than her work, but she was strong enough to carry her own on the screen, and she's imminently watchable.

Gardner passed at the age of 67 in 1990.

Happy birthday, Ava.