A Fan Favorite, the Ava Gardner Heritage Tour, Will Be a Part of the Ava Gardner Festival

AGM Newsflash

Show Boat to be shown during the Sixth Annual Ava Gardner Festival

Ava as Julie LaVerne in Show Boat

Each year the Ava Gardner Museum celebrates Ava's life and career by hosting the Ava Gardner Festival. This annual event includes heritage tours, screenings of classic Ava Gardner films, and special exhibits. 　

This year’s festival will kickoff during the Ava Gardner Festival Gala on Friday evening, October 8th and will continue Saturday, October 9th from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. The 2010 Ava Gardner Festival marks the 10th anniversary of the Ava Gardner Museum.

During the Festival, the classic Ava Gardner films The Barefoot Contessa and The Night of the Iguana will be screened at the Public Library of Johnston County and Smithfield during the afternoon of Saturday, October 9th. That evening at 7:30 PM, the musical Show Boat will be screened at the Neuse River Amphitheatre, 200 Front St., Smithfield Town Commons. All film screenings are free to the public.

Show Boat (1951)

By the time Show Boat was released in 1951, the story was much loved and well known. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber, Show Boat opened on Broadway in 1927 and had already appeared on film twice, in 1929 and 1936. MGM’s production of Show Boat was a lavish, Technicolor affair that mostly disappointed critics and fans of the original story.

The tale deals with three generations of the Hawks family, all of whose lives revolve around a showboat cruising up and down the Mississippi River in the late nineteenth century. When the show’s lead stars Julie LaVerne (Ava Gardner) and her husband Stephen Baker are accused of miscegenation, they have to leave the boat, and Captain Hawk's daughter Magnolia (Kathryn Grayson) and the gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Howard Keel) take their places. Magnolia and Gaylord fall in love, get married and move to Chicago, where they live off Ravenal's earnings from gambling. Unfortunately, Ravenal’s luck runs out, and, broke and ashamed, leaves Magnolia, not knowing she is pregnant. Magnolia returns to her father's boat and business and raises her daughter with her parents.

Originally, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and Dinah Shore were all considered for the role of Julie. Lena Horne, a close friend of Ava’s, was actually the first choice of Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. However, racial attitudes in the Country at the time were strained and MGM was not comfortable in casting the African-American Horne in a lead role.

After being cast as Julie LaVerne, Ava Gardner worked diligently with voice coaches for her two songs, "Bill" and "Can’t Help Loving Dat Man." However, MGM chose to dub her voice with soprano Annette Warren for the film, although Ava’s versions can still be found on the Show Boat soundtrack (available in the Ava Gardner Museum gift shop for $17). Despite negative criticisms for the film, Ava received mainly positive reviews for her turn as the brave and alcoholic Julie.

Ava’s only Golden Globe nominated role; The Night of the Iguana to be shown during the Sixth Annual Ava Gardner Festival

Ava and Richard Burton in The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana (1964)

Based on Tennessee Williams’ play of the same name, The Night of the Iguana follows a defrocked clergyman as he attempts to escape his past in Mexico. When American minister Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) is expelled from his Virginia church, he travels to Mexico in search of his destiny and sanity. There he becomes a tour guide for a bus load of spinsters and a teenage nymphet named Charlotte Goodall (Sue Lyon), who is being chaperoned by the group's leader, the inflexible Judith Fellowes. Miss Fellowes, who is quite jealous of Charlotte's attentions to Shannon, discovers the young woman in his room and vows to have him fired.

To thwart her plot, Shannon takes control of the bus from the driver, and speeds the tour group on a wild ride through the Mexican jungle to the crumbling, secluded hotel of an old friend, the recently widowed Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner). Eventually Shannon becomes enamored with another guest at the hotel, the rather genteel Hanna Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), an itinerant quick sketch artist and her poet grandfather Nonno. As the wise Hanna partially restores Shannon's fractured world, Shannon struggles to get back the rest of his sanity and his self-respect.

Filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, then an isolated location only accessible by boat and far away from air conditioning, lush accommodations, and room service, Huston expected conflict amongst the stars on the set. In order to diffuse the tension prior to shooting, he made each lead actor a gold encrusted pistol with bullets – one with each actor's name on it. This way, when the actors wanted to kill one another, they would use the designated bullet. This proved to be successful; no problems between the cast arose. The film put Puerta Vallarta on the map and it's now a popular resort destination with thousands of hotel rooms and cruise ships in port daily.

In her role as Maxine Faulk, Ava Gardner received her first and only Golden Globe nomination and received excellent reviews for her performance as the earthy hotel owner: "Ava Gardner is absolutely splendid" (The New Yorker); "Ava Gardner all but runs away with the picture" (Life); and "Miss Gardner gives the performance of her career" (Hollywood Reporter).

Ava’s signature film, The Barefoot Contessa, to be shown during the Sixth Annual Ava Gardner Festival

Ava in her signature role as Maria Vargas in The Barefoot Contessa

The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

The Barefoot Contessa opens at the burial of Countess Torlato-Favrini and is told in flashback by her friend Harry Dawes and her studio press agent Oscar Muldoon.

Has-been director Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart) gets a new lease on his career when independently wealthy Kirk Edwards hires him to write and direct a film. They travel to Spain with a studio press agent Oscar Muldoon (Edmond O’Brien) to see the dancer of a nightclub, Maria Vargas (Ava Gardner). Maria, a naive woman with simple origins, is convinced by Harry to go to Hollywood and becomes a famous star. As she continues her successful career, she meets the noble and handsome Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini in the French Riviera. Maria believes she found her prince charming but after the wedding, she discovers her new life is anything but a fairy tale.

The tagline of the film was "The World’s Most Beautiful Animal," and it would haunt Ava for the rest of her life. The Barefoot Contessa would prove to be the film audiences most identified Ava with and is considered her signature role, although many believed Maria to be based on the life of Rita Hayworth. Ava really did enjoy being barefoot and although she learned flamenco for the role of Maria Vargas, she immediately fell in love with the dance and for years after would often stay up well into the night dancing.

A Fan Favorite, the Ava Gardner Heritage Tour, Will Be a Part of the Ava Gardner Festival

Ava Gardner’s final resting place is at Sunset Memorial Park, near the intersection of Highway 210 and Highway 70 Business, in Smithfield, NC.　

On Saturday, October 9th, heritage tours will be scheduled throughout the day. Visitors will be shown points of interest in Ava's hometown and will end with a visit to her gravesite at Sunset Memorial Park.　

The Little Brown Jug

The Little Brown Jug, located at 100 West Market Street, has long been THE corner bar in Downtown Smithfield.　 Earlier this year there was a threat that The Little Brown Jug may be torn down for the new bridge to be built over the Neuse River, but thankfully, the distinctive building was saved. Jack Gardner, Ava's brother, built it in the 1940s.

Howell Theatre

The Howell Theatre, located at 141 South Third Street, was built in 1922 by Mr. Rudolph Howell as a one-screen cinema, seating approximately 600 movie-goers. It was built in the heart of downtown Smithfield, NC, becoming an integral part of the downtown business community.

In 1932, Ava's mother, Mollie, took Ava to see Red Dust starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow at the Howell Theatre in downtown Smithfield. Little did Mollie or Ava realize that Ava would later star with Gable in the successful remake of this picture: Mogambo.

Ava Gardner’s Birthplace

Ava Gardner was born at 740 Avenue Road in the Grabtown area of the Brogden community southeast of Smithfield. As a toddler, she climbed out onto the porch roof and had to be coaxed back into the house with the promise of a bowl of peaches. Today the home is owned by the Allen family and is their residence.

Brogden Teacherage

From ages 2 to 13, Ava and her family lived in the "teacherage"---a boarding house for young lady teachers at the local Brogden school.　 Jonas Gardner labored as the caretaker and Mollie Gardner served as the cook for the residents of the house.　 The Gardners lived here until effects of the Great Depression forced the Teacherage to close.

In the early 1980s Dr. Tom Banks saved the Teacherage from being demolished, and operated the first Ava Gardner Museum within this building during the summer for nine years.　 Located at 7209 Brogden Road, this home is owned by the Wayne White family and is their residence.

Sunset Memorial Park

Ava Gardner requested that her remains return home to be laid to rest along side her parents and siblings. Ava’s gravesite is located one mile from the museum, at the intersection of Highways 70 Business and 210.

Heritage tour passes are $10.00 and will be available for purchase October 8th.

For accommodations, two local hotels are offering special Ava Gardner Festival discounts. The Best Western Smithfield Inn (919-989-4047) is offering a special rate of $64.00 + tax and the Sleep Inn & Suites of Smithfield (919-209-2360) is offering a 15% discount on rates. Call the hotel directly and mention the Ava Gardner Festival to take advantage of these special discounts.

For more information about the festival, including Festival Package rates, please call the museum at 919-934-5830.　

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