Posted by
ent lawyer
at
9:20 AM
Labels: blind items revealed , Mr. X , Old Hollywood Blind Item
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40 comments:
I guess back then that would have been a career ender in Mericuh at least?
Her family were poor southern cotton farmers.
One of her sisters was a model in NYC & married to a photog, and Ava modeled for him also.
I believe she was Melungeon. So her AA would have been far back in her family tree.
She apparently had a really very bad southern accent & bad teeth when the studio first signed her.
So what she was drop dead beautiful
Sort of makes Showboat a bit different viewing. It's easy to see this as a possibility in that movie. My guess is none of her husbands or lovers would have cared, she was beautiful, but clearly very haunted.
@ Misch-Yep, the studio signed her for her looks, she couldn't act, sing, or dance.
Officially I believe they say she was part American Indian.
I always thought there was something "exotic" about her looks. I mean, beyond her ridiculous beauty!
There was someone else, maybe Dinah Shore? Years ago my Mom said they were part Black but it was a big secret.
I am from NC and have never heard Melungeon before. Learn something new every day.
She was from Smithfield in Eastern NC. There are tons of people of mixed lineage that simply do not know or do not say. Preferring black men would be great cause for alarm at that time for anyone but especially for a Southern Bell.
An all time fave. I adore her.
Still cannot get my head around Ava's coupling with Rooney
Possible but I've never seem any biographer produce a family tree to prove it.
Dinah Shore was 100% a nice Southern Jewish girl.
And she met Burt Reynolds & wasn't so nice.
Then she started the week long lesbian party called the Nabisco-Dinah Shore golf tournament.
There were a number of articles about how the golf tournament became old home week for rich lesbians.
Her granny on her father's side was a Black maid. Ava said so herself. I don't know about Sinatra but Mickey knew. A lot of people knew.
Melungeons are from Tennessee or at least the mountains shared by NC and Tenn.
Ava was from Eastern NC. She be part Lumbee Indian - a mixed tribe from the eastern shore. At any rate, she is from the "black crescent" where white field hands weren't much better off than blacks. There wasn't much owner supervision there, because the environment was so hostile (this is the reason that Gullahs and Gimchees could establish their own cultures and languages in America.) The racial mix in that area of eastern NC,SC,GA is very old and deep. White convicts would escape to Indian lands as would slaves. No one would follow them because the swamps were filled with typhoid and malaria.
It's a good possibility that anyone with descendents from this area going back pre-1864 has mixed race ancestry.
Others - Randy Travis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Vince McMahon,Ronnie Milsap, Charlie Rose..they all have families with long histories in the area.
Oops she *might* be
Essie, when did she say this exactly? This blind is bullsh*t. It's true her father's family had Native American blood but there never was an African American ancestor that she knew about. She used to say that her grandfather was illegitimate (from Ireland) and that she had some shady back blood from the Indians (her words) but I never heard about her having black ancestors. And I should know, my mother and she were friends for 30 years and I used to go to Ava's flat in Ennismore Gardens as a child.
That's fascinating plot. I love when the comments are of the calibre they seem to be today.
James: oh how I envy you and your stories. Today is my all-time favourite for the quality of posters.
@plot
my father is from SC. I used to go there on summer vacation every year when I was a child. there were a few "funny talking" people there that the locals (other children) called "geechie" is this pronunciation wrong and it is actually Gimchees?
just wondering.
This is my hertiage. It does really exist!
Hard to believe anyone cared, but look at Merke Oberon, she had to pretend she wasnt from india.
What part of nc. Im from nc as well.
@Bee Haven
Rooney got around! Did you know that he repeatedly cheated on Ava?
No disrespect to Mickey, but I attribute much of his success (and part of Artie Shaw's success) with gorgeous starlets to the fact that there were so few straight male actors in Hollywood. They could take their pick.
This explains why Ava really hated some of the racists she worked with and why she helped protect some of the black actresses that were being courted in secret by Frank Sinatra (Dorothy Dandridge in particular.) Also it was rumored that Ava occasionally visited men on the "other" side of town.
There are two books about the old studio system that I particularly love, The Glamour Factory by Ronald L. Davis and The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger. Some relevant snippets:
For the first few years Ava Gardner was in films, Metro's makeup department built a pad for her cleft chin.
"I remember Ava Gardner breaking all the rules and going in to the cafeteria with the truck driver and grips...That was considered just abominable."
And when Mickey Rooney (in his Andy Hardy prime) wanted to marry Ava Gardner, [Louis B. Mayer], shouted "How dare you destroy the studio's best investment! It's not your life, not as long as you're working for me. MGM has made your life."
@Michael
Ava was a great time. She and Grace Kelly visited brothels together when they were in Rome.
Just curious, how do you know she was part African-American?
Her genealogy has been documented. Who was her most recent African-American ancestor?
http://ethnicelebs.com/ava-gardner
Carol Channing...
Ava was the type of bitch who would've been proud to have black heritage. She certainly flaunted her penchant for black cock. Having black blood would be less scandalous. I love Ava Gardner, but she did not hide black blood from anyone. Ava deplored racism in all forms and I think this bullshit blind was started because of her dark beauty and her affinity for black people. Stop the madness.
plot: I went to school with some Lumbee Indians and they had a reputation for being meaner than a wet hornet. And big people although my little 5'3" sister beat 5'11" Dotty's ass. I'm guessing their tribe is the root of Lumberton, NC. (and not because of the lumber.)
Joy S: you're thinking of the Gullah's and I think they are nicknamed Geeshee or their language may be. They were the original settlers of the SC barrier Islands and especially Hilton Head. Talk about taking away their lands! Whoooo boy, the rich people have bought large swaths, erected fences and then the Gullah can't get to their own property or off of it due to no right to pass. They were the group without water and electricity the longest after Hurricane Hugo. Completely forgotten, no one gives a shit about.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/article7.htm
This blind is false as fuck. I have family from NC, who still live there and know the Gardner family and their descendants. They live side by side. This is in no way real.
Ava Gardner was white trash through and through. A real cracker in the local parlance. Only her beauty and her sister's connections got her out of a lifetime of drudgery.
John B, born at the army base in Fayetteville, raised in CLT after a stint in St.Paul from 3-8 and finished up I'm RDU until 29. Where you be?
We have others that visit here (RenoBlondie) from NC as well. Miss home ..... Sometimes. Miss the weather mostly. And family too I must add.
Y'all are very interesting today
Melungeons originated in the Cumberland Gap area of Central Appalachia. It was Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Eastern Tennessee were Melungeons resided. They were also called Redbones or Caramel Indians. I am from Southwest Virginia and never heard of Ava Gardner being a Melungeon, but my best friends parents lived in Lumberton, NC and there was always rumors she had Lumbee heritage
Hah, I love the way people from Gardner's hometown are calling this blind BS - better white trash or Indian than (gasp!) black. I guess old beliefs die hard in the South.
That said, it makes perfect sense now that she took the role of Julie in the remake of Showboat. She was pretty high-profile then, and taking the role of an African-American woman passing for white would have been beyond controversial in the 1950s. Brava to her - she was gorgeous, fearless and honest.
If this blind is true, Gardner playing Julie in the 1951 Show Boat takes on a whole new meeting.
@Joy - yeah, it's Geechee, not Gimchee. I must have had Korean food on my mind.
@john b. - Here's a link to Wiki on The Black Belt. It has a map of the area. I always heard it called The Black Crescent to compare with The Fertile Crescent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_%28U.S._region%29
Even in population statistics today, you can tell that long swath of land has a deep ethic history.
@Michael - That part of NC was home to many abolitionist southerners. Maybe it was because of the mixed blood. Maybe it was because everyone lived on the same (horrible) level. I didn't know Gardner was so supportive of African Americans.
@Sherry - Lumbees are mean drunks and slightly crazy, or that's their reputation. I heard that Lumbees worked a lot of skyscraper construction in the cities of NC. No one would dare visit their neighborhoods on weekends, unless they were invited, and then things were just wild there.
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