Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner: Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl's values.

Ava Gardner: Maybe I just didn't have the temperament for stardom. I'll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, "Miss Davis, I'm Ava Gardner and I'm a great fan of yours." And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. "Of course you are, my dear," she said. "Of course you are." And she swept on. Now that's a star.

Ava Gardner: [in 1985, on why she came out of retirement to appear on a prime-time soap opera] For the loot, honey, for the loot.

Ava Gardner: I wish to live until 150 years old but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

Ava Gardner: I made it as a star dressed, and if it ain't dressed, I don't want it.

Ava Gardner: What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in.

Ava Gardner: Everybody kisses everybody else in this crummy business all the time. It's the kissiest business in the world.

Ava Gardner: After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, "She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!"

Ava Gardner: I couldn't imagine a better place [Australia] for making a film on the end of the world.

Ava Gardner: I haven't taken an overdose of sleeping pills and called my agent. I haven't been in jail, and I don't go running to the psychiatrist every two minutes. That's something of an accomplishment these days.

Ava Gardner: I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

Ava Gardner: When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.

Ava Gardner: I have only one rule in acting -- trust the director and give him heart and soul.

Ava: All I ever got out of any of my marriages was the two years Artie Shaw financed on an analyst's couch.

Ava: I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood.

Ava (about acting): Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession.

Ava: What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted.

Ava: Deep down I'm pretty superficial.

Ava: I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.

Ava: Doing nothing feels like warm water to me.

Ava: Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off-screen. They couldn't have been more wrong.