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Ava Gardner was an actress from the 1940s to the 1980s. Surprisingly, Hollywood did not recognize the talents of this beautiful actress for years, because she had a long string of tiny or uncredited roles before she became a star! Some of her movies include: Mogambo (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), The Killers, On the Beach, The Barefoot Contessa, Bhowani Junction, and many others! She was married three times to famous celebrities: Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra. She also struck a friendship with Ernest Hemingway, who, after witnessing Gardner swim naked in his pool, told his staff "the water is not to be emptied"! She passed away in 1990 at the age of 67.

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Ava Gardner! Also note that although this still was "printed in Great Britain", it has full NSS information. We have been told by an expert that Columbia and MGM had a number of their color stills printed in Great Britain in the late 1950s and the early 1960s (the years vary between the two studios), no doubt because the English color printing was better than the U.S. color printing at this time. However, they were printed in Great Britain to be used in the U.S. (we have heard from many collectors who saw these color stills in U.S. theaters at the time these movies were released, but we have not heard from any English collectors who saw them used in England at that time). In the late 1960s and 1970s some studios started printing color stills like these in Italy, surely for the same reason (because Italian printers had better color printing during those years). But those stills printed in Italy were for use in the U.S., as these stills printed in Great Britain were for use in the U.S.

Note that this autographed 8x10 is part of a remarkable new collection we have been consigned, and we are auctioning nearly 500 items from this collection in this set of auctions (we will have more from this collection in our next few sets of autograph auctions).
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a high school teacher who taught a film class, and one day a week (and all through the summer) he ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits and one-sheets from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s, but increasingly greatly in the early 1980s, he hit on the idea of writing to famous celebrities, and enclosing an 8x10 from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He often was able to locate an 8x10 still from his collection that was from a really good movie from that star, or one that had a really good image of that star. In a relatively small number of cases, he did not have a still in his collection to send, so he bought a reproduction from a photo shop, and sent that instead, which is why some of the items that have this notation on them are reproductions.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this photo (and the vast majority of the other photos we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the mid-1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775