Ava Gardner Museum

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The Ava Gardner Museum is located in historical downtown Smithfield, North Carolina and holds an extensive collection of artifacts from Ava Gardner's career and private life.

The museum was started in 1941 by a fan, Tom Banks, who saw a photograph of Gardner in a newspaper. The Banks devoted most of their lives to collecting memorabilia from every source imagined. In 1989, Mr. Banks purchased the house that Gardner grew up in from ages 2-13 and managed his own Ava Gardner museum. He suffered a stroke at the museum a few days later and died. Gardner died five months later on January 25, 1990. In the summer of 1990, Mrs. Banks donated the collection to the Town of Smithfield for the maintenance of a permanent, authorized museum in Ava Gardner's hometown.