Final Years and Death
After a lifetime of smoking and alcohol, Gardner suffered from emphysema, a terminal disease, in addition to an auto-immune disorder (which may have been lupus).
Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although Gardner could afford her medical expenses, Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were reportedly, "I'm so tired," before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67.
Gardner died at her London home, 34 Ennismore Gardens, where she had lived since 1968.
Gardner was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her brothers and their parents, Jonah (1878–1938) and Mollie Gardner (1883–1943). The town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
Read more about this topic: Ava Gardner
Famous quotes containing the words final, years and/or death:
“Only in books the flat and final happens,
Only in dreams we meet and interlock....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Children of the middle years do not do their learning unaffected by attendant feelings of interest, boredom, success, failure, chagrin, joy, humiliation, pleasure, distress and delight. They are whole children responding in a total way, and what they feel is a constant factor that can be constructive or destructive in any learning situation.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Farewell deare flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye liv’d, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures.
I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since if my sent be good, I care not, if
It be as short as yours.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)