The Region - News from Oct. 28, 1986

Actress Ava Gardner, who brought simmering sensuality to such films as “The Killers” and “The Barefoot Contessa,” was fighting pneumonia in a Santa Monica hospital, hospital officials said. Gardner, 64, flew to Los Angeles from her London home and checked into St. John’s Hospital and Health Center on Oct. 6, spokesman Armen Markarian said. The actress, a leading lady of the 1940s and ‘50s, was being attended by Dr. William Smith, her physician of the past 40 years, who expected her to be released next week.