“On Gracie’s birthday, we got a bottle of champagne...and had a little party out in the tent,” Gardner recalled of their time shooting on location in Africa in her autobiography, Ava: My Story.

“Later, we did the same thing for mine. And after that, no matter where in the world I was, every year a birthday present would arrive from [her]. She never forgot, and every year at Christmas, she sent a handwritten card,” Gardner said. “She was a great lady and also great fun.”