The Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield was recently ranked No. 2 in the country.

Livability.com, a website that rates quality of life in towns across the U.S., featured the downtown museum in an article on the "Top 10 Fun and Unusual Museums." The website's editors wrote that they "went digging for these weird museum gems in dynamic cities across the U.S."  and the hometown homage to Gardner  came out near the top.

The museum ranked just ahead of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Great American Dollhouse Museum in Danville, Ky. But the National Museum of Roller Skating in Lincoln, Neb., edged out the Ava Museum for the top spot.

Click here to read what the website had to say about the museum.

November is "Ava Gardner Month" on the Turner Classic Movie channel.

Throughout the month, TCM will be showing three dozen Ava Gardner films, from the well known ("Barefoot Contessa," "On the Beach," "Show Boat") to the lesser known ("Kid Glove Killer," "Calling Dr. Gillespie," "This Time for Keeps").

The movies will be shown on Thursday and Friday nights throughout the month.

Gardner is a native of Smithfield and there's an Ava Gardner Museum in downtown Smithfield (325 E. Market Street). You can get more information on Gardner at the museum's website or by calling 919-934-5830. 

Check out the complete schedule of November's Ava Gardner movies at TCM.com.