Date of Birth
1 February 1901,
Cadiz, Ohio, USA
16 November 1960,
Los Angeles,
California,
USA (
heart attack)
William Clark Gable
Nickname
Gabe
The King The King of
Hollywood Pa (by
Carole Lombard)
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Mini Biography
Clark Gable's mother died when he was seven months old. At 16 he quit high school, went to work in an Akron (Ohio) tire factory and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. In 1924 he reached Hollywood with the help of Portland, Oregon, theatre manager Josephine Dillon, who coached and later married him (she was 17 years his senior). After playing a few bit parts he returned to the stage, becoming lifelong friends with Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (for Barrymore and Darryl F. Zanuck), Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931) the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star. At one point he refused an assignment and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened one Night (1934), which won him an Oscar. He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939). When his third wife Carole Lombard died in a plane crash returning from a War Bond drive, a grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. He announced during filming of The Misfits (1961) that, for the first time, he was to become a father. Two months later he died of a heart attack. He was laid to rest beside Carole Lombard at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
for his
performance in
Frank Capra's classic It Happened
one Night.
The next year saw a starring role in The
Call of the Wild with
Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter). Divorced in 1939, he later that same year starred in
Gone with the Wind.
In
March 1939
Clark married
Carole Lombard, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the
plane in which
Carole and her mother were flying crashed into
Table Rock Mountain,
Nevada, killing them both.
CLARK then volunteered to be drafted and served in Europe for several years. After the
War he continued with his film career and married
Silvia Ashley, the
widow of
Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949. Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952.
In July 1955 he married a former
sweetheart,
Kathleen Williams Spreckles and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and
Bunker, and in 1960 Kay discovered that
she was expecting their first child. Several months prior to this
Clark became a
grandfather, when his daughter with
Loretta Young gave birth in November 1959. In
early November 1960, he had
just completed filming The Misfits, when he suffered a
heart attack, and died later that month.
He was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had
built for
Carole Lombard and her mother when they died. In
March 1961 Kay Gable gave birth to a boy whom
she named
John Clark Gable after his father.
Spouse
Pencil thin mustache that hugged his upper lip
Often played a virile, lovable rogue whose gruff facade only thinly masked a natural charm and goodness.
Distinctive, powerful voice.
Trivia
Adolf Hitler esteemed the film star above all other actors, and during the War offered a sizable reward to anyone who could capture and return Gable, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was flying combat missions over Germany, unscathed to him.
A few months after his Death, his wife gave birth to John Clark Gable. John is into racing and has appeared in at least one film.
Actress Judy Lewis is Clark's illegitimate daughter by actress Loretta Young.
1970s: His Encino, CA, estate was subdivided and turned into a very upscale tract development called "Clark Gable Estates.".
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, on the left hand side, next to Carole Lombard.
1995: Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#36).
It was at Gable's 36th birthday that Judy Garland sang "Dear Mr. Gable: You made Me Love You."
Gable's first two wives - Josephine Dillon and Ria Langham - were 14 and 17 years older than he was, respectively.
1942: He enlisted in the Army in honor of his late wife, Carole Lombard. she had been killed in a plane crash while on tour selling War bonds.
When he was first cast in It Happened one Night (1934) opposite Claudette Colbert, he told director Frank Capra that he would give the role a shot, but if things weren't going well after a few days, he would leave the production.
So durable, he could play the same role in both an original (Red Dust (1932)) with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor, and its remake (Mogambo (1953)) with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly.
When he was born he was mistakenly listed as a female on his birth certificate.
He disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. she thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.
Playing a cowboy in his last film, The Misfits (1961), which was also the final film for co-star Marilyn Monroe, the aging Gable diligently performed his own stunts, taking its toll on his already guarded health. He died from a heart attack before the film was released.
Pictured on one of four 25
