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 and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust 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, which won him an Oscar. He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. 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 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.


The Misfits (1961): $750,000 + $58,000 for each week of overtime
Soldier of Fortune (1955): $100,000
Any Number Can Play (1949): $241,250
Strange Cargo (1940): $7,500/week
Gone with the Wind (1939): $120,000
Test Pilot (1938): $4,000/week
Dancing Lady (1933): $2,500/week
Hold Your Man (1933): $2,000/week
Strange Interlude (1932): $2,000/week
Polly of the Circus (1932): $650/week
Hell Divers (1931): $650/week
Susan Lenox (1931): $650/week
Sporting Blood (1931): $650/week
A Free Soul (1931): $650/week
The Secret Six (1931): $650/week
Dance, Fools, Dance (1931): $650/week
The Painted Desert (1931): $750/week
Forbidden Paradise (1924): $7.50/day

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. Actress Judy Lewis is Clark's out-of-wedlock daughter by actress Loretta Young. The two had a romance during the filming of The Call of the Wild (1935). Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, on the left hand side, next to Carole Lombard. It was at Gable's 36th birthday that Judy Garland sang "Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You." 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. 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. He disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob. Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued on 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp features Gable and Vivien Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind (1939). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), Stagecoach (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Gable was dyslexic, a fact which didn't emerge until several years after his death. Joined the Army Air Corps during the Second World War, and was commissioned an officer with service number 565390. Rose to the rank of captain and served primarily in Public Affairs, making training films and performing public relations visits to soldiers and airmen in Europe. He was seriously considered to play Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), but he was deemed an unknown and Johnny Weissmuller was chosen instead. Was Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's inspiration for half of Superman's alter ego name Clark Kent ("Kent" came from Kent Taylor). 1952: His widow, Kay Williams, divorced her previous husband, Adolph Spreckels Jr., heir to the Spreckels Sugar fortune. In the divorce papers she alleged that he beat her with one of her slippers. His widow, Kay Williams, was born August 7, 1917, and died in May of 1983. Named the #7 greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends List by the American Film Institute Served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II making training films. Also trained as an aerial gunner, he flew 5 combat missions with the 8th Air Force's 351st Bombardment Group (Heavy) while making his films and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. Is portrayed by James Brolin in Gable and Lombard (1976), Bruce Hughes and Shayne Greenman in Blonde (2001) (TV), Charles Unwin in Lucy (2003) (TV), Larry Pennell in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980) (TV), Edward Winter in The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980) (TV), Boyd Holister in Grace Kelly (1983) (TV) and Gary Wayne in Malice in Wonderland (1985) (TV). Prior to making The Misfits (1961), he crash-dieted from a bloated 230 lbs. to 195 lbs. Twice in the previous decade he had suffered seizures that might have been heart attacks; once, ten years earlier, while driving along a freeway he had chest pains so severe that he had to pull off the road and lie down on the ground until he felt well enough to continue on. Gave his Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934) to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death. 1933: Underwent cosmetic surgery on his ears and teeth. He served as a pallbearer and usher at Jean Harlow's funeral in 1937. When MGM remade Red Dust (1932) in 1953 as Mogambo (1953), Ava Gardner played the Jean Harlow part, Grace Kelly had the Mary Astor role, and Gable played his old part. Only Gable could fill Gable's shoes, even 21 years later. 11/6/60: Gable was devastated to learn of the unexpected death of his close friend Ward Bond from a heart attack. Shortly afterwards Gable himself suffered a massive heart attack, and died ten days later in the hospital. He is the second cousin of film producer Thomas R. Bond II, President of American Mutoscope & Biograph, a motion picture and entertainment company. Some sources say he turned down the role of Colonel William Travis in The Alamo (1960) because he didn't want to be directed by John Wayne. However this seems unlikely, since Travis was 26 at the time of the battle, and Gable would have been 58 when the movie was filmed. Despite his dyslexia, Gable became an avid reader. He would never allow himself to be photographed reading on film sets, fearing it would undermine his macho screen image. He was an early member of the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. During his time on Broadway Gable worked as a stage gigolo, performing stud services for such actresses as Pauline Frederick and Laura Hope Crews, who were considerably older than he. His much older first wife served as his first acting coach and paid for his false teeth. Later he married a woman seventeen years his senior, Texan heiress Maria Franklin Gable, who had underwritten his successful assault on Hollywood. He was a conservative Republican, although his third wife Carole Lombard, a liberal Democrat, encouraged him to support President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal reforms. In February 1952 Gable addressed a televised rally at Madison Square Gardens in New York in support of the Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, and a few days before his death he voted by post for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. 3/15/46: Was injured in a car crash at the traffic circle at Sunset Blvd. and Bristol Ave. in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. According to a press release from MGM, Gable was driving east on Sunset Blvd. and had entered the south half of the traffic circle when he was struck by another car, whose driver apparently had become confused by the "round-about" and was driving in a westerly direction on the same arc of the circle. Gable drove his car over a curb to avoid hitting the the other car, and it struck a tree, throwing him against the steering wheel. He was treated at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for a bruised chest and a cut on his right leg that required stitches. The driver of the other car drove away from the site without checking on Gable or reporting the accident. The hit-and-run accident gave rise to the urban legend that Gable had struck and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, an incident that allegedly was covered up by MGM. Though reported in several biographies, there is no basis in fact for the allegations. 11/16/60: Gable sat up in his hospital bed while reading a magazine and suffered his fourth and final heart attack. He was dead within seconds and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. 1948: Proposed marriage to Nancy Davis. 1999: The American Film Institute named Gable among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #7. His private funeral service at the Church of the Recessional in Forest Lawn Park was attended by 200 mourners including Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, James Stewart, Norma Shearer, Ann Sothern, Marion Davies, Frank Capra, Robert Stack, Jack Oakie, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Van Johnson and Howard Strickling, Gable's longtime publicity man at MGM. There was no eulogy. The closed casket was adorned with yellow roses shaped like a crown, befitting the one-time King of Hollywood. 11/5/60: His heart attack happened when he was changing a tire on his jeep. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend of Gable's, sent him a message of support wishing him a speedy recovery. His favorite drink was whiskey. In the mid-1950s he started to receive television offers but rejected them outright, even though some of his peers, like his old flame Loretta Young, were flourishing in the new medium. Well known for his pipe smoking, sustaining at least two bowlfuls a day. To this day he still has pipes named after him. In order to expedite divorce from his second wife Ria in order to marry Carole Lombard, Gable paid his ex-wife a $500,000 settlement in 1939, nearly everything he had at the time. As a teenager his voice was very high-pitched, however with vocal training he was able to lower it over time. His voice later proved a major asset in his climb to fame. He disliked his most famous film Gone with the Wind (1939), which he regarded as "a woman's picture.". He was highly patriotic, a staunch anti-communist and a firm believer in military intervention. Among the political leaders he admired were President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Sir Winston Churchill and King George VI. Until John Wayne's stardom eclipsed Gable's in the late 1940s, many Americans thought of Gable as THE American star. On Easter weekend, 1935, Gable flew to Houston to give away step-daughter Jana in her marriage to Dr. Thomas Burke. Met his second wife Ria when he was in a play. Her brother, actor Booth Franklin, brought her backstage and introduced them. In order to hide that she and Gable had an illegitimate child, fearing that it would ruin both of their careers, Loretta Young secretly gave birth to her daughter Judy Lewis pretending she was vacationing in Europe. When she returned to Hollywood, she claimed that Judy was adopted. Gable met Judy only once when she was a teenager. Died on the first birthday of his granddaughter, Maria. Turned down Robert Mitchum's role in Home from the Hill (1960). Although discharged from the US air force early in 1944, he refused to make another movie until the war had ended. Had a fear of flying, and made all long journeys across America by train.