Clark Gable

William Clark Gable
1901 - 1960
American born Cadiz, Ohio

Nickname Gabe, The King, The King of Hollywood . Height 6' 1" (1.85 m) . 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. Spouse Kay Williams (11 July 1955 - 16 November 1960) (his death) 1 child, Sylvia Ashley (20 December 1949 - 21 April 1952) (divorced), Carole Lombard (29 March 1939 - 16 January 1942) (her death), Maria "Ria" Franklin Printiss Lucas Langham Gable
(19 July 1931 - 4 March 1939) (divorced), Josephine Dillon (13 December 1924 - 1 April 1930) (divorced).

The Misfits (1961) , It Started in Naples (1960) , But Not for Me (1959) , Teacher's Pet (1958) , Run Silent Run Deep (1958) , Band of Angels (1957) , The King and Four Queens (1956) , The Tall Men (1955), Soldier of Fortune (1955) , Betrayed (1954) , Mogambo (1953) , Never Let Me Go (1953) , Lone Star (1952) , Across the Wide Missouri (1951) , To Please a Lady (1950) , Key to the City (1950) , Any Number Can Play (1949) , Command Decision (1948) , Homecoming (1948) , The Hucksters (1947) , Adventure (1945) , Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) , Honky Tonk (1941) , They Met in Bombay (1941) , Comrade X (1940) , Boom Town (1940) , Strange Cargo (1940) , Gone with the Wind (1939) , Idiot's Delight (1939) , Too Hot to Handle (1938) , Test Pilot (1938) , Saratoga (1937) , Parnell (1937) , Love on the Run (1936) , Cain and Mabel (1936) , San Francisco (1936) , Wife vs. Secretary (1936) , Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) , The Call of the Wild (1935) , China Seas (1935) , After Office Hours (1935) , Forsaking All Others (1934) , Chained (1934) , Manhattan Melodrama (1934) , Men in White (1934) , It Happened One Night (1934), Dancing Lady (1933) , Night Flight (1933) , Hold Your Man (1933) , The White Sister (1933) , Strange Interlude (1932) , No Man of Her Own (1932) , Red Dust (1932) , Polly of the Circus (1932) , Hell Divers (1931) , Possessed (1931) , Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931) , Sporting Blood (1931) , Night Nurse (1931) , A Free Soul (1931) , Laughing Sinners (1931) , The Secret Six (1931) , The Finger Points (1931) , The Front Page (1931) , Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) , The Easiest Way (1931) , The Painted Desert (1931) , One Minute to Play (1926) , The Johnstown Flood (1926) , Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) , North Star (1925) , The Plastic Age (1925) , The Merry Widow (1925) , What Price Gloria? (1925) , The Merry Kiddo (1925) , Declassée (1925) , The Pacemakers (1925) , Forbidden Paradise (1924) , White Man (1924)