Clark Gable

 

Franchot Tone + Douglas Walton + Clark Gable + Vernon Downing in Mutiny on the BountyClark Gable + Vivien Leigh in Gone with the windClark Gable + Jeanette MacDonald in San Francisco

Biography

Clark Gable

Clark Gable

Movie news

This week 52 years ago Run silent run deep premiered (March 27, 1958)

Born:

February 1, 1901

Born as:

William Clark Gable

Died:

November 16, 1960

Clark was born in Cadiz, Ohio. When he was 16 he dropped out of school and worked at many odd jobs before joining a traveling theater company. While he was in Hollywood he got extra work in White man (1924).

Gable's first big break came when he was cast in the lead of the Broadway play Machinal (1928). His Hollywood breakthrough came when he appeared as a gangster in the Joan Crawford vehicle Dance , Fools , Dance (1931). Gable's popularity continued to rise throughout the 30s with movies like Red dust (1932), It happened one night (1934) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). By the end of the decade he was known as the King.

Wary of period films after flopping in the costume drama Parnell (1937) Gable at first declined the role of Rhett Butler in the Margaret Mitchell best-seller, Gone with the Wind (1939).

When his wife died in 1942, Clark joined the airforce and received several medals for flying bombing missions over Germany. Gable returned to the screen in 1945 but he never regained the box-office standing he'd enjoyed before the war.

He gave a memorable performance in his last motion picture, The Misfits (1961) (also the final film for Marilyn Monroe) but by then he was exhausted on doing his own stunts and he died of a heart attack within a few days of the film's completion.

Academy awards:

1940 Nominated Best Actor for: Gone with the Wind (1939)
1936 Nominated Best Actor for: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
1935 Won Best Actor for: It Happened One Night (1934)

Selected Movies:

Books:

Gabe Essoe -> The Films of Clark Gable (1970)
Lyn Tornabene -> Long Live the King (1976)
Jane Ellen Wayne -> Clark Gable: Portrait of a Misfit (1993)

 

Clark Gable + Claudette Colbert in It happened one night

News

Poster of Run silent run deep

This week 52 years ago Run silent run deep premiered (March 27, 1958)

Trivia

Clark has a star on Hollywood Boulevard (Vine street).
It’s located one block south of Hollywood Boulevard.

Clark, who was during WW2 a lieutenant in the air force, flew five combat missions and was awarded the distinguished flying cross and the air medal. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1893-1946, Commander of the Luftwaffe) offered a reward to any German pilot shot Gable down. Source / More (Book)

Actor Gary Cooper: “Gone with the wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me”. Source / More (Book)

Clark has his handprints set in cement on Hollywood Boulevard (Hollywood, USA, in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater). Source / More (Web)

Upon his death, several newspapers throughout the country displayed the same banner headline: “The King is Dead.”

Clark disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.

Gable was dubbed the “King of Hollywood”

Clark and Carole Lombard were living together but were not married. In January 1939 Photoplay magazine revealed this and caused a near scandal. Terrified of accusations of immorality, the studio urged them to marry as soon as possible. They did in March 1939. Source / More (Book)

Bibliography