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Member Number: 4467
The son of an Ohio oil driller and farmer, American actor Clark Gable had a relatively sedate youth until, at age 16, he was talked into traveling to Akron with a friend to work at a tire factory. It was in Akron that Gable saw his first stage play, and, from that point on, he was hooked. Although he was forced to work with his father on the oil fields for a time, Gable used a 300-dollar inheritance he'd gotten on his 21st birthday to launch a theatrical career. Several years of working for bankrupt stock companies, crooked theater managers, and doing odd jobs followed, until Gable was taken under the wing of veteran actress Josephine Dillon. The older Dillon coached Gable in speech and movement, paid to have his teeth fixed, and became the first of his five wives in 1924. As the marriage deteriorated, Gable's career built up momentum while he appeared in regional theater, road shows, and movie extra roles. He tackled Broadway at a time when producers were looking for rough-hewn, down-to-earth types as a contrast to the standard cardboard stage leading men. Gable fit this bill, although he had been imbued with certain necessary social graces by his second wife, the wealthy (and, again, older) Ria Langham.
A 1930 Los Angeles stage production of The Last Mile starring Gable as Killer Mears brought the actor to the attention of film studios, though many producers felt that Gable's ears were too large for him to pass as a leading man. Making his talkie debut in The Painted Desert (1931), the actor's first roles were as villains and gangsters. By 1932, he was a star at MGM where, except for being loaned out on occasion, he'd remain for the next 22 years. On one of those occasions, Gable was "punished" for insubordination by being sent to Columbia Studios, then a low-budget factory. The actor was cast by ace director Frank Capra in It Happened One Night (1934), an amiable comedy which swept the Academy Awards in 1935, with one of those Oscars going to Gable. After that, except for the spectacular failure of Gable's 1937 film Parnell, it seemed as though the actor could do no wrong. And, in 1939, and despite his initial reluctance, Gable was cast as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, leading him to be dubbed the "King of Hollywood."
A happy marriage to wife number three, Carole Lombard, and a robust off-camera life as a sportsman and athlete (Gable enjoyed a he-man image created by the MGM publicity department, and perpetuated it on his own) seemed to bode well for the actor's future contentment. But when Lombard was killed in a 1942 plane crash, a disconsolate Gable seemed to lose all interest in life. Though far beyond draft age, he entered the Army Air Corps and served courageously in World War II as a tail-gunner. But what started out as a death wish renewed his vitality and increased his popularity. (Ironically, he was the favorite film star of Adolf Hitler, who offered a reward to his troops for the capture of Gable -- alive).
Gable's postwar films for MGM were, for the most part, disappointing, as was his 1949 marriage to Lady Sylvia Ashley. Dropped by both his wife and his studio, Gable ventured out as a freelance actor in 1955, quickly regaining lost ground and becoming the highest paid non-studio actor in Hollywood. He again found happiness with his fifth wife, Kay Spreckels, and continued his career as a box-office champ, even if many of the films were toothless confections like Teacher's Pet (1958). In 1960, Gable was signed for the introspective "modern" Western The Misfits, which had a prestigious production lineup: co-stars Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach; screenwriter Arthur Miller; and director John Huston. The troubled and tragic history of this film has been well documented, but, despite the on-set tension, Gable took on the task uncomplainingly, going so far as to perform several grueling stunt scenes involving wild horses. The strain of filming, however, coupled with his ever-robust lifestyle, proved too much for the actor. Clark Gable suffered a heart attack two days after the completion of The Misfits and died at the age of 59, just a few months before the birth of his first son. Most of the nation's newspapers announced the death of Clark Gable with a four-word headline: "The King is Dead." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Feature films
* White Man (1924)
* Forbidden Paradise (1924)
* Declassee (1925)
* The Merry Widow (1925)
* The Plastic Age (1925)
* North Star (1925)
* The Johnstown Flood (1926)
* One Minute to Play (1926)
* The Painted Desert (1931)
* The Easiest Way (1931)
* Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)
* The Finger Points (1931)
* The Secret Six (1931)
* Laughing Sinners (1931)
* A Free Soul (1931)
* Night Nurse (1931)
* Sporting Blood (1931)
* Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931)
* Possessed (1931)
* Hell Divers (1931)
* Polly of the Circus (1932)
* Red Dust (1932)
* No Man of Her Own (1932)
* Strange Interlude (1932)
* The White Sister (1933)
* Hold Your Man (1933)
* Night Flight (1933)
* Dancing Lady (1933)
* It Happened One Night (1934)
* Men in White (1934)
* Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
* Chained (1934)
* Forsaking All Others (1934)
* After Office Hours (1935)
* China Seas (1935)
* The Call of the Wild (1935)
* Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
* Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
* San Francisco (1936)
* Cain and Mabel (1936)
* Love on the Run (1936)
* Parnell (1937)
* Saratoga (1937)
* Test Pilot (1938)
* Too Hot to Handle (1938)
* Idiot's Delight (1939)
* Gone with the Wind (1939)
* Strange Cargo (1940)
* Boom Town (1940)
* Comrade X (1940)
* They Met in Bombay (1941)
* Honky Tonk (1941)
* Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)
* Adventure (1945)
* The Hucksters (1947)
* Homecoming (1948)
* Command Decision (1948)
* Any Number Can Play (1949)
* Key to the City (1950)
* To Please a Lady (1950)
* Across the Wide Missouri (1951)
* Callaway Went Thataway (1951) (cameo)
* Lone Star (1952)
* Never Let Me Go (1953)
* Mogambo (1953)
* Betrayed (1954)
* Soldier of Fortune (1955)
* The Tall Men (1955)
* The King and Four Queens (1956)
* Band of Angels (1957)
* Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
* Teacher's Pet (1958)
* But Not for Me (1959)
* It Started in Naples (1960)
* The Misfits (1961)
[edit] Documentaries and short subjects
* The Pacemakers (1925) (short subject)
* The Merry Kiddo (1925) (short subject)
* What Price Gloria? (1925) (short subject)
* The Christmas Party (1931) (short subject)
* Jackie Cooper's Birthday Party (1931) (short subject)
* Screen Snapshots (1932) (short subject)
* Hollywood on Parade No. 9 (1933) (short subject)
* Hollywood Hobbies (1935) (short subject)
* Starlit Days at the Lido (1935) (short subject)
* Hollywood Party (1937) (short subject)
* The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937) (short subject)
* Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject)
* Screen Snapshots: Stars on Horseback (1939) (short subject)
* Hollywood Hobbies (1939) (short subject)
* Northward, Ho! (1940) (short subject)
* You Can't Fool a Camera (1941) (short subject)
* Combat America (1943) (documentary)
* Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
* Wings Up (1943) (short subject)
* Screen Snapshots: Hollywood in Uniform (1943) (short subject)
* Screen Actors (1950) (short subject)
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Water under the bridge The Daily Astorian, OR - So William Clark Gable, who would go on to be one of Hollywood's most beloved film idols, got his big break. Astoria resident Marian Olson thinks those ... |
Fill er up Mirror, MI - Ó Sue Gable was buying gas there Monday, and she said it costs Òabout halfÓ what it used to to fill her gas tank. With the state Ñ and the country Ñ locked ... |
Buzz Briefs: Mel Gibson, Brian Williams CBS News, NY - Next year's 70th anniversary of the movie "Gone With the Wind" is bringing new attention to star Clark Gable's eastern Ohio hometown. ... |
The great escape: Easy-going films in hard times Scotsman, United Kingdom - Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert were among the best-known faces of the screwball genre, directed by the likes of Frank Capra and Howard ... |
Step back in time Saturday at annual Historic Homes Tour Times-West Virginian, WV - It features the original gable front porch and exposed roof rafter tails capped in copper. • The Hunsaker-Ice-Murphy House, 1683 Fairmont Ave., ... |
Audrey E. Gable Portsmouth Herald News, NH - ... she was the oldest of five children of William and Ruby (Smith) Ayotte. Audrey is survived by her children, son Robert and wife Katherine Gable of Wells ... |
Morgan High School honors fall student-athletes Morgan County Herald, OH - The team’s lone second-year letter winner was sophomore Will Gable. Garnering their first varsity letters in soccer were sophomores Seth Golcar, ... |
Morgan High School Honor Roll Morgan County Herald, OH - SOPHOMORES: 4.0 Honor Roll – Laurie Ewart, William Gable, Dari Harlow, Taylor Hite, Mideya Kinney, Devon McGrath, Tosha Peters, Sierra VanHorn, Kayla West; ... |
 New York Times | Forever Screwball, Forever Fearless New York Times, United States - Probably the best role Lombard ever had was that of a Vermont woman named Hazel Flagg, who, in William A. Wellman’s “Nothing Sacred” (1937), fakes a fatal ... |
CBJ: Property Transfers & Building Permits Charlottesville Daily Progress, VA - ... extending front porch, adding a gable and pergola, reroofing, $18000, $62.97. l Steigman, William F. III or Leigh Ann, finish basement for family room, ... |
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