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Clark Gable
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Did you know: Even the greatest stars had to worry about personal hygiene. Gable was notorious for having bad breath due to his dentures and was something that his co-star, Vivien Leigh complained about during the making of Gone with the Wind!
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He fitted in well at MGM; his best friends there were the public relations man Howard Strickling and the director Victor Fleming, in whose company he frequently hunted and fished, golfed and sailed. The studio paid for the perfect set of dentures it was finally necessary for him to have; and also paid for surgery to pin back his ears.
Meanwhile Josephine Dillon had agreed to a divorce. She spoke of him with reluctant but calculated reticence:
'Clark told me frankly that he wished to marry Ria Langham because she could do more for him financially. He is hard to live with because his career and ambition always came first.'
Ria Langham became the second Mrs Clark Gable in New York on March 30, 1930, and they were married a second time in California on June 19,1931, because of a legal hitch. Ria Langham queened it in Beverly Hills film society, which was fitting enough because by the end of 1931 her husband was the acknowledged King of Hollywood. He was a star who would be in the Box-office top ten from 1932 to 1943, again from 1947 to 1949 after he had returned from the war, and for one more year in 1955.
Most of the time MGM reserved Gable, drawing on his powerful masculine image, to co-star with their galaxy of female stars, and he developed powerful screen partnerships with three of their greatest stars. Joan Crawford and he were together in eight features, Myrna Loy was with him seven times, and Jean Harlow was with him six times.
Gable's off screen relationships with Miss Loy and Miss Harlow were strictly platonic, friendly but strictly professional. Miss Crawford later confessed, however, that on several occasions, when they were both free from personal obligations they nearly ran away and got married but on each occasion came to their senses in time - their careers mattered more.
Gable also starred with Lana Turner in four films, with Norma Shearer in three, Constance Bennett twice and Helen Hayes twice. He made one appearance each with Greta Garbo and Jeanette MacDonald. He was in fact at some time or another teamed with every MGM female star except Marie Dressler.
Gable was at his best, however in a man's world, leading the Mutiny on The Bounty (1935), sorting out problems of the Air Force in Command Decision (1948), scouting Indian country in Across the Wide Missouri (1951). Also, say the name of Clark Gable and to most people it means Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind (1939), or Peter Warne, the newspaper reporter he played in It Happened One Night (1934); yet he hadn't wanted to play them or Bounty's Fletcher Christian. These were the three pictures for which he was honoured with Oscar Nominations (winning for It Happened One Night) - virtually the only three he fought against playing.
Gable was half crazy with grief. Lombard had always teased him about getting involved with the war and now it was all he wanted to do. He took time off from the nearly completed Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) to get a firm hold of himself. Then he finished the picture, and eventually joined up in August 1942. He was assigned to Officers Candidate School in Miami, Florida, and went overseas with the Eighth Air Force in 1943. Seven months later he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for 'exceptionally meritorious achievement while participating in five separate bomber combat missions' over Germany. Gable was promoted to the rank of Major and discharged shortly afterwards returned to work for MGM.
The studio did not know what to do with him: Gable had changed - so had the image of the movie hero. Adventure (1945) his comeback film, co starring him with Greer Garson, was a tedious, manufactured comedy. The Hucksters (1947), with Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner, had its moments but was largely a bore. Next to Parnell (1937), Homecoming (1948) - his third post-war film - is probably his most tiresome and embarrasing picture. The next two were better: Gable seemed to be at ease in uniform with an all male cast in Command Decision (1948); and in Any Number Can Play (1949), here as a casino owner. Most of his later films were disappointing, however. Even Mogambo (1953), Ford's remake of Red Dust, with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, which did very well at the box-office was tame in comparison to the earlier version and had little 'bezazz' except Miss Gardner.
He became the most expensive freelance actor in the business, working for a percentage of the gross. His pictures,though largely ineffective, were better than any he had made at MGM after returing from the war, and the made money. Gable also fell in love, and married for the fifth time. His new wife was beautiul Kay Spreckels; there was much about her that was not unlike Carole Lombard and for the first time since Lombard's death Gable was really happy.
His last film The Misfits (1961), written by Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston, was one of the best films he ever made. He played an ageing cowboy who is seeking one last perfect moment on earth and finds it in a beautiful divorcee (Marilyn Monroe).
Gable had a good time making the film but it was not an easy picture to work on. Filming it on location in Reno, the cast and crew had to put up with weather conditions of sheer hell - it was usually over 105 degrees fahrenheit. The action was far too strenuous for a man of Gable's years but he refused a double; Monroe, meanwhile, was exasperatingly difficult, never on time and unprofessional. But Gable was content. His wife was pregant,and he went around announcing,'It's going to be a boy.'
It was a boy - named John Clark Gable - but his father never lived to see him. Two days after completing his part in The Misfits, Clark Gable suffered a major heart attack and died on November 16, 1960, aged 59.
Between 1957 and 1961 many of the screen heart throbs of the thirties and fourties died, including Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart. But it was Gable's death that really signified the end of that generation of all-male, all-action movie heroes - for Gable alone had been the King of Hollywood....start.
1923 - Fighting Blood
1924 - White Man
1924 - Forbidden Paradise
1925 - Declassee/The Social Exile 1925 - The Peace Makers 1925 - The Merry Widow 1925 - The Plastic Age 1925 - North Star
1931 - The Painted Desert 1931 - Dance, Fools, Dance 1931 - The Easiest Way 1931 - The Finger Points 1931 - Laughing Sinners 1931 - The Secret Six 1931 - A Free Soul;Night Nurse 1931 - Sporting Blood 1931 - Susan Lennox: Her Fall And Rise 1931 - Possessed 1931 - Hell Divers
1932 - Polly Of The Circus 1932 - Strange Interlude 1932 - Red Dust 1932 - No Man Of Her own
1933 - The White Sister 1933 - Hold Your Man 1933 - Night Flight 1933 - Dancing Lady
1934 - Men In White 1934 - It Happened in One Night 1934 - Manhattan Melodrama 1934 - Chained 1934 - Forsaking All Others
1935 - After Office Hours 1935 - Call of The Wild 1935 - China Seas 1935 - Mutiny on The Bounty
1936 - Wife Vs Secretary 1936 - Screen Snapshots No.10 (short) 1936 - San Francisco 1936 - Cain and Mabel 1936 - Love on the Run
1937 - Parnell 1937 - Saratoga
1938 - Test Pilot 1938 - Too Hot To Handle
1939 - Idiot's Delight 1939 - Gone With The Wind
1940 - Strange Cargo 1940 - Boom Town 1940 - Comrade X
1941 - They met In Bombay 1941 - Honky Tonk
1942 - Somewhere I'll Find You
1943 - Combat America (military training short) 1943 - Wings Up (propaganda short,incorporating footage from Combat America) 1943 - Aerial Gunner (military training short)
1945 - Adventure
1947 - The Hucksters
1948 - Homecoming 1948 - Command Decision
1949 - Any Number Can Play
1951 - Across The Wide Missouri 1951 - Callaway Went That-A-Way
1952 - The Lone Star
1953 - Never Let Me Go 1953 - Mogambo
1954 - Betrayed
1955 - Soldier Of Fortune 1955 - The Tall Men
1956 - The King and Four Queens
1957 - Band of Angels
1958 - Teachers Pet 1958 - Run Silent, Run Deep
1959 - But Not For Me
1960 - It Started In Naples
Clark Gable Biography Books @ amazon.com (direct link)
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