The Story of Hollywood’s Leading Heartthrob and His One True Love, Which Death Didn’t Erase

One of the most popular actors in Hollywood history was reputed to be a Don Juan and the most desirable man in North America. It was said that no woman who looked into his eyes, even for a second, could resist his charm. Clark Gable had many partners, married 5 times, but he really loved only one woman: Carole Lombard. Furthermore, her heart continued to belong to her even after her tragic death.

O awesome.club will tell you the details of the life of the King of Hollywood, full of love, adventure, drama and passion that could inspire a full series or a multi-volume novel.

After the death of his stepmother, the future actor worked as a tie salesman, lumberjack and telephone operator. Afterwards, he got a job as a clerk in a theater, while dreaming of one day going on stage. His dream came true at the age of 20, when he got his first role. But the director did not like Clark’s performance, and he did not receive further stage invitations.

One time, Gable was in Portland, where he met the acting teacher Josephine Dillon🇧🇷 She saw the young man’s talent and was so fascinated that she decided to make him a star. She paid for the boy’s dental treatment, chose a haircut, taught him to better control his body and posture. Together, they worked on diction and voice, which Clark even managed to tone down.

Over time, romantic feelings arose between the two and, in 1924, after moving to Los Angeles, they got married – a curiosity is that Josephine was 17 years older than Clark. She became his manager, convinced him to stop using his first name (William), and got her husband small silent film roles. She also gave him the nickname “the king of Hollywood”. Years later, he would indeed be.

Clark and Josephine lived together for 6 years. During that time, he acted in several films and began to gain popularity: his fans liked his powerful voice and appearance. The actor divorced Josephine in 1931 and married Maria Langham, a high-society woman, the daughter of an oil tycoon. Interestingly, she was also 17 years older.

Maria wanted her husband to be a world star and therefore began to invest a lot of money in his promotion. In 1931, for example, he made 12 films. And in 1934 he worked on It Happened That Night, which brought him national glory. And most importantly, he received the first and only Oscar of his career for the role of Peter Warne.

Gable became the embodiment of the brave and strong man all Americans wanted to be. That’s why the actor was so fond of women. He knew how to use this role and had many relationships. His wife put up with Clark’s adventures for a long time, but in the end, in 1939, they decided to divorce. Maria managed to keep half of her ex-husband’s estate.

Gable was not distressed, for he already loved another woman. A month after the divorce, he married the popular actress Carole Lombard🇧🇷 It was she, as the actor himself later admitted, who became the only love he did not forget until the end of his days.

They met in 1932 on the set of a movie and at first did not like each other. In 1936, they crossed paths again at a party and then found a common language. A few months later, they saw each other again at a popular club, and then at an expensive restaurant, after which their inexhaustible love began.

At that time, the actor was still married to Maria, so the lovers saw each other in secret. But a month after the divorce, during a break from filming…Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard got married. It was a very modest ceremony, so the young couple began a quiet, ordinary life on their ranch near Hollywood.

They didn’t live like other Hollywood celebrities: they didn’t have a tennis court, no swimming pool, no private movie theater. Carole kept horses and Clark kept chickens, and they also had lots of dogs and cats. They went hunting and loved to spend the night in a tent in the woods. The couple was truly happy. Gable wasn’t interested in other women. They called each other “Pa” and “Ma” and planned to have children. But her attempts were unsuccessful: Carole suffered two miscarriages, and after numerous visits to doctors, it became clear that she could never be a mother. The actress stopped acting in comedies and, from then on, preferred to play dramatic roles.

So they lived together for 5 years. Then World War II began. When, in late 1941, the United States entered the conflict, the government asked celebrities to participate in a fundraising program for military needs. Carole began campaigning, persuading her husband to accompany her. But Clark was limited by his movie studio contract and couldn’t go anywhere.

One day, the actress, along with her mother and publicist Clark Otto Winkler, who was a close family friend, went to her home state of Indiana for another demonstration. After the event, she decided to return home by train, as her mother and Otto were too scared to fly. But Carole wanted to get back to her husband as soon as possible and persuaded them to go by plane (she proposed tossing a coin and won).

On the morning of January 16, 1942, they boarded a plane bound for California. They arrived safely in Las Vegas to refuel. But after leaving the airport, the pilot failed to reach sufficient altitude and crashed into a mountain. The 22 people on board died.

When Gable learned of the tragedy, he immediately went to Las Vegas and demanded that he go along with the bodies of his wife, mother-in-law and Winkler. Even overcome with pain, he was not allowed to go to the accident scene. One of his friends went up into the mountains with rescuers and gave Gable the ruby ​​earrings that the actor had given Carole not long ago. A few days later, the artist’s wife was buried with her mother. So he decided that he too wanted to be buried next to Carole.

After the death of his beloved, the actor did not stop making films, but “it was not the same Clark Gable”. As actress Esther Williams later said, he “was devastated by Carole’s death.” The actor began to live a solitary life, drank to the point of unconsciousness, did not receive visitors and lay for days with the pillow that still had the scent of his beloved. He didn’t even allow the maid to dust off Carole’s room. At one point, Clark, thin and aging, seemed to have decided to play with death, and on August 12, 1942, he became a combat pilot and volunteered for the front lines.

Gable was trained and assigned to the No. 351 bomber group. He spent all of 1943 in England, making periodic flights, some to Germany. Once, his plane was attacked, and one crew member was injured and two others died. A bullet passed through the actor’s boot. There was no pilot more intrepid and desperate than he, all his companions said that Gable looked like he was looking for the same death that his Carole had.

Upon learning of what had happened, the MGM studio, with which Clark was still contractually bound, did everything possible to ensure that the artist returned home alive. In June 1944, he left the military and returned to his ranch, but again began drinking and riding his motorcycle at high speeds, telling friends that he “wasn’t looking for death, I just didn’t want to live.”

At the same time, Gable continued acting in films and starting new relationships. He even got married Sylvia Ashley, a model and actress known for her marriages to aristocrats and movie stars. Clark and Sylvia didn’t really seem to love each other, and in 1952, after 3 years of marriage, they divorced.

Clark with Sylvia Ashley (left) and with Kay Williams (right).

Then he had romances with Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Lana Turner, Nancy Davis (Ronald Reagan’s future wife — he was an actor and later was President of the United States) and many others. And in 1955, Gable married for the fifth time. His choice was a young woman named Kay Williams🇧🇷 She was very similar to Carole and that was why Clark asked her to marry him. But the actor could not find the unique happiness and love he had felt for his late wife.

As befits a true “King of Hollywood,” Gable died of a heart attack in 1960 while filming The Misfits🇧🇷 That movie, by the way, was also Marilyn Monroe’s last. Kay Williams buried her husband where her heart had long been: with his third wife, her one true love: Carole Lombard. And 4 months after her husband’s death, Kay Williams gave birth to a baby boy named John Clark Gable, the actor’s only official child.

Not long ago, it was known that Gable had a daughter named Judy, born in 1935, the result of an extramarital relationship with actress Loretta Young. However, the artist never officially recognized the girl and only saw her once. The young woman, for her part, also did not announce her paternity, even though she became very similar to the actor when she grew up. She learned the truth about who was her father only after his death. And the information was made public only in late 2011, after Judy passed away.

Judy Young (Lewis) with her mother, Loretta Young.

Did you know that the King of Hollywood had such a brilliant and tragic fate?