Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (Cádiz, Ohio, February 1, 1901-Los Angeles, November 16, 1960) was an American actor, considered one of the best actors in classic cinema.
His moment of splendor was in the 1930s, from the blockbusters of The Mysterious Six (George Hill) or A Free Soul. Gable won an Oscar for best leading actor for It Happened One Night, a 1934 film. Despite this, he is best known for his role as Rhett Butler in the film classic Gone with the Wind he took away, a film released in 1939. In 1935 he had also been nominated for an Oscar for his role in Mutiny on the Bounty (Mutiny on board). In the 50s, his star remained thanks to some successes, especially in westerns or comedy, among which Mogambo stands out, and the actor himself declared that he was waiting for the opportunity to close his career with A great film. He did not find it until in 1960 when he starred in his last role in a mythical film for many reasons: Rebel Lives , alongside Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Its filming wrapped on November 4, 1960, twelve days before Gable's death. The film was released on February 1, 1961.
Early Years
1901–1919: Birth and Youth
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cádiz, Ohio, the son of William Henry "Will" Gable (1870–1948), an oil driller, and his wife Adeline (née Hershelman). His father was Protestant and his mother Catholic. Gable was given the first name William by his father, but he was almost always called Clark, and was referred to as & # 34; the boy & # 34; by his father. Due to the doctor's illegible handwriting, he was erroneously registered as a girl in the county register, having to be corrected later by the clerk. Gable came from a family of German and Belgian ancestry.
Gable was baptized when he was six months old by the Catholic tradition in Dennison, Ohio. When he was just 10, his mother died, his father uprooted him from the Catholic faith, angering the Hershelman family. The dispute was resolved when his father allowed the boy to spend time with his maternal uncle Charles Hershelman and his wife on their farm in Vernon, Pa. In April 1903, Gable's father married Jennie Dunlap (1874 –1920).
Gable's stepmother transformed the long, shy, soft-spoken boy into an elegant and distinguished boy. He also received piano lessons in his own home. He later took up brass instruments, becoming the only boy in the Hopedale Men's town band at age 13. Gable was drawn to the subject of car mechanics with his father, who insisted that he engage in masculine pursuits such as hunting and hard physical labor. Gable also loved literature; he could recite Shakespeare among his closest companions, especially the sonnets.
His father ran into financial difficulties in 1917 and decided to leave the farm and moved his family to Palmyra, Ohio, near Akron, Ohio. His father insisted that he work on the farm, but Gable soon left him to work in Akron for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.
1920–1923: Early Performing Years
Gable decided to become an actor after seeing the play The Bird of Paradise when he was 17, but was unable to start acting until he was 21 where he received a $300 settlement with Hershelman. After the death of his stepmother in 1920, his father moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, returning to his oil drilling business. He worked with his father for a time, removing sludge in the Oklahoma oil fields before heading to the Pacific Northwest.
Gable began touring with second-tier companies, but left it to work in lumber mills and other odd jobs. He made his way through the Midwest to Portland, Oregon, where he would work as a salesperson at Meier & Frank. Also working there was local stage actor Earle Larimore, (Laura Hope Crews' nephew who played Aunt Pittypat opposite Gable in 'Gone with the Wind') who encouraged Gable to return to acting. Although Larimore did not invite him to join his theater group The Red Lantern Players, he did introduce him to one of its members, Franz Dorfler. After the pair auditioned at The Astoria Players, Gable's lack of training was apparent, but he was accepted by the drama group after cajoling Larimore. Gable and Dorfler moved to Astoria, Oregon, making trips until their bankruptcy. Afterwards, he then returned to Portland, where Gable got a day job with Pacific Telephone and began taking drama lessons at night.
Gable's acting coach in Portland was Josephine Dillon. She herself gave him the money to have his teeth fixed and his hair done. She guided him in building his chronically malnourished body, and taught him better body control and posture. Little by little he managed to lower his naturally high-pitched voice, his speaking habits improved and his facial expressions became more natural and convincing. After a long period of training him, Dillon considered Gable ready to attempt a film career.
Film career
1924–1930: Silent film debut
Gable and Dillon traveled to Hollywood in 1924. Dillon became his manager and also his wife. She was 17 years older than he. He changed his name from W. C. Gable to simply Clark Gable and appeared as an extra in some silent films such as Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow (1925).), Schoolboy Days (The Plastic Age) (1925) starring Clara Bow and Forbidden Paradise (1924) starring Pola Negri. He appeared in such two-reel comedies as The Pacemakers and in the Fox production The Johnstown Flood (1926). He also appeared in some short films.However, since the production companies did not offer him important roles, he returned to the theater with the play What Price Glory? (1925).
He became a close friend of Lionel Barrymore, who initially scolded Gable for what he considered amateurish acting, but nevertheless urged him to pursue a theatrical career. During the 1927–28 theater season, he acted with the Laskin Brothers Stock Company in Houston, Texas. While there, he played many roles, gained considerable experience, and became a local matinee idol.He moved to New York, where Dillon found him a job on Broadway. He received good reviews in Machinal (1928), where critics described him as a "young, vigorous, masculine brutality."
Gable and Dillon separated, signing their divorce in March 1929, while he began work on the play Hawk Island in New York, in which he gave 24 performances. In April 1930, he would marry Texan socialite Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham, nicknamed "Ria". After moving to California, they married again in 1931, possibly due to differences in state legal requirements.
1930–1935: Early Stardom
In 1930, after his impressive appearance as the seething and desperate character Killer Mears in the Los Angeles stage production of The Last Mile, Gable was offered a contract with Pathe Pictures. His only film for them was the role of villain in the low-cost production of The Painted Desert (1931). The studio ran into financial problems after the film's release, so Gable left to sign with Warner Bros.
That same year in Night Nurse, Gable plays the villain who knocks Barbara Stanwyck's character unconscious for trying to save two children whom he methodically starves to death. This role was intended for James Cagney until the premiere of The Public Enemy catapulted him to stardom and he resigned from the role. "His ears are too big and he looks like an ape," Warner Bros. executive Darryl F. Zanuck said of Gable, after auditioning for the cast of the gangster film Golden Underworld (Little Caesar) (1931). After failing a screen test with Zanuck, Gable signed in 1930 to MGM for $650 a week. He hired the well-connected Minna Wallis, sister of producer Hal Wallis, as his agent, whose clients included actresses Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, and Norma Shearer.
Gable's arrival in Hollywood came as MGM was looking to expand its pool of male stars, and it delivered as expected. He made two movies in 1931 with Wallace Beery. In the first, he had an incredibly well-crafted supporting role in The Secret Six, although his role wasn't technically supporting. Subsequently, he then landed a second high school performance with nearly as many screen minutes as Beery, who was the film's star, in the naval aviation film Hell Divers. MGM publicity director Howard Strickling began pitching Gable's studio image in Screenland magazine by playing off his 'lumberjack in evening gown'.
To cement his popularity, MGM began pairing him with major female stars, and some of them took an interest in him. This is the case of Joan Crawford who asked for him to appear with her in Dance, Fools, Dance (Dance, Fools, Dance) (1931). Their chemistry was recognized by executive Louis B. Mayer, who would not only cast them in seven more films, but also began filming Complete Surrender, replacing John Mack Brown as Crawford's partner and renaming the title for Laughing Sinners (1931). His fame after A Free Soul (A Free Soul) (1931), in which he plays a gangster takes a new leap to Norma Shearer. After that, Gable never had a supporting role again. In fact, he received an avalanche of letters from fans about his portrayal, and the studio took note. The Hollywood Reporter called him "a star in the making, one who, By our reckoning, he'll outrank all the other stars... We've never seen audiences get more excited than when Clark Gable walks on screen."
Gable co-starred in Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931) with Greta Garbo, and in Possessed (1931), a film about an illicit affair, with Joan Crawford (then married to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.). Adela Rogers St. Johns later dubbed Gable and Crawford's real-life relationship "the romance that nearly burned down Hollywood." Louis B. Mayer threatened to cancel both contracts, and for a time, they became They were kept apart when Gable switched his attention to Marion Davies while co-starring with her in Polly of the Circus Girl (1932). Gable was considered to play Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man, but they were awarded to Johnny Weissmuller for his larger physique and ability to swim. Gable then went to work on the romantic film project Strange Interlude (Strange Interlude) (1932), again with Shearer, the second of three films they worked on together for MGM.
Following this, Gable starred opposite Jean Harlow in the romantic comedy Red Dust (1932) set on a chub plantation in Indochina. Gable plays the plantation foreman with Harlow's prankster prostitute; However, upon her arrival, Gable's character began to pursue Mary Astor's prim and elegant newlywed.While some critics claimed that Harlow had stolen scenes from her, many agreed that Gable was a magnetic character.
His unshaven look of Gable against a braless Jean Harlow in "Red Dust" made him MGM's most important romantic lead. With Gable enshrined as a star, MGM took advantage of his wake to cast Myrna Loy, a less important actress, in two projectsː Night Flight (Night Flight) and Men in White from 1933 (although the latter was delayed in release due to the Legion of Decency making cuts until 1934). The relationship of the doctor (Gable) and the nurse (Loy) ended in an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a touchy subject for both the star.
Gable and Harlow met again in Hold Your Man (1933), China Seas (1935), in which the couple shared billboards with Wallace Beery, and Between wife and secretary (Wife vs. Secretary) (1936) with Myrna Loy and a virtually unknown James Stewart. In all, six movies in five years in a combination that shone on and off the screen. Their final film together was Saratoga (1937), an even greater success than their previous collaborations. Harlow died during production, when shooting was 90 percent complete. The remaining scenes were long shots and using doubles as Mary Dees. Gable said he felt as if she had "a ghost in her arms."
In 1934, MGM didn't have any ready projects that Gable was interested in, for which he was paid $2,000 a week. Studio head Louis B. Mayer dropped the actor off to Columbia for $2,500 a week. Gable was not Capra's first choice to play reporter Peter Warne in the comedy It Happened One. Night) (1934) opposite Claudette Colbert who plays a pampered heiress. But Columbia wanted it and had paid handsomely for it. He was originally offered the role to Robert Montgomery but he said he turned it down, feeling the script was poor.
"It Happened One Night shows us the authentic Gable. He was never able to repeat a record like that except in this movie. They had him playing these big lovers, but he wasn't that kind of person. He was a guy with his feet on earth, he loved everything, messed with ordinary people. I didn't want to play those big lover roles. I just wanted to play Clark Gable, and that was seen in It Happened One NightAnd it's a pity they wouldn't let him follow that pace. |
The filming, in which Gable and Colbert's characters have to travel together from Florida to New York by any means available, began with a somewhat tense atmosphere; Capra enjoyed the shoot. It Happened One Night became the first film to win all five major Oscars, with Gable taking the Oscar for Best Actor and Colbert for Best Actress. "Critics hailed the fast-paced farce that would enter a whole new romantic genre: the screwball comedy." The film started sluggish at the box office but the word-of-mouth effect made it a success. Even men's underwear sales plummeting because Gable didn't wear an undershirt in the film.
It Happened One Night elevated Gable to the heights of stardom. From 1934 until 1942, when World War II interrupted his career, he was consistently high on the box-office star list..
Gable's first film on his return to MGM was riot leader Fletcher Christian, in what Gable himself called his friend Irving Thalberg as "Englishman in panties and cocked hat" and of which he told Tharlbeg himself at the end of filming "I stink in it". Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) was another commercial success and received eight Oscar nominations, including three Best Actor nominations for Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone. The film cost two million and earned 4.5, being one of the best projects of the decade. In 1935, Clark Gable was the protagonist of a sex scandal. He was allegedly accused of raping his co-star Loretta Young while they were traveling on an overnight train from a studio to Hollywood.
1936–1938: Collaborations with Spencer Tracy
Gable made three films with Spencer Tracy, boosting Tracy's career and permanently cementing them in the public mind as a tandem. San Francisco (1936), with Jeannette MacDonald, where it took Tracy only 17 minutes to get an Oscar nomination as a Catholic priest, who knocks out Gable in a ring. The film returned to to be a ticklish hit and are remembered as one of the greatest hits of Gable's career. Their next film together was another popular hit Test Pilot (1938), with Myrna Loy, who made seven films with Gable. There Gable plays Jim Lane (the test driver that gives the title its name) while Tracy is the mechanic Gunner Morse.
Their third and final collaboration was Golden Fruit (Boom Town) , Tracy would play a bigger role, with the title title directly under Gable and above Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. The film, a lavish epic about two savage oilmen who become partners and then rivals, was a box office success, earning $5 million. Gable and Tracy were off-screen friends and drinking partners. In fact, Tracy was one of the few Hollywood industry stars to attend Lombard's private funeral. After Boom Town, there were no further collaborations between Gable and Tracy. Tracy's success led to negotiations for a new contract, and both stars had conflicting terms that required more cache for MGM and therefore more spending.
1939: Gone with the Wind
Despite his brilliant career, Gable is best known for his performance in Gone with the Wind (1939). Butler's last line in the movie Gone with the Wind, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn), is one of the most famous phrases in the history of cinema.
Carole Lombard was the first to suggest that he could play Rhett Butler (and she played Scarlett) when she bought the book, which he had refused to read. for the role of Rhett to both audiences and producer David O. Selznick. Since Selznick had no stars under contract, he had to negotiate with another studio to loan him the actor. Gary Cooper was Selznick's first choice.When Cooper turned down the Butler role, he was quoted as saying:
"What the wind took It's gonna be the biggest failure in Hollywood history. I'm glad it's Clark Gable who falls for witches, not me."
By then, Selznick was convinced to hire Gable, and set out to find a way to borrow him from MGM. Gable was afraid of potentially disappointing an audience that had decided no one else could play the part. He later admitted: "I think now I know how a fly should react after getting caught in a web."
By all accounts, Gable got along well with the co-stars and was great friends with African-American actress Hattie McDaniel; he even passed him a real alcoholic drink during the scene where they were celebrating the birth of Scarlett and Rhett's daughter. According to film extra Lennie Bluett, Gable almost left the set when he discovered that the studio segregated and signaled between "White" and "Color." Gable called the film's director Victor Fleming and told him, "If you don't take down those signs, he won't have his Rhett Butler." He got the signs taken down. Gable tried to boycott his appearance at the movie's Atlanta premiere, because McDaniel herself and Butterfly McQueen weren't allowed to go. According to the chronicles, it was only after McDaniel begged him to come. Gable and McDaniel appeared in other films, were lifelong friends, and always attended their Hollywood parties.
Gable couldn't cry at the scene after Rhett inadvertently causes Scarlett to lose her second child. Olivia de Havilland made him cry, after commenting, "Oh, he wouldn't. He wouldn't! Victor (Fleming) tried everything with him. He tried to attack him on a professional level. We had done it without him crying several times and then we had one last try. I said, 'You can do it, I know you can do it, and you will be gorgeous ...' Well, across the sky, just before the cameras start rolling, you could see the tears welling up in his eyes. He put his whole heart into it.”
Years later, Gable said that whenever his career began to wane, a reissue of Gone with the Wind would soon revive his popularity, making him a standout actor for the rest of his life. A hyped reissue of "Clark Gable never gets tired of hugging Vivien Leigh".
Marriage to Carole Lombard
His relationship and marriage to Gable in 1939 to his third wife, the actress Carole Lombard (1908–1942), was one of the happiest periods of the actor's personal life. They met on the set of the film 1932 Married by Chance (No Man of Her Own), when Lombard was still married to actor William Powell. But the relationship did not begin until 1936, when they met again at a party. From there, they were inseparable with magazines citing them as an official couple.
Gable personally settled on being close to Lombard's youthful, charming and outspoken personality, once stating:
"You can trust that little nut your life, your hopes or your weaknesses, and she wouldn't even know how to think about disappointing you.".
Gable was still legally married, dragged out by negotiations in the divorce from his second wife, Ria Langham. The pact came when he got paid for Gone with the Wind and allowed him to settle a divorce with her on March 7, 1939. On March 29, during a break in production Gone with the Wind, Gable and Lombard were married in Kingman, Arizona and honeymooned in room 1201 of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. They bought a ranch belonging to director Raoul Walsh in Encino, California. for $50,000 and made it their home. The couple who called themselves "Ma and Pa", had a large number of animals such as chickens and horses.
With the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Hollywood stars joined the war effort, some like James Stewart joining the front lines. Carole Lombard sent a telegram to Franklin D. Roosevelt on Gable's behalf expressing her interest in doing so. But Roosevelt thought the 41-year-old actor could be better served with more patriotic movie roles and bond campaigns, and Lombard began relentlessly selling them.
On January 16, 1942, Lombard was a passenger on Transcontinental and Western Air Flight 3 with her mother and her press agent Otto Winkler. He had finished his movie To Be or Not to Be, and was on his way home from a successful war bond selling tour when the flight's DC-3 plane crashed. crashed into Potosí Mountain near Las Vegas, killing all 22 passengers on board, including 15 servicemen en route to training in California. Gable flew to the site of the tragedy to claim the bodies of his wife, his mother-in-law, and Winkler, who had been best man at his wedding. Lombard was declared the first American female casualty of World War II, and Gable received a personal condolence from President Roosevelt. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation into the flight ruled that the cause of the crash was pilot error.
Gable returned to her Encino ranch and carried out her funeral wishes as she had requested in her will. A month later, he returned to the studios to work with Lana Turner on their second film together, Somewhere I'll Find You. Looking gaunt and having lost weight in the tragedy, Gable was emotionally devastated but Turner recalls that Gable was "extremely professional" during filming Although he made 27 more films and married two more times, Esther Williams recalls that "He was never the same again."
1939–1942: Career before going to the front
Between his marriage to Lombard and her death, Gable continued his career, accompanying Norma Shearer in the thriller Idiot's Delight (1939). She there she plays a nightclub singer who doesn't recognize former love (Shearer) as the Nazis close in on guests at a hotel on the brink of war. The film is memorable for Gable's song and dance routine, "Puttin 'on the Ritz" and the alternate ending.
Gable also starred in Strange Cargo (1940), a romantic drama starring Joan Crawford, Peter Lorre and Ian Hunter. The film centers on Devil's Island where a convicts want to escape from the penal colony. Along the way, Gable picks up a local artist (Crawford). This would be their eighth and final film together, and according to critics, Gable and Crawford "proved their screen magic again". The film was in the top ten highest-grossing films of the year. .
Gable made his first film with 20-year-old star Lana Turner, a young woman whom MGM saw as a successor to both Crawford and the recently deceased Jean Harlow. I love this man (Honky Tonk) (1941) is a Western in which Gable's con man/gambler character falls in love with Turner, the daughter of a prim young judge. Gable had been reluctant to act opposite the young Turner in scenes required romances. But their chemistry carried over to the screen with Honky Tonk finishing third at the box office that year. In fact, the pair became popular and reunited in Somewhere I'll Find You (1941) where they play two war correspondents who travel to the Pacific theater and are caught in a Japanese attack. The film was another success, finishing in eighth position of the highest grossing films of 1942. film historian David Thomson wrote that the quality of his films after Gone with the Wind "hardly befitting a national idol" and the decline of Gable's career began.
1942–1944: World War II
On August 12, 1942, after Lombard's death and the completion of filming on Somewhere I'll Find You, Gable enlisted in the United States Air Force. it had to not be made as part of the war effort, but MGM was reluctant to let it go. Air Force Commander Henry H. "Hap" Arnold offered him a "special assignment" in the First Cinematographic Unit after basic training.
The Washington Evening Star wrote that Gable took a physical at Bolling Field on June 19, a preliminary exam to enlist in the army.
"According to sources outside the war department, Mr. Gable has been assigned the role of making films for the air forces. Lieutenant Jimmy Stewart, also an actor, is already doing this."
Gable had previously expressed an interest in officer school with the intention of becoming an air gunner by enlisting in bomber school. MGM arranged for his studio friend, cinematographer Andrew McIntyre to enlist with him and accompany him during training. On August 17, 1942, shortly after his enlistment, he and McIntyre were sent to Miami Beach, where they entered the USAAF OCS Class 42-E. Both completed training on October 28, 1942, where they were promoted to second lieutenant. His class of approximately 2,600 students (of whom he ranked 700) selected Gable as his commencement speaker. General Arnold then informed her of his special assignment: to make a combat recruitment film with the Eighth Air Force to recruit air gunners. Gable and McIntyre were immediately sent to the Flexible Gunnery School at Tyndall Air Force Base, later taking a photography course at Fort George Wright and being promoted to first lieutenant at Washington State University.
On January 7, 1943, Gable went to Biggs Military Airfield, Texas to train and accompany the 351st Bombardiers to England as head of a motion picture unit. In addition to McIntyre, he was joined by screenwriter John Lee Mahin, camera operators Sergeant Mario Toti and Robert Boles, and sound engineer Lt. Howard Voss. Gable was promoted to captain while with this unit at Pueblo Military Airfield, Colorado, a rank commensurate with his position as unit commander. (Prior to this, he and McIntyre were first lieutenants.)
Gable spent most of 1943 in England at RAF Polebrook with the 351st. Gable flew five combat missions, including one to Germany, as an observer in the B-17 Flying Fortress between May 4 and September 23, 1943, earning the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his work. During one of his missions, Gable's aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire and attacked by fighters, which knocked out one of the engines and fired on the stabilizer. In the raid on Germany, one crewman was killed and two others wounded, and flak went through Gable's boot and narrowly missed his head. When word of this reached MGM, studio executives began hounding the Army Air Forces into reassigning their most valuable screen actor to non-frontline duties. In November 1943, Gable returned to the United States to edit his film, in a former Warner's studio donated to the war effort, assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit) in Culver City, California, where other stars also contributed whatever footage they had.
In June 1944, Gable was promoted to major. While awaiting another combat assignment, he had been commissioned inactive duty and on June 12, 1944, his discharge papers were signed by Captain Ronald Reagan. Gable completed editing for the film Combat America in September 1944, providing the voice for the narration himself and using numerous interviews with enlisted gunners as the focus of the film. Because his film production schedule made it impossible for him to fulfill reserve officer duties, he resigned his commissioned on September 26, 1947, a week after the Air Force became an independent service.
Adolf Hitler held Gable in high esteem above all other Hollywood actors. During World War II, Hitler offered a hefty reward to anyone who could capture and bring Gable back unharmed.
Gable was honored for his services with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
From his experiences in the war, they were used as an acting technique in the film Sublime decision (Command Decision) (1948), where he plays a World War II brigadier who supervises the bombing raids on Germany. Variety said, "His is a believable performance, playing the brigadier general who must send his men to near-certain death with an understanding that demonstrates his sympathy for the soldier.".. & # 3. 4;.
1945–1953: After World War II
Immediately discharged from the service, Gable returned to his ranch to rest. Personally, he rebuked his relationship with Virginia Grey, his partner in films such as Test Pilot and Idiot's Delight and who the newspapers said could be the next Mrs. Gable. On a professional level, Gable's first post-war film was Adventure (Adventure) (1945), with Greer Garson, then the glittering star of MGM. With the tagline "Gable is back, and Garson's got it", the film was a huge success, grossing almost $6 million, although critics turned their backs on it.
Gable was lauded for his performance in The Hucksters (1947), a satire on corruption and immorality on Madison Avenue, in which he co-starred with Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner. The film was very successful, ranking eleventh in the most viewed films of the year, but both Variety and The New York Times criticized the film version of the novel, which called the screen time in which Gable was on screen heavy.
Gable continued his career with his participation in La rivala (Homecoming) (1948), where he plays a doctor who enlists in World War II to find himself the character of a surgical nurse in the army of Lana Turner with a romance that develops in flashbacks. Later, she worked on the war film Sublime decision (Command Decision) (1948), a psychological drama with Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Brian Donlevy and John Hodiak. It was a popular success but MGM lost money due to the high cost of its cast.
Gable went on to make a series of films with female partners: Play It! (Any Number Can Play) (1950) with Alexis Smith, The Keys Key to the City (1950) with Loretta Young and Indianapolis (To Please a Lady) (1950) with Barbara Stanwyck. Although they did well at the box office, his two westerns were much more successful: Beyond the Missouri (Across the Wide Missouri) (1951) and Star of Destiny (Lone Star) (1952). In 1953, he worked on Don't Leave Me (Never Let Me Go) (1953) together to Gene Tierney. Tierney was one of Gable's favorite actresses and he was very disappointed when, due to mental problems, she had to be replaced by Grace Kelly in Mogambo .
Mogambo (1953), directed by John Ford, was a somewhat sanitized and more action-oriented remake of Gable's hit Red Dust, with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor. Ava Gardner, in her third appearance with Gable, was well received in the title role of Harlow, as was Kelly in the role of Astor, and both received Academy Award nominations, Gardner for Lead Actress and Kelly for Supporting Actress. While in Africa, rumors began to surface of an affair between Gable and Kelly (the result of the stars' private dinners), but their relationship was an intense friendship according to Gardner, and Kelly herself commented on the lack of any sexual aspect, "maybe because of the age difference". year, his biggest hit since returning to MGM after the war.
1954: Gable leaves MGM
Despite the positive reviews for Mogambo, Gable grew increasingly annoyed by what he considered mediocre roles being offered to him by MGM. For his part, the studio considered his salary to be excessive. Studio head Louis B. Mayer was fired in 1951, amid falling revenues and rising production costs in Hollywood, due in large part to the growing popularity of television. The new studio head, Dore Schary, struggled to keep the profits for the studio. Many longtime MGM stars were fired or had their contracts not renewed, including Greer Garson and Judy Garland.
Gable refused to renew his contract. His last film with MGM was Betrayed (1954), an espionage drama with Turner and Victor Mature. Critic Paul Mavis wrote, "Gable and Turner just don't click like they should here... bad plots and lines never stopped these two professionals from getting good performances in other movies." In March 1954, Gable left MGM.
1955–1957: After MGM
His next two projects would be for 20th Century Fox: Appointment in Hong Kong (Soldier of Fortune) (1995), an adventure with Susan Hayward, and The Tall Men) (1955), a western with Jane Russell and Robert Ryan. Both were correct, although with a modest reception from the public. In any case, Gable was able to get the first fee from him in the royalties section.In 1955, Gable was still among the top ten highest-grossing actors (the last time he would rank that high).
That same year, Gable married for the fifth time, Kay Spreckels (née Kathleen Williams). A model and actress who in turn had three marriages to her credit. Gable became the stepfather of Bunker Spreckels, who enjoyed notable fame as a surfer in the 1960s and 1970s until he died in 1977.
Gable also participated in the creation of Russ-Field-Gabco in 1955, a production company with Jane Russell and her husband Bob Waterfield, and with which they produced A king for four queens (The King and Four Queens) (1956), a film in which Gable once again shares the bill with Russell and with moderate success. For his part, it was Gable's only experience as a producer, which he found too much work, especially if he also had to act.
Later, he left the Universal-International project Away All Boats (Away All Boats), to embark on the Warner Bros. Band of Angels (1957), together with Yvonne De Carlo and a very young Sidney Poitier. The film was not well received, despite Gable's similarities to Rhett Butler. Newsweek said, "Here is a movie so bad it must be seen to be disbelieved."
1958–1960: Paramount
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Then he joined Doris Day in Enséñame a quierer (Teacher's Pet) (1958), shot in black and white for Paramount. And soon after, she filmed Torpedo (also in 1958), alongside Burt Lancaster (also a producer) and which featured her first on-screen death since 1937. Gable began receiving television offers, but he flatly rejected them. At 57, Gable finally recognized: "Now is the time to act at my age," her contracts began to include among their clauses that her shooting sessions had to end at five in the morning. late.
His next two films would be light comedies for Paramount: But Not for Me (1959) with Carroll Baker, and Capri (It Started in Naples) (1960) with Sophia Loren. Capri, was written and directed by Melville Shavelson and in which he is basically cast for the beauty of Loren. The film was a box office success and was nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction and two Golden Globe Awards, one for Best Picture and one for Best Actress. Filmed primarily in Italy, it was Gable's last film in color. While there, Gable's weight had increased to 104 kilos, something he put down to the pasta, and he began a crash diet to achieve a target weight of 88, along with briefly quitting drinking and smoking, in order to pass a required physical. for his next film.
On February 8, 1960, Gable received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1608 Vine Street.
1961: Rebel Lives
Her last film was The Misfits (Rebel Lives), directed by John Huston and co-starring Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe. Many critics claim that Gable's performance was the finest of his career, and Gable, after seeing the takes, agreed with that, even though he received no Oscar nominations for it. Arthur Miller wrote the screenplay for his wife Monroe his; It was about two aging cowboys and a racer who go mustang riding in Reno, Nevada, and they all fall for a blonde. In 1961, it was somewhat of a disconnect with its anti-hero western themes, but it has since become a classic.
Painter Al Hirschfeld created a work portraying the stars of the play (Clift, Monroe, Gable and screenwriter Miller), in what is suggested as a typical "on the set" during a production problem. In a 2002 documentary, Eli Wallach recalled the mustang wrestling scenes that Gable insisted on doing himself: "You have to pass a physical to film that" and "he was a professional going home at 5 p.m. with a pregnant wife". The New York Times described Gables performance "as a leathery old cowboy with a down-to-earth bent on most things simple" ironically vital, with his death before the film's release.
Death
Two days after finishing filming Rebel Lives, Gable suffered a coronary thrombosis and after an apparent recovery, a repeat heart attack ten days later caused his death on November 16, 1960 in Los Angeles, at age 59. Medical staff did not perform CPR for fear the procedure would affect Gable's heart, and a defibrillator was not available.
He was buried with his wife Carole Lombard and her mother in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, Los Angeles. Spencer Tracy and James Stewart served as pallbearers.
Personal life
Marriages, romances and children
Gable was married five times. He was engaged to actress Franz Dorfler when she lived in Astoria, Oregon. She would go on to become his acting coach and manager, Josephine Dillon. Gable and Dillon were married in 1924 and divorced in 1930. Gable would say "he owed her a debt of gratitude" Because of the training he received from Dillon in the early years of his career, his second wife was Texan socialite Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham. The couple divorced on March 7, 1939. Just 13 days later, during the production of Gone with the Wind, Gable married actress Carole Lombard, who would die in a plane crash. three years later.
In 1948, he had a brief affair with Paulette Goddard before, a year later, he married Sylvia Ashley, a model and actress who had previously been the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. The relationship was deeply disappointing and they divorced in 1952.
In 1955, Gable married Kay Spreckels (née Kathleen Williams), a model and actress who had previously been married to heir Adolph B. Spreckels, Jr., and became stepfather to their two children. On March 20, 1961, Kay Gable was born his only biological son, John Clark Gable, in the same hospital where his father died months before. John Clark did car and truck races like the Baja 500 and 1000, and turned down offers from Hollywood to act until Bad Jim (1990), a direct-to-video film. In 1999, his work with the Clark Gable Foundation helped restore the house where his father was born and open it as a museum. in Cadiz, Ohio, he had two children: Kayley Gable (born 1986) and Clark James Gable (1988–2019). Kayley is an actress, while Clark James was the host of two seasons of the national reality show Cheaters. Clark James would die at age 30 on February 22, 2019.
During the filming of The Call of the Wild in 1935, lead actress Loretta Young allegedly became pregnant by Gable. Her daughter Judy Lewis was born in Venice, California on November 6, 1935. Young hid her pregnancy in an elaborate scheme. Nineteen months after her birth, she claimed to have adopted the baby.Most in Hollywood (and some in the general public) believed Gable was Lewis's father due to her close resemblance and the coincidence of the birth. her.
Five years after Gable's death, when confronted by Lewis, Loretta Young said that she was Lewis' biological mother and that Gable was his father through an affair. Young died on August 12, 2000; her autobiography, published posthumously, confirmed that Gable was indeed Lewis's father. Judy Lewis would die of cancer at age 76 on November 25, 2011. In 2014, Young's daughter-in-law alleged that Young had said in 1998 that Judy Lewis was conceived as a result of a rape but Young had to say was the product of an affair with Gable. She also claimed that this was a known secret in Hollywood at the time but that they had chosen to remain silent.
Politics
Gable considered himself a conservative Republican, though he rarely discussed politics in public. His third wife, Carole Lombard, was a liberal Democratic activist, and it was she who convinced him to support Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. In 1944, he was part of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an anti-communist organization along with Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, among others. In February 1952, he attended a televised rally in New York where he enthusiastically urged General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president, when both parties were still seeking Eisenhower as their candidate. Although he suffered several coronary thromboses, Gable voted by mail for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.
Style like a star
Doris Day said of Gable that "He was as masculine as any man she had ever known, and both a little boy and a grown man wanted to be just like him. It was this combination that had such a devastating effect on the women."
His partner and friend Joan Crawford said of him on the David Frost show in January 1970 that "He was a king wherever he went. He earned the title. He walked like one, carried himself like one, and was the most masculine man I've ever met in my life. Gable had balls."
For his part, Robert Taylor said Gable "was a great, great guy, and certainly one of the greatest stars of all time, if not the greatest. I think I sincerely doubt there's another like Clark Gable; he was one of a kind from him."
In his memoir, Bring on the Empty Horses, David Niven wrote that Gable was a close friend of his and a great support after the sudden and accidental death of Niven's first wife, Primula (Primmie), in 1946. Primmie had emotionally supported Gable after Carole Lombard's death four years earlier. Niven remembers Gable kneeling at Primmie's feet and sobbing as she held him and comforted him. Niven also claims that Arthur Miller, the author of The Misfits, had described Gable as "the man who didn't know how to hate."
But Gable was also criticized for altering aspects of a script that he felt conflicted with his image. Screenwriter Larry Gelbart, as stated in James Garner's biography stated that Gable, "... refused to go on a submarine on set from the movie Torpedo because Gable didn't want to drown."
Eli Wallach said in his 2006 autobiography The Good, The Bad and Me that one of his most dramatic performances of his life in The Misfits was cut from the final footage. Wallach's character was emotionally crushed when he visits Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) and instead meets Gable's character and realizes that any hope with Roslyn is dashed. Gable demanded (according to his contractual rights) that that scene be removed, and when Wallach spoke to him, Gable explained that he felt "his character of him would never steal a woman from a friend.";
Filmography
Awards and distinctions
- Oscar Awards
| Year | Category | Movie | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1935 | Best actor | It happened one night. | Winner |
| 1936 | Best actor | Mutiny on the Bounty | Nominee |
| 1940 | Best actor | What the wind took | Nominee |
- Golden Globe Awards
| Year | Category | Movie | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Best actor - Comedy or musical | Teacher's Pet | Candidate |
| 1960 | Best actor - Comedy or musical | But Not for Me | Candidate |
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