Clark Gable

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February 1, 1901

November 16, 1960 Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

William Clark Gable

Josephine Dillon (m. 1924–1930) (divorced)

Maria "Ria" Franklin Printiss Lucas Langham (m. 1931–1939) (divorced)

Carole Lombard (m. 1939–1942) (her death)

Sylvia Ashley (m. 1949–1952) (divorced)

Kay Williams (m. 1955–1960) (his death)

Actor:

The Misfits (1961)

It Started in Naples (1960)

But Not for Me (1959)

Teacher's Pet (1958)

Run Silent Run Deep (1958)

Band of Angels (1957)

The King and Four Queens (1956)

The Tall Men (1955)

Soldier of Fortune (1955)

Betrayed (1954)

Mogambo (1953)

Never Let Me Go (1953)

Lone Star (1952)

Across the Wide Missouri (1951)

To Please a Lady (1950)

Key to the City (1950)

Any Number Can Play (1949)

Command Decision (1948)

Homecoming (1948)

The Hucksters (1947)

Adventure (1945)

Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)

They Met in Bombay (1941)

Honky Tonk (1941)

Comrade X (1940)

Boom Town (1940)

Strange Cargo (1940)

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Idiot's Delight (1939)

Too Hot to Handle (1938)

Test Pilot (1938)

Saratoga (1937)

Parnell (1937)

Love on the Run (1936)

Cain and Mabel (1936)

San Francisco (1936)

Wife vs. Secretary (1936)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

China Seas (1935)

The Call of the Wild (1935)

After Office Hours (1935)

Forsaking All Others (1934)

Chained (1934)

Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

Men in White (1934)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Dancing Lady (1933)

Night Flight (1933)

Hold Your Man (1933)

The White Sister (1933)

Strange Interlude (1932)

No Man of Her Own (1932)

Red Dust (1932)

Polly of the Circus (1932)

Hell Divers (1931)

Possessed (1931)

Susan Lenox (1931)

Sporting Blood (1931)

Night Nurse (1931)

A Free Soul (1931)

Laughing Sinners (1931)

The Secret Six (1931)

The Finger Points (1931)

The Front Page (1931) (uncredited)

Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)

The Easiest Way (1931)

The Painted Desert (1931)

Du Barry, Woman of Passion (1930) (uncredited)

One Minute to Play (1926) (uncredited)

The Johnstown Flood (1926) (uncredited)

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) (uncredited)

North Star (1925)

The Plastic Age (1925) (uncredited)

The Merry Widow (1925) (uncredited)

What Price Gloria? (1925) (uncredited)

The Merry Kiddo (1925) (uncredited)

Declassée (1925) (uncredited)

The Pacemakers (1925)

Forbidden Paradise (1924) (uncredited)

White Man (1924)

Fighting Blood (1923) (uncredited)

Appearances:

"The Moviemakers" (1 episode)

The 30th Annual Academy Awards 1958 (TV)

A Star Is Born World Premiere (1954) (TV) (uncredited)

The Ed Sullivan Show (1 episode, 1953)

Callaway Went Thataway (1951) (uncredited)

Screen Actors (1950) (uncredited)

Some of the Best (1949) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 23, No. 1: Hollywood in Uniform (1943)

Wings Up (1943) (voice)

Show Business at War (1943)

Combat America (1943) Narrator

You Can't Fool a Camera (1941)

Northward, Ho! (1940) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 9 (1939)

Hollywood Hobbies (1939) (uncredited)

Hollywood Goes to Town (1938)

Another Romance of Celluloid (1938) (uncredited)

Hollywood Party (1937)

The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 3 (1936)

Screen Snapshots Series 15, No. 8 (1936)

Starlit Days at the Lido (1935)

Hollywood Hobbies (1935)

Hollywood on Parade No. B-13 (1934)

Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933) (uncredited)

Hollywood on Parade No. A-6 (1933)

Screen Snapshots (1932)

The Christmas Party (1931) (uncredited)

Jackie Cooper's Birthday Party (1931)

Academy Awards

1940 Nominated Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Gone with the Wind (1939)

1936 Nominated Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

1935 Won Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role for: It Happened One Night (1934) In 1996, Steven Spielberg anonymously purchased Clark Gable's Oscar to protect it from further commercial exploitation, gave it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, commenting that he could think of "no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy"

Golden Boot Awards

2001 Centennial Award The award was accepted by Clark Gable's son, John Clark Gable.


Golden Globes

1960 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actor - Musical/Comedy for: But Not for Me (1959)

1959 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actor - Comedy/Musical for: Teacher's Pet (1958)

Laurel Awards

1958 3rd place Golden Laurel Top Male Comedy Performance for: Teacher's Pet (1958)


Walk of Fame (Hollywood)

Star on the Walk of Fame Motion Picture At 1610 Vine Street

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Clark Gable was nicknamed "The King of Hollywood." In the 1930s, he reigned as the epitome of onscreen masculinity - roughly wooing women, but not with the psychotic edge of a James Cagney, and setting female hearts aflutter without the Rudolph Valentino sissiness that alienated regular guys. Legions of fans of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1939) would allow no one but Gable to play the role of Rhett Butler, though Mitchell herself voted for Basil Rathbone.

Gable did bit parts and extra work in silent movies, but his manly growl was suited for the talkies: after a few gangland parts (The Secret Six, 1931; The Finger Points, 1931), he found himself ideally cast as the apparently cynical adventurer in Red Dust (1932), making love to Jean Harlow and Mary Astor and finding excuses to rip his shirt in the tropical heat. MGM kept him working with Joan Crawford (Dancing Lady, 1933) and Harlow (Hold Your Man, 1933), but his next breakout role came as a punishment. The studio passed him on to Frank Capra and Columbia Pictures to costar with Claudette Colbert in the screwball comedy romance road movie It Happened One Night (1934). Here was the bagle audiences loved - a man's man out to tame a hoity-toity skirt, crunching carrots and not wearing an undershirt. Gable won the Best Actor Oscar, and was confirmed as a major star in big roles in big pictures: the good-guy gangster in Manhattan Melodrama (1934), leader of the mutineers in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), and the gambler who learns a lesson during the earthquake in San Francisco (1936). Gable had a famous flop as the Irish politician in Parnell (1937), but bounced back in the all-time classic Gone with the Wind (1939). In the late 1930s, he was married to Carole Lombard - his costar only in No Man of Her Own (1932).

After Lombard's premature death in a plane crash in 1942, Gable quit Hollywood to serve in the U.S. air force. He returned to the screen as an older man, often in officer roles (Command Decision, 1948) or solid Westerns (Lone Star, 1952). In The Misfits (1961), his last film, he is an aging modern-day cowboy, but still virile enough to rope and land Marilyn Monroe.

Hollywood Romeo

Clark Gable was the epitome of a Hollywood leading man - ruggedly good looking, he got the girl on and off-screen. Early on in his career he was involved with a string of older women: some believe he was searching for a maternal substitute (his mother died during his infancy); others said that he was advancing his career. He married five times but the great love of his life was Carole Lambard; he was devastated by her death in 1942. On his womanizing Gable himself commented: "Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames I'm supposed to have jumped on, I'd have had no time to go fishing."

I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me.

I am intrigued by glamorous women . . . A vain woman is continually taking out a compact to repair her makeup. A glamorous woman knows she doesn't need to.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, on the left hand side, next to Carole Lombard.

When he was born he was mistakenly listed as a female on his birth certificate.

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

Gable was dyslexic, a fact which didn't emerge until several years after his death.

Had to have almost all of his teeth extracted in 1933 due to pyorrhea. The infection would have killed him had he not been rushed to a private hospital for treatment.

He served as a pallbearer and usher at Jean Harlow's funeral in 1937.

At the time of his death, his gun collection was valued at half a million dollars. He had a special gun room in his house filled with gold-inlaid revolvers, shotguns and rifles.

Turned down Cary Grant's role in The Philadelphia Story (1940) because he thought the film was too wordy.

Turned down Robert Mitchum's role in Home from the Hill (1960).

He turned down the role of Marcus Vinicius in Quo-Vadis (1951) because he thought the costume would make him look ridiculous.