Clark Gable
- Category : Actor
- Type : MGE
- Profile : 5/1 - Heretical / Investigator
- Definition : Split - Small (22,36,42,52)
- Incarnation Cross : LAX Refinement 2
Categories
- Birth Year: 1901
- Birthday: 01. February
- Birthplace: Cadiz Junction, USA - Ohio
- Category: Actor
- Profile: 5-1
- Type: Emotional Manifesting Generator
- Inc.Cross: Refinement 2
- Definition: Double Split - Small (22,36,42,52)
- Variables: BLR-MRL
- 0515 Rhythm
- 0108 Inspiration
- 1034 Exploration
- 0214 Beat
- 2034 Charisma
- 1949 Synthesis
Biography
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor. His most famous role was in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at No. 7. Throughout the Hollywood industry, Gable, since the height of his career and, even today, has been called "The King of Hollywood."
Marriage to Carole Lombard
Gable's marriage in 1939 to his third wife, successful actress Carole Lombard, was the happiest period of his personal life. They purchased a ranch at Encino and once Clark had become accustomed to her often blunt way of expressing herself, they found they had much in common. This was despite the fact that Gable was a conservative Republican and Lombard a liberal Democrat.
On January 16, 1942, Lombard, who had just finished her 57th film, To Be Or Not To Be, was on a tour to sell war bonds when the twin-engine DC-3 she was traveling in crashed into a mountain near Las Vegas. Upon hearing the news, Gable flew to the scene and had to be forcibly restrained from climbing the snowcapped mountain himself in an effort to rescue her. After Lombard's body was recovered, he sobbed, "Oh, God! I don't want to go back to an empty house..."
Lombard's death, declared the first war-related female casualty the U.S. suffered during World War II, was the worst loss her husband ever endured. Gable lived out his life at the couple's Encino home, made 27 more movies, and married twice more. "But he was never the same," said Esther Williams. "His heart sank a bit."
Children
Gable had a daughter, Judy Lewis (b. 1935), the result of an affair with actress Loretta Young begun on the set of The Call of the Wild (1935). In an elaborate scheme, Young took an extended vacation and went to Europe to give birth. After her return, she claimed to have adopted Judy (a gambit that got less believable when the child grew to look much like her mother, with ears sticking out like Gable's).
According to Lewis, Gable visited her home once, but he didn't tell her that he was her father. While neither Gable nor Young would ever publicly acknowledge their daughter's real parentage, this fact was so widely known that in Lewis's autobiography Uncommon Knowledge, she wrote that she was shocked to learn of it from other children at school. Loretta Young would never officially acknowledge the fact, which she said would be the same as admitting to a "venial sin". However, she finally gave her biographer permission to include it only on the condition the book not be published until after her death.
On March 20, 1961, Kay Spreckels gave birth to Gable's son, John Clark Gable, born four months after Clark's death. She also had two children from her third marriage, Joan and Adolph Spreckels III (nicknamed "Bunker").
Death
He died in Los Angeles, California in November 1960, the result of a fourth heart attack. There was much speculation that Gable's physically demanding Misfits role, which required yanking on and being dragged by horses, contributed to his sudden death soon after filming was completed. In a widely reported quote, Gable's wife Kathleen blamed it on stress caused by "the endless waiting... waiting (for Monroe)". Monroe, on the other hand, claimed that she and Kathleen had become close during the filming and would refer to Clark as "Our Man". Monroe's claim is supported by her being specifically invited by Kathleen to Gable's funeral, where contemporary newsreels showed the two of them sitting together in the church.
Others have blamed Gable's crash diet before filming began. The 6'1" (185 cm) Gable weighed about 190 pounds (86 kg) at the time of Gone with the Wind, but by his late 50s, he weighed 230 pounds (104 kg). To get in shape for The Misfits, he dropped to 195 lbs (88 kg). For years, Gable's head would sometimes shake from the diet pills he would take to shed pounds before making a film, leading to rumors he had Parkinson's disease. In addition, Gable was in poor health from years of heavy smoking (three packs a day over thirty years) and drinking (he liked whiskey), and in the previous decade, had suffered two seizures which may have been heart attacks.
Gable is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, beside Carole Lombard.
