109 Facts About Clark Gable

1.

Clark Gable was one of the most consistent box-office performers in the history of Hollywood, appearing on Quigley Publishing's annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll sixteen times.

2.

Clark Gable was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.

3.

Clark Gable appeared opposite many of the most popular actresses of their time.

4.

Clark Gable starred with Lana Turner in four features, and in three each with Norma Shearer and Ava Gardner.

5.

William Clark Gable was born on February 1,1901, in Cadiz, Ohio, to William Henry "Will" Gable, an oil-well driller, and his wife Adeline.

6.

Clark Gable's father was a Protestant and his mother a Catholic.

7.

Clark Gable was six months old when he was baptized at a Roman Catholic church in Dennison, Ohio.

8.

Clark Gable's father refused to raise him in the Catholic faith, which provoked criticism from the Hershelman family.

9.

Clark Gable's stepmother raised the tall, shy child with a loud voice to be well-dressed and well-groomed.

10.

Clark Gable played the piano and gave him lessons at home.

11.

Clark Gable later took up brass instruments, becoming the only boy in the Hopedale Men's town band at age 13.

12.

Clark Gable was mechanically inclined and loved to repair cars with his father, who insisted that he engage in masculine activities such as hunting and hard physical work.

13.

Clark Gable loved literature; he would recite Shakespeare among trusted company, particularly the sonnets.

14.

Clark Gable's father had financial difficulties in 1917 and decided to try his hand at farming, and moved the family to Palmyra Township, near Akron, Ohio.

15.

Clark Gable's father insisted that he work the farm, but Gable soon left to work in Akron for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.

16.

Clark Gable was inspired to become an actor after seeing the play The Bird of Paradise at age 17, but he was unable to make a start in acting until he turned 21 and received his $300 inheritance from a Hershelman trust.

17.

Clark Gable worked with his father for some time wildcatting and sludge removing in the oil fields of Oklahoma before traveling to the Pacific Northwest.

18.

Clark Gable toured in second-class stock companies, finding work with traveling tent shows, lumber mills, and other odd jobs.

19.

Clark Gable's acting coach, Josephine Dillon, was a theater manager in Portland.

20.

Clark Gable paid to have his teeth fixed and his hair styled.

21.

Clark Gable guided him in building up his chronically undernourished body, and taught him better body control and posture.

22.

Clark Gable slowly managed to lower his naturally high-pitched voice, his speech habits improved, and his facial expressions became more natural and convincing.

23.

Clark Gable changed his stage name from W C Gable to Clark Gable and appeared as an extra in such silent films as Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow, The Plastic Age starring Clara Bow, and Forbidden Paradise starring Pola Negri.

24.

Clark Gable appeared in a series of two-reel comedies called The Pacemakers and in Fox's The Johnstown Flood.

25.

Clark Gable appeared as a bit player in a series of shorts.

26.

Clark Gable became lifelong friends with Lionel Barrymore, who initially scolded Gable for what he deemed amateurish acting but nevertheless urged him to pursue a stage career.

27.

Clark Gable then moved to New York City, where Dillon sought work for him on Broadway.

28.

Clark Gable received good reviews in Machinal, with one critic describing him as "young, vigorous, and brutally masculine".

29.

In 1930, after his impressive appearance as the seething and desperate character Killer Mears in the Los Angeles stage production of The Last Mile, Clark Gable was offered a contract with Pathe Pictures.

30.

The studio experienced financial problems after the film's delayed release, so Clark Gable left for work at Warner Bros.

31.

Clark Gable hired the well-connected Minna Wallis, a sister of producer Hal Wallis, as his agent, whose clients included actresses Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer.

32.

Clark Gable made two pictures in 1931 with Wallace Beery.

33.

Clark Gable received extensive fan mail as a result of his performance; the studio took notice.

34.

Clark Gable was considered for the role of Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man, but lost out to Johnny Weissmuller's more imposing physique and superior swimming prowess.

35.

Clark Gable then starred as the romantic lead in Strange Interlude, again teaming with Shearer, the second of three films they would make together for MGM.

36.

Clark Gable portrayed a plantation manager involved with Harlow's wisecracking prostitute; however, upon her arrival, Clark Gable's character started to pursue Mary Astor's prim, classy newlywed.

37.

Clark Gable's "unshaven love-making" with braless Jean Harlow in Red Dust made him MGM's most important romantic leading man.

38.

The film was ninety percent completed, and the remaining scenes were filmed with long shots or the use of doubles like Mary Dees; Clark Gable said he felt as if he were "in the arms of a ghost".

39.

Clark Gable was not Capra's first choice to play the lead role of newspaper reporter Peter Warne in the romantic comedy It Happened One Night opposite Claudette Colbert playing a spoiled heiress, but Columbia wanted him and had paid handsomely for it.

40.

Clark Gable's career was revitalized by his whimsical, good-natured performance and to Capra, Clark Gable's character in the film closely resembled his real personality:.

41.

Clark Gable made three pictures with Spencer Tracy, which boosted Tracy's career and permanently cemented them in the public mind as a team.

42.

Clark Gable plays Jim Lane, the test pilot of the title; Tracy is his sidekick mechanic, Gunner Morse.

43.

Clark Gable was an almost immediate favorite for the role of Rhett with both the public and producer David O Selznick.

44.

I'm glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his nose, not me.

45.

Clark Gable was wary of potentially disappointing an audience that had decided that no one else could play the part.

46.

Clark Gable tried to boycott the Gone with the Wind premiere in segregated Atlanta, because African American McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen were not permitted to attend.

47.

Clark Gable did not want to shed tears for the scene after Rhett inadvertently causes Scarlett to miscarry their second child.

48.

Clark Gable tried to attack him on a professional level.

49.

Years later, Clark Gable said that whenever his career would start to fade, a re-release of Gone with the Wind would soon revive his popularity, and he continued as a top leading actor for the rest of his life.

50.

Clark Gable thrived being around Lombard's youthful, charming, and frank personality, once stating:.

51.

Clark Gable was still legally married, having prolonged an expensive divorce from his second wife, Ria Langham, until his salary from Gone with the Wind enabled him to reach a divorce settlement with her on March 7,1939.

52.

Clark Gable had just finished her 57th movie, To Be or Not to Be, and was on her way home from a successful war bond selling tour when the flight's DC-3 airliner crashed into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all 22 passengers aboard, including 15 servicemen en route to training in California.

53.

Clark Gable flew to the crash site to claim the bodies of his wife, mother-in-law, and Winkler, who had been the best man at Clark Gable and Lombard's wedding.

54.

Lombard was declared to be the first war-related American female casualty of World War II, and Clark Gable received a personal note of condolence from President Roosevelt.

55.

Clark Gable returned to their Encino ranch and carried out her funeral wishes as she had requested in her will.

56.

Clark Gable acted in 27 more films, and remarried twice more.

57.

Between his marriage to Lombard and her death, Clark Gable again costarred with Norma Shearer in the World War II romantic intrigue film, Idiot's Delight.

58.

Clark Gable plays a nightclub singer that doesn't recognize former love while Nazis are closing in on guests at a hotel on the brink of war.

59.

Clark Gable starred in Strange Cargo, a romantic drama with Joan Crawford, costarring Peter Lorre and Ian Hunter.

60.

Clark Gable then made his first film with 20-year old Lana Turner, a newcomer whom MGM saw as a successor for both Crawford and the now-deceased Jean Harlow.

61.

Clark Gable had been reluctant to act opposite the younger Turner in the required romantic scenes.

62.

Lombard had suggested that Clark Gable enlist as part of the war effort, but MGM was reluctant to let him go.

63.

Clark Gable had expressed an earlier interest in officer candidate school, with the intention of becoming an aerial gunner upon enlisting in bomber training school.

64.

On January 27,1943, Clark Gable reported to Biggs Army Airfield, Texas to train with and accompany the 351st Bomb Group to England as head of a six-man motion picture unit.

65.

Clark Gable was promoted to captain while he was with the 351st Bomb Group at Pueblo Army Air Base, Colorado, a rank commensurate with his position as a unit commander.

66.

Clark Gable spent most of 1943 in England at RAF Polebrook with the 351st Bomb Group.

67.

Clark Gable flew five combat missions, including one to Germany, as an observer-gunner in B-17 Flying Fortresses between May 4 and September 23,1943, earning the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts.

68.

In November 1943, Clark Gable returned to the United States to edit his film, on an old Warner's lot donated to the war effort, assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit at Culver City, California, where other stars contributed with any film equipment they had as well.

69.

Clark Gable completed editing of the film Combat America in September 1944, giving the narration himself and making use of numerous interviews with enlisted gunners as focus of the film.

70.

Clark Gable was awarded military honors for service: the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.

71.

Clark Gable was a qualified aerial gunner having received his wings upon completion of flexible gunnery school at Tyndall field.

72.

Clark Gable made good use of his wartime experiences in the movie Command Decision, playing a World War II brigadier general who supervised bombing raids over Germany.

73.

Immediately after his discharge from the service, Clark Gable returned to his ranch and rested.

74.

Clark Gable was acclaimed for his performance in The Hucksters, a satire of post-war Madison Avenue corruption and immorality, which co-starred Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner.

75.

Clark Gable followed this up with Homecoming, where he played a married doctor enlisting in World War II and meeting Lana Turner's army surgical nurse character with a romance unfolding in flashbacks.

76.

In 1949, Clark Gable married Sylvia Ashley, a British model and actress previously married to Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

77.

Clark Gable did a series of films with female co-stars: Any Number Can Play with Alexis Smith, Key to the City with Loretta Young, and To Please a Lady with Barbara Stanwyck.

78.

Clark Gable then made Never Let Me Go opposite Gene Tierney.

79.

Mogambo, directed by John Ford, was a somewhat sanitized and more action-oriented remake of Clark Gable's hit pre-Code film Red Dust, with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor.

80.

Ava Gardner, in her third and final pairing with Clark Gable, was well received in Harlow's leading lady role, as was Kelly in Astor's role, with both receiving Academy Award nominations, Gardner for Lead Actress and Kelly for Supporting Actress.

81.

That same year, Clark Gable married fifth wife Kay Spreckels.

82.

Clark Gable became stepfather to her son Bunker Spreckels, who went on to live a notorious celebrity lifestyle in the late 1960s and early 1970s surfing scene, ultimately leading to his early death in 1977.

83.

Clark Gable formed Russ-Field-Gabco in 1955, a production company with Jane Russell and her husband Bob Waterfield, and they produced The King and Four Queens, a film Clark Gable thought would star Russell to capitalize on The Tall Men's moderate success.

84.

Clark Gable found producing and acting to be too much work and this Raoul Walsh western was the only film made.

85.

Clark Gable did Run Silent, Run Deep, with co-star and producer Burt Lancaster, which featured his first on-screen death since 1937, and which garnered good reviews.

86.

Clark Gable started to receive television offers, but rejected them outright.

87.

At 57, Clark Gable finally acknowledged, "Now it's time I acted my age".

88.

On February 8,1960, Clark Gable received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures, located at 1608 Vine Street.

89.

Co-starring with Clark Gable were Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter.

90.

In 1944, Clark Gable became an early member of the conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group explicitly created to help root out Communists from the film industry.

91.

On November 6,1960, Clark Gable was sent to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, where doctors found that he had suffered a heart attack.

92.

Clark Gable is interred in the Great Mausoleum, Memorial Terrace, at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park next to Carole Lombard and her mother.

93.

Twenty-two years later Kay Clark Gable died and was interred there as well.

94.

In 1933, Clark Gable was initiated into Freemasonry at the Beverly Hills Lodge No 528 CA.

95.

Clark Gable married 5 times and was linked romantically to many other women.

96.

Thirteen days after his divorce from Langham, Clark Gable married actress Carole Lombard during a production break on Gone with the Wind.

97.

In 1949, Clark Gable married Sylvia Ashley, a British model and actress who was the widow of Douglas Fairbanks; the couple divorced in 1952.

98.

In 1955, Gable married Kay Spreckels, a thrice-married former fashion model and actress who had previously been married to sugar-refining heir Adolph B Spreckels, Jr.

99.

John Clark Gable raced cars and trucks most notably in the Baja 500 and 1000, turning down Hollywood offers to act until Bad Jim, a straight to video film.

100.

Clark Gable had two children: Kayley Gable was born on 1986 and and Clark James Gable.

101.

Kayley is an actress, while Clark Gable James was the host of two seasons of the nationally syndicated reality show Cheaters.

102.

Young died on August 12,2000; her autobiography, published posthumously, confirmed that Clark Gable was indeed Lewis's father.

103.

Young had previously admitted to an affair with Clark Gable, which was a known secret in Hollywood at the time.

104.

Clark Gable walked like one, he behaved like one, and he was the most masculine man that I have ever met in my life.

105.

Clark Gable has been criticized for altering aspects of a script he felt were in conflict with his image.

106.

Bugs Bunny's nonchalant carrot-chewing standing position, as explained by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett, originated in a scene in the film It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable's character leans against a fence, eating carrots rapidly and talking with his mouth full to Claudette Colbert's character.

107.

The singer wants to "find a love that looks and sounds like a movie", and includes the lyric, "I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired, I thought it classic".

108.

Clark Gable is known to have appeared as an "extra" in 13 films between 1924 and 1930.

109.

Clark Gable then appeared in a total of 67 theatrically released motion pictures, as himself in 17 "short subject" films, and he narrated and appeared in a 1945 World War II propaganda film entitled Combat America, produced by the United States Army Air Forces.