Clark Gable

Military records on celebrities released by the Pentagon in 2005 reveal that Gable, upon enlistment, was described as a "motion picture specialist" and his weekly wage was listed as $7,500. A movie cameraman, Andrew J. McIntyre, enlisted along with Gable and trained with him, the documents showed. "In order to have something definite to describe and some tangible evidence of his experiences, it is proposed that there be enlisted his cameraman to be trained as an aerial gunner also who may make pictures of Gable in various theaters of operations," one Army memo said.

Inducted into the Lou Holtz/Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame in 2004.

In 1995 was chosen by "Empire" magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#36).

Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued on 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp features Gable and Vivien Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind (1939). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), Stagecoach (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Grandfather of Clark Gable III, who is the first child of his son, John Clark Gable, and his ex-wife Tracy Yarro. Clark James Gable was born on September 10, 1988 at a hefty 10 lb.

Is portrayed by James Brolin in Gable and Lombard (1976), Bruce Hughes and Shayne Greenman in Blonde (2001), Charles Unwin in Lucy (2003), Larry Pennell in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980), Edward Winter in The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980), Boyd Holister in Grace Kelly (1983) and Gary Wayne in Malice in Wonderland (1985).

In the 1970s his Encino, CA, estate was subdivided and turned into a very upscale tract development called "Clark Gable Estates".

Playing a cowboy in his last film, The Misfits (1961), which was also the final film for co-star Marilyn Monroe. The aging Gable diligently performed his own stunts, taking its toll on his already failing health. He died from a heart attack before the film was released.

In 1960, Gable's wife Kay discovered that she was expecting their first child.

In early November 1960, he had just completed filming The Misfits (1961), when he suffered a heart attack, and died later that month, on November 16, 1960. Gable was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had built for Carole Lombard and her mother when they died, at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

On November 16, 1959, Gable became a grandfather when Judy Lewis, his daughter with Loretta Young, gave birth to a daughter, Maria.

In July 1955 he married a former sweetheart, Kathleen Williams Spreckles (a. k. a. Kay Williams) and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and Adolph ("Bunker") Spreckels III.

He became increasingly unhappy with the mediocre roles offered him by MGM as a mature actor. He refused to renew his contract with them in 1953 and proceeded to work independently.

Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952.

He married Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949.

On July 12, 1942, Gable enlisted in Army Air Corps during World War II in honor of his late wife Carole Lombard, who was killed earlier that year (along with her own mother) in a plane crash while on tour selling war bonds. He was commissioned an officer with service number 565390. Rose to the rank of captain and served primarily in Public Affairs, making training films and performing public relations visits to soldiers and airmen in Europe. He also trained as an aerial gunner and he flew five combat missions with the 8th Air Force's 351st Bombardment Group (Heavy) while making his films and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He was discharged (separated) from the Air Force on June 12, 1944. Captain Ronald Reagan of the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps signed Gable's separation papers.

After divorcing Maria Langham, in March 1939 Clark married Carole Lombard, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the plane in which Carole and her mother were flying crashed into Table Rock Mountain, Nevada, killing them both. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office.

In 1938, a poll of entertainment readers, he was overwhelmingly selected "King of Hollywood" and was officially crowned by columnist Ed Sullivan.

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

It was at his 36th birthday that Judy Garland sang "Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You".

The next year saw a starring role in Call of the Wild (1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis).

He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).

At one point, he refused an assignment, and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), which won him an Academy Award for his performance.

On June 11, 1933, he was hospitalized for pyorrhea, an infection of the gums the day before he was to begin shooting Dancing Lady (1933). He was hospitalized for several days, after which most of his teeth were extracted. The infection would have killed him had he not been rushed to a private hospital for treatment. Afterwards, he went on a vacation to Alaska and Canada with his wife, as it would take a couple of weeks for his gums to heal enough so he could be fitted for dentures. MGM shot around him until he returned and was fitted with a dental plate, but on July 30, after one day's shooting, the infection felled him again. In the days before antibiotics, the infection was so serious that his gall bladder was removed. Out for another month, the film had to be shut down and went $150,000 over budget. MGM boss Louis B. Mayer docked him two weeks pay, which caused bad feelings between the studio and its top star, although his illness was genuine and he was not malingering. To teach him a lesson, Mayer lent him to Columbia Pictures, then a "Poverty Row" studio, to make a comedy. The movie, Frank Capra's masterpiece It Happened One Night (1934), swept the Academy Awards the next year and brought Gable his only Oscar.

His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star. His acting career then flourished.

He had a small part in The Painted Desert (1931) with starred William Boyd.

Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931) the same year.

In April 1930, they divorced and a year later, he married Maria Langham (a. k. a. Maria Franklin Gable), also about 17 years older than him. While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend of Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (for Barrymore and Darryl F.

Zanuck), Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg.

On December 13, 1924, he married Josephine Dillon, his acting coach and 15 years his senior. Around that time, they moved to Hollywood, so that Clark could concentrate on his acting career.

He was voted the 21st Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Premiere Magazine".

He worked as a lumberman in the Willamette Valley of Oregon in the early 1920s. After a couple of months of doing that he quit, saying that "the work was too hard" and he would rather act instead. He then left to go to Hollywood, where he began his acting career.

A few months after his death, Gable's widow, Kay (1917-1983), gave birth to John Clark Gable, a race-car driver and sometime actor.

William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania, where he stayed until he was two. His father then returned to take him back to Cadiz. At 16, he quit high school, went to work in an Akron, Ohio, tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties.