Clark Gable

Biography

He lost his mother when he was ten months old. He quit high school and went to work in an Akron tire factory. Gable decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties.
In 1924 he reached Hollywood with the help of Portland, Oregon theatre manager Josephine Dillon, who was his acting coach and first wife, 12 years his senior.
Lionel Barrymore suggested to MGM's Irving Thalberg that Gable be screen tested after seeing him in the play "The Last Mile". when Thalberg viewed the screen test he said, "Look at those big, bat-like ears! Forget it, Lionel!". MGM eventually hired him. His on screen sparks with Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star.
As punishment for refusing an assignment; he was loaned out to Columbia where he won a Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night (IHON) (1934). He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).
When his third wife Carole Lombard died in a plane crash in 1942 while returning from a War Bond drive, a grief-stricken Gable joined the Army Air Corps.
When he returned from his service in WWII his first movie, Adventure (1945), was promoted with the slogan, "Gable's Back and Garson's Got Him!". However, the film didn't grab the attention of the critics. MGM eventually regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract.
He made a series of lackluster films, (for the most part), through the rest of the '40's and '50's.
He delighted in his 1955 marriage to Kay Spreckels and loved playing the role of "Pa" to her two children from a previous marriage.
He announced during filming of The Misfits (1961) that he was to become a father. He died of a heart attack without ever seeing his son, John Clark Gable, who was born four months after his death. He was laid to rest beside Carole Lombard at Forest Lawn Cemetery.