Home> Facts and Trivia > Stars > Clark Gable
Clark Gable Facts
| Sign | Aquarius |
| Born |
Feb 1, 1901 Cadiz, OH |
| Died |
Nov 16, 1960 Los Angeles, CA |
| Age | Died at 59 |
| Total Facts | 106 |
Adolf Hitler esteemed the film star above all other actors, and during the war offered a sizable reward to anyone who could capture and return Gable, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was flying combat missions over Germany, unscathed to him.
11/16/60: Gable sat up in his hospital bed while reading a magazine and suffered his fourth and final heart attack. He was dead within seconds and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.
11/5/60: His heart attack happened when he was changing a tire on his jeep. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend of Gable's, sent him a message of support wishing him a speedy recovery.
11/6/60: Gable was devastated to learn of the unexpected death of his close friend Ward Bond from a heart attack. Shortly afterwards Gable himself suffered a massive heart attack, and died ten days later in the hospital.
1933: Underwent cosmetic surgery on his ears and teeth.
1938: In a poll of entertainment readers, he was overwhelmingly selected "King of Hollywood" and was officially crowned by columnist Ed Sullivan.
1939: Part of Gable and Carole Lombard's honeymoon was spent at the Willows Inn in Palm Springs, CA. Today the Inn continues to operate and anyone can stay in the same room, which is largely unaltered since that time.
1942: He enlisted in the army in honor of his late wife, Carole Lombard. She had been killed in a plane crash while on tour selling war bonds.
1948: Proposed marriage to Nancy Davis.
1952: His widow, Kay Williams, divorced her previous husband, Adolph Spreckels Jr., heir to the Spreckels Sugar fortune. In the divorce papers she alleged that he beat her with one of her slippers.
1970s: His Encino, CA, estate was subdivided and turned into a very upscale tract development called "Clark Gable Estates.".
1995: Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#36).
1999: The American Film Institute named Gable among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #7.
3/15/46: Was injured in a car crash at the traffic circle at Sunset Blvd. and Bristol Ave. in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. According to a press release from MGM, Gable was driving east on Sunset Blvd. and had entered the south half of the traffic circle when he was struck by another car, whose driver apparently had become confused by the "round-about" and was driving in a westerly direction on the same arc of the circle. Gable drove his car over a curb to avoid hitting the the other car, and it struck a tree, throwing him against the steering wheel. He was treated at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for a bruised chest and a cut on his right leg that required stitches. The driver of the other car drove away from the site without checking on Gable or reporting the accident. The hit-and-run accident gave rise to the urban legend that Gable had struck and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, an incident that allegedly was covered up by MGM. Though reported in several biographies, there is no basis in fact for the allegations.
6/11/33: He was hospitalized for 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. 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 Gable 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 Gable's gall bladder was removed. Out another month, the film had to be shut down and went $150,000 over budget. MGM boss Louis B. Mayer docked Gable two weeks pay, which caused bad feelings between the studio and its top star. In order 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.
A few months after his death, his wife gave birth to John Clark Gable. John is into racing and has appeared in at least one film.
A persistent legend has it that Gable had a profound effect on men's fashion, thanks to a scene in It Happened One Night. As he is preparing for bed, he takes off his shirt to reveal that he is bare-chested. Sales of men's undershirts across the country allegedly declined noticeably for a period following this movie.
Actress Judy Lewis is Clark's out-of-wedlock daughter by actress Loretta Young. The two had a romance during the filming of The Call of the Wild (1935).
Although discharged from the US air force early in 1944, he refused to make another movie until the war had ended.
Although he was never crowned #1 at the Box Office in the Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual survey of movie exhibitors, he made the list a then-record 15 times from 1932 to 1949, and a 16th time in 1955. Gable, "The King", was ranked in the top four of Box Office stars every year from 1934 to 1939 (the "Golden Age" of Hollywood), ranking #2 in 1934 and 1936 through 1938, inclusive, when he was topped by Shirley Temple. After ranking #3 at the Box Office in 1940, he slumped to #10 in 1941, a position he also held in 1942 and 1943. After returning from the war, he took the #7 spot in the Box Office poll in 1947 and 1948, before again slumping to #10 in 1949. He made his last appearance in the Top 10 in 1955, when he again placed #10.
Although it is often claimed that Gable died as a result of Marilyn Monroe's behavior and performing his own stunts in The Misfits (1961), he was already in terrible health when filming began from years of excessive drinking and smoking more than three packs of cigarettes a day.
As a teenager his voice was very high-pitched, however with vocal training he was able to lower it over time. His voice later proved a major asset in his climb to fame.
As head of the actors' division of the Hollywood Victory Committee, Gable sent his wife Carole Lombard on one of the first tours, in January 1942, to her home state of Indiana, where she sold $2 million worth of bonds. On the plane trip back to Hollywood the plane crashed, killing Lombard and her mother. Gable drank heavily for six months before enlisting as a private in the Army Air Corps. He served as a combat cameraman in Britain, rose to the rank of major, and eventually was furloughed to Fort Roach, as the First Motion Picture Unit headquarters came to be known. Gable's discharge papers were signed by Captain Ronald Reagan.
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.
Attempted suicide using a high-powered motorbike following his wife Carole Lombard's death.
Both parents were of German ancestry.
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. This scene was well known while the film was popular, and viewers at the time likely recognized Bugs Bunny's behavior as satire.
Clark Gable is caricaturized in a Merrie Melodies short cartoon called Hollywood Steps Out directed by Tex Avery (Warner Brothers 1941). The action takes place in the famed Ciro's nightclub where the Hollywood stars are having dinner. During the course of the action, Clark Gable spots a girl, whom he follows with his head turning around 180 degrees. Later on in the cartoon, Gable is moving to the conga beat while following the girl he saw earlier. At the end of the cartoon, the conga beat stops Gable finally catches the girl he was chasing, insisting she kiss him. "She" turns out to be Groucho Marx in drag -- "Well, fancy meeting you here!"
Contrary to popular belief, Gable did not perform his own stunts in The Misfits (1961). He was only used for the close ups while a stunt double stood in for him in the long shots. His heart attack was caused by his lifestyle - thirty years of heavy smoking and drinking, plus his increasing weight in later years. It is also believed his crash diet before filming began may have been a contributing factor.
Cousin-in-law of William B. Hawks.
Despite his dyslexia, Gable became an avid reader. He would never allow himself to be photographed reading on film sets, fearing it would undermine his macho screen image.
Despite his rising popularity, Gable balked at playing gangsters and overtly callous characters, and was therefore very pleased to be cast in Red Dust (1932), the film that set the seal on his stardom.
Died on the first birthday of his granddaughter, Maria.
Director Howard Hawks had long intended to make Hatari! (1962) with Gable and John Wayne. However, by the time filming began Gable was already dead.
Discouraged by his failure to progress in films, Gable tried the stage and became an employable actor, first in stock and eventually on Broadway, without acquiring real fame. When he returned to Hollywood in 1930 for another try at movie acting, his rugged good looks, powerful voice and charisma made him an overnight sensation as the villainous Rance Brett in his first sound picture, The Painted Desert (1931). Gable exploded onto the screen in a dozen 1931 releases, in small parts at first, but he was an established star by the end of the year. Soon his success threatened to eclipse every other star, including his rival Gary Cooper.
During his time on Broadway Gable worked as a stage gigolo, performing stud services for such actresses as Pauline Frederick and Laura Hope Crews, who were considerably older than he. His much older first wife served as his first acting coach and paid for his false teeth. Later he married a woman seventeen years his senior, Texan heiress Maria Franklin Gable, who had underwritten his successful assault on Hollywood.
Gable and then future wife Carole Lombard first met in late 1924 while working as extras on the set of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). They would make three films together as extras, Ben-Hur, The Johnstown Flood (1926) and _The Plastic Age (1925)_ and star together in No Man of Her Own (1932), but not become romantically attached until 1936.
Gable 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.
Gable was dyslexic, a fact which didn't emerge until several years after his death.
Gable's marriage in 1939 to his third wife, the successful American actress Carole Lombard, was the happiest period of his personal life. As an independent actress, her annual income exceeded his studio salary until Gone with the Wind brought them to rough parity. From their marriage, she gained personal stability that she had lacked, and he thrived being around her with her youthful, charming, and frank personality.
Gable's first screen test was made by director Mervyn LeRoy for Warner Bros. When studio head Jack L. Warner and production chief Darryl F. Zanuck saw the test they were furious at LeRoy for wasting their money on that big "ape" with those "huge floppy taxi-cab ears". Years later when Gable made it big, LeRoy used to tease Warner and say, "How would you like to have him and those huge floppy ears now?".
Gable's first two wives - Josephine Dillon and Maria Franklin Gable (aka Ria Langham) - were 14 and 17 years older than he was, respectively.
Gave his Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934) to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.
Grandfather of Kayley Gable.
Grandfather of Clark James Gable, who's the first child of his son John Clark Gable and his ex-wife Tracy Yarro. Clark James was born on September 10, 1988 at a hefty 10 lbs.
Had a fear of flying, and made all long journeys across America by train.
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 disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.
He disliked his most famous film Gone with the Wind (1939), which he regarded as "a woman's picture.".
He is the second cousin of film producer Thomas R. Bond II, President of American Mutoscope & Biograph, a motion picture and entertainment company.