To this day, some say he went to Europe with a death wish, and on at least one bombing raid, Capt. The King became broken, despondent, and finally disillusioned enough to enlist in the U.S. When her plane went down in a fiery blaze, it was treated as a national tragedy around the country, and for her husband it was the beginning of the end. Yet in less than a year, all of those things turned to ash following Lombard’s violent death. Gable had success, Gable had power, and for the first time in his four decades on this earth, Gable had something approaching peace thanks to his marriage to Carole Lombard, the firecracker screwball star. Still, he was practically 41 when the bombs fell in Hawaii and more than happy to support the war from afar.Īs he told fellow MGM stablemate Jimmy Stewart at the latter’s going away party in 1940- Stewart had just happily joined the Army-“You know you’re throwing away your career, don’t you?” When Stewart answered yes, Gable added, “You won’t catch me doing that, but I wish you godspeed.” The government saw the value in that kind of celebrity when the dark storm clouds of war gathered over Europe and the South Pacific, and so did Gable.
Mayer no (at least until casting for Gone with the Wind came along). He was a mustachioed and muscular alpha who appealed to everybody, even presidents, and was one of the few leading men who would tell Louis B. And, indeed, the first thing the movie star did when he heard about the Pearl Harbor attack was cable FDR to offer his full support-and, tellingly, the besieged president promptly answered right back.īut then in the 1930s and early ‘40s, Gable was “the King of Hollywood ” the reigning movie star who could sell more tickets than anybody this side of Shirley Temple, and he didn’t have to sing or dance to do it either. Gable was there that day in 1940 when President Franklin Roosevelt gave his famous “Arsenal of Democracy” speech from the Oval Office.
Clark Gable did not intend to see action when World War II came to America.
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