49 Fun Facts About Clark Gable

What nickname was Clark Gable widely known by?

The King of Hollywood. A newspaper poll run by columnist Ed Sullivan made it official: readers elected Gable king and Myrna Loy queen, and Sullivan presented them with crowns.

Gable lost the Best Actor Oscar for Gone with the Wind; which film won him his only one?

It Happened One Night. Studio legend says MGM lent him to lowly Columbia as a punishment; he came back with the only Oscar of his career.

In which Ohio town was Clark Gable born in 1901?

Cadiz. His mother died when he was ten months old, and her family cared for him on a Pennsylvania farm until his father, an oil driller, remarried.

What was Gable's real first name?

William. Named after his father, he was briefly billed on stage as W. C. Gable before settling on his middle name.

Which company did the teenage Gable leave the family farm to work for in Akron?

Firestone Tire and Rubber. He started as a clerk in the timekeeping department, and it was in Akron that he saw the play The Bird of Paradise and decided to become an actor.

Josephine Dillon, the acting coach who retrained Gable's voice and posture, became what to him in 1924?

His first wife. She was 17 years his senior and had him work his voice down, half a step at a time, to a leading man's register; they divorced in 1930.

Which word did Gable's Rhett Butler add to the novel's farewell?

Frankly. Censors at first refused to pass the line's last word, and producer David O. Selznick won approval only weeks before the December 1939 premiere.

Which studio screen-tested Gable for Little Caesar and turned him down, complaining about his big ears?

Warner Bros. Accounts differ on whether Jack Warner or production chief Darryl F. Zanuck called him an ape with oversized ears, but MGM signed him and within a year he was one of the screen's top stars.

Which Olympic champion beat Gable to the role of Tarzan in 1932?

Johnny Weissmuller. Director W. S. Van Dyke dismissed Gable with "He has no body" and cast the Olympic swimming gold medallist instead.

Which actress made eight films with Gable, more than any other co-star?

Joan Crawford. MGM saw such sparks in their first film that it scrapped Johnny Mack Brown's footage in her next one and reshot the part with Gable.

Which gangster was shot dead by federal agents in 1934 after watching Gable in Manhattan Melodrama?

John Dillinger. He walked out of Chicago's Biograph Theater into an ambush, having just watched Gable's gangster go to the electric chair.

Which Gable-Harlow film was finished with doubles and long shots after Harlow died during production?

Saratoga. With about ninety percent shot, MGM finished it with Harlow's stand-in Mary Dees, filmed from behind or with her face hidden.

The first film to win the "Big Five" Oscars paired Gable with which leading lady?

Claudette Colbert. She agreed only when Columbia doubled her usual salary to $50,000 and promised to finish her scenes in four weeks so she could take a holiday.

What did Gable's reporter call the blanket hung between the beds in Capra's 1934 comedy?

The walls of Jericho. In the final scene the newlyweds send out for a toy trumpet; it sounds, and the blanket drops to the floor.

An urban legend says a 1934 scene of Gable undressing hurt sales of which garment?

Men's undershirts. He strips off his shirt to show a bare chest; the claim that sales then fell by 75 percent has never been backed by any figures.

Which character did Gable play in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)?

Fletcher Christian. Gable fought the part, sure he would look ridiculous in knee breeches and sound false beside Charles Laughton, yet the film proved hugely popular.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) won which single Oscar from its eight nominations?

Best Picture. Gable, Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone were all up for Best Actor and all lost to Victor McLaglen, and the Academy added supporting categories the next year.

Which actor's Oscar-nominated turn as a boxing priest opposite Gable in San Francisco (1936) launched a partnership?

Spencer Tracy. Two years later he played a priest again, Father Flanagan in Boys Town, and that time he won the Oscar.

What did Gable's pay for Gone with the Wind let him settle?

His divorce. Ria Langham held out for a costly settlement, and once it was agreed in 1939 he was free to marry Carole Lombard.

What did Gable reportedly threaten when he saw segregated toilets on the Gone with the Wind set?

To quit the film. Extra Lennie Bluett said he showed Gable the "White" and "Colored" signs, and the star phoned director Victor Fleming: no Rhett Butler unless they came down.

Which co-star coaxed Gable into crying on camera for Rhett Butler's scene after Scarlett's miscarriage?

Olivia de Havilland. He thought weeping unmanly and had refused through several takes; she told him he could do it and would be wonderful, and the tears came as the cameras rolled.

Which song-and-dance number did Gable perform in Idiot's Delight (1939)?

Puttin' on the Ritz. Gable spent six weeks rehearsing the steps, and the set was closed for the shoot because he feared looking clumsy.

Gable and Lombard eloped during a break in Gone with the Wind to Kingman, in which state?

Arizona. They slipped away while most of the film press was in San Francisco for a premiere, and a local Methodist minister married them.

What pet names did Gable and Lombard call each other?

Ma and Pa. The farmhouse names suited the life the two film stars chose on their ranch in Encino, where they kept chickens and horses.

Carole Lombard died in January 1942 returning from what kind of trip?

TWA Flight 3 crashed into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas, and she was declared the first American woman killed in the line of war duty.

What was Lombard's final film, completed just before her death?

To Be or Not to Be. When Miriam Hopkins walked out, Lombard asked director Ernst Lubitsch for the part herself; the film opened weeks after her death.

Which teenage star sang "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Gable in Broadway Melody of 1938?

Judy Garland. She first sang the specially written "Dear Mr. Gable" verses at a birthday party MGM threw for him, and charmed executives put her and the song into the film.

Which branch did Gable join in August 1942 after Lombard's death?

The Army Air Forces. Beyond draft age at 41, he enlisted as a private, as Lombard had urged before her death, and came out of officer school a second lieutenant.

Gable flew on bombing raids over Europe in 1943 as an observer-gunner aboard which aircraft?

Flying Fortress. Sent only to film aerial gunners at work, he was neither ordered nor expected to go on operations, but joined the raids anyway to get the footage he wanted.

Which future US president signed Gable's discharge papers in June 1944?

Ronald Reagan. Kept from overseas service by poor eyesight, Captain Reagan was personnel officer of the film unit in Culver City where Gable had been editing his footage.

Which dictator reportedly offered a reward for Gable's capture, unharmed?

Adolf Hitler. He is said to have admired Gable above all other actors and to have wanted him brought in unharmed; in another telling it was Hermann Göring who posted the bounty.

The Misfits (1961) was the last completed film for both Gable and which co-star?

Marilyn Monroe. Gable had a heart attack two days after shooting ended and died within two weeks; Monroe died in 1962 with her next film unfinished.

A 1946 tagline said "Gable's back" and which leading lady had "got him"?

Greer Garson. The film was Adventure; a rival slogan played on "the arson in Garson", and she answered with one on "the able in Gable".

Which actress secretly bore Gable's daughter, Judy Lewis, in 1935 and later claimed to have adopted her?

Loretta Young. Lewis spoke to her father only once, at 15, unaware who he was, and Young admitted the truth to her only after his death.

Gable's 1953 hit Mogambo was a remake of which of his own earlier films?

Red Dust. He played the same part 21 years apart: the rubber plantation of Indochina became a safari camp in Africa, and Ava Gardner took over from Jean Harlow.

Which director made Mogambo on location in East Africa?

John Ford. Filming began weeks after an emergency was declared in Kenya over the Mau Mau uprising, and the shoot went ahead with armed security.

Which was the only film Gable produced, through his company Russ-Field-Gabco?

The King and Four Queens. He made the Western with Jane Russell and her husband's company as partners, found producing and acting together too much work, and never produced again.

Which 1958 war film paired Gable with Burt Lancaster, whose company produced it?

Run Silent, Run Deep. He plays a submarine commander obsessed with the Japanese destroyer that sank his last boat, and he collapses and dies once the hunt is over.

Who was Gable's co-star in the 1958 comedy Teacher's Pet, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination?

Doris Day. She plays a journalism teacher and he a hard-nosed city editor who sits in on her night class under a false name.

Who wrote the screenplay for Gable's final film, The Misfits (1961)?

Arthur Miller. The playwright adapted his own 1957 short story and kept revising the script on location throughout the troubled Nevada shoot.

Filming It Started in Naples, Gable's weight rose to 230 pounds; what did he blame?

Pasta. He then crash-dieted from 230 pounds to 195 and briefly gave up drinking and smoking to pass the insurance physical for his next film.

Gable was laid to rest beside Carole Lombard in which cemetery?

Forest Lawn, Glendale. Though he married twice more after her death, he was interred beside Lombard and her mother, who had died with her in the 1942 crash.

Gable enlisted as a private in 1942; what rank did he hold when he left active duty two years later?

Major. He rose from private in under two years, going on raids over Europe on the way, and stayed in the reserve until he resigned his commission in 1947.

In which 1935 Jack London adaptation did Gable play a Yukon gold prospector?

Call of the Wild. Blizzards on Mount Baker in Washington drove the company of eighty home with scenes still unshot, and a St. Bernard played London's sled dog Buck.

Which MGM star did Gable's gangster rough up in A Free Soul (1931)?

Norma Shearer. Fan mail poured in for his gangster and MGM promoted him to leading man, while Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar as her father.

Which cartoon character's trademark pose was modelled on a Gable scene in a 1934 comedy?

Bugs Bunny. Animator Friz Freleng traced the rabbit's nonchalant stance to Gable leaning on a fence, munching carrots and talking with his mouth full.

Which director bought Gable's Oscar at a 1996 auction and gave it back to the Academy?

Steven Spielberg. He paid $607,500 for Gable's only Oscar, then bought two of Bette Davis's statuettes at later auctions and returned those to the Academy as well.

Gable's 1949 marriage to Sylvia Ashley made him the husband of which star's widow?

Douglas Fairbanks. His affair with Sylvia Ashley had ended his marriage to Mary Pickford; she and Gable parted in 1952, and his fifth wife, Kay Williams, bore his only son four months after his death.

Which actor played Gable in the 1976 biopic Gable and Lombard?

James Brolin. He starred opposite Jill Clayburgh, whose Lombard first meets Gable at a party by arriving in an ambulance that wrecks his car.