Clark Gable Trivia
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49 free Clark Gable trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Clark Gable was called the King of Hollywood for three decades, and this quiz covers the whole reign: the oil-driller's son from Cadiz, Ohio, the acting coach who fixed his teeth and married him, the Oscar for It Happened One Night, Rhett Butler, the marriage to Carole Lombard and its tragic end, the B-17 combat missions over Europe, and the last picture with Marilyn Monroe. Easy questions ask which film won him his Academy Award and who he played in Gone with the Wind; harder ones dig into the studio boss who said his ears were too big, the secret daughter with Loretta Young, the future president who signed his discharge papers and the reward Hitler put on his head. It is built for classic-film fans, TCM regulars and any movie quiz night that wants a golden-age round with real teeth. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Gable, his films and the people around him, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What nickname was Clark Gable widely known by?
The King of Hollywood
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.
Q 02Gable lost the Best Actor Oscar for Gone with the Wind; which film won him his only one?
It Happened One Night
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.
Q 03In which Ohio town was Clark Gable born in 1901?
Cadiz
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.
Q 04What was Gable's real first name?
William
William. Named after his father, he was briefly billed on stage as W. C. Gable before settling on his middle name.
Q 05Which company did the teenage Gable leave the family farm to work for in Akron?
Firestone Tire and Rubber
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.
Q 06Josephine Dillon, the acting coach who retrained Gable's voice and posture, became what to him in 1924?
His first wife
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.
Q 07Which word did Gable's Rhett Butler add to the novel's farewell?
Frankly
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.
Q 08Which studio screen-tested Gable for Little Caesar and turned him down, complaining about his big ears?
Warner Bros.
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.
Q 09Which Olympic champion beat Gable to the role of Tarzan in 1932?
Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller. Director W. S. Van Dyke dismissed Gable with "He has no body" and cast the Olympic swimming gold medallist instead.
Q 10Which actress made eight films with Gable, more than any other co-star?
Joan Crawford
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.
Q 11Which gangster was shot dead by federal agents in 1934 after watching Gable in Manhattan Melodrama?
John Dillinger
John Dillinger. He walked out of Chicago's Biograph Theater into an ambush, having just watched Gable's gangster go to the electric chair.
Q 12Which Gable-Harlow film was finished with doubles and long shots after Harlow died during production?
Saratoga
Saratoga. With about ninety percent shot, MGM finished it with Harlow's stand-in Mary Dees, filmed from behind or with her face hidden.
Q 13The first film to win the "Big Five" Oscars paired Gable with which leading lady?
Claudette Colbert
Q 21Which co-star coaxed Gable into crying on camera for Rhett Butler's scene after Scarlett's miscarriage?
Olivia de Havilland
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.
Q 22Which song-and-dance number did Gable perform in Idiot's Delight (1939)?
Puttin' on the Ritz
Puttin' on the Ritz. Gable spent six weeks rehearsing the steps, and the set was closed for the shoot because he feared looking clumsy.
Q 23Gable and Lombard eloped during a break in Gone with the Wind to Kingman, in which state?
Arizona
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.
Q 14What did Gable's reporter call the blanket hung between the beds in Capra's 1934 comedy?
The walls of Jericho
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.
Q 15An urban legend says a 1934 scene of Gable undressing hurt sales of which garment?
Men's undershirts
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.
Q 16Which character did Gable play in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)?
Fletcher Christian
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.
Q 17Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) won which single Oscar from its eight nominations?
Best Picture
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.
Q 18Which actor's Oscar-nominated turn as a boxing priest opposite Gable in San Francisco (1936) launched a partnership?
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy. Two years later he played a priest again, Father Flanagan in Boys Town, and that time he won the Oscar.
Q 19What did Gable's pay for Gone with the Wind let him settle?
His divorce
His divorce. Ria Langham held out for a costly settlement, and once it was agreed in 1939 he was free to marry Carole Lombard.
Q 20What did Gable reportedly threaten when he saw segregated toilets on the Gone with the Wind set?
To quit the film
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.
Arizona. They slipped away while most of the film press was in San Francisco for a premiere, and a local Methodist minister married them.
Q 24What pet names did Gable and Lombard call each other?
Ma and Pa
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.
Q 25Carole Lombard died in January 1942 returning from what kind of trip?
A war bond selling tour
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.
Q 26What was Lombard's final film, completed just before her death?
To Be or Not to Be
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.
Q 27Which teenage star sang "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Gable in Broadway Melody of 1938?
Judy Garland
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.
Q 28Which branch did Gable join in August 1942 after Lombard's death?
The Army Air Forces
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.
Q 29Gable flew on bombing raids over Europe in 1943 as an observer-gunner aboard which aircraft?
Flying Fortress
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.
Q 30Which future US president signed Gable's discharge papers in June 1944?
Ronald Reagan
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.