The Fedora Chronicles - Golden Age Of Hollywood Clark Gable

Clark Gable (1901-1960)

Gable was the King of Hollywood in the 30s, he was the leading male star at the box office even if few of his films and performances have really endured, certainly not as many as contemporaries such as Cagney, Cooper, Stewart and Grant. Still he was on top in the 30s and events in his private life had a big impact on his life, Gable was never quite the same personally or professionally after the death of his wife Carole Lombard in a plane accident in 1942.

Gable began his film career as an extra in the silents and a heavy in early talkies like the western The Painted Desert (1931). MGM were on the look out for a replacement for John Gilbert whose career had declined with the arrival of sound and Gable fitted the bill with his harder edge. Irving Thalberg encouraged the development of stories for Gable after seeing his performance in Night Nurse (1931), he was teamed over the next few years with all the great MGM leading ladies but his most important screen partnerships were with three actresses : Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy. The best of his early MGM films was Red Dust (1932) with Harlow and Mary Astor, but it was on a loan out to Columbia for director Frank Capra that he made his first great film It Happened One Night (1934). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as intrepid reporter Peter Warne.

He was an effective contrast to Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh in Mutiny On the Bounty (1935). Gable was even better in one of his greatest pictures with Spencer Tracy and Jeanette MacDonald : San Francisco (1936). He co-starred with Tracy in two further entertaining films : Test Pilot (1938) and Boom Town (1940). The Thirties ended with Gone with the Wind (1939) in which Gable seemed to sum up all his lovable rogues in the character of Rhett Butler. During the filming he married the love of his life Lombard, after her death he joined the Army.

Gable's post war movies never really recaptured his Thirties' peak. A remake of Red Dust (1932) : Mogambo (1953) with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly was disappointing when compared with the original, shortly after that Gable left MGM to become a free agent. His best film after that was his final one The Misfits (1961) with Marilyn Monroe but Gable died before it was released.

Gable's great 30s performances mean that the King of Hollywood will continue to be remembered fondly and enjoyed.