Curiosidades

Gave his Oscar for Aconteceu Naquela Noite (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.

On June 11, 1933, he was hospitalized for pyorrhea, an infection of the gums the day before he was to begin shooting Amor de Dançarina (1933). He was hospitalized for several days, after which most of his teeth were extracted. The infection would have killed him had he not been rushed to a private hospital for treatment. 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 him 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 that his gall bladder was removed. Out for another month, the film had to be shut down and went $150,000 over budget. MGM boss Louis B. Mayer docked him two weeks pay, which caused bad feelings between the studio and its top star, although his illness was genuine and he was not malingering. 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 Aconteceu Naquela Noite (1934), swept the Academy Awards the next year and brought Gable his only Oscar.

Reportedly attempted suicide on a high-powered motorbike following the tragic and untimely death of his wife Carole Lombard.

He was already good friends with Hattie McDaniel prior to their making ...E o Vento Levou (1939) together, and wanted her to play the part of "Mammy", but it was her coming fully dressed and nailing the part that got her the coveted role. When it came time for the premiere on December 15, 1939, producer David O. Selznick attempted to bring along McDaniel. MGM advised him not to because of Georgia's strict segregation laws, which would have prevented McDaniel from being at the same function, on an equal basis, with whites. Gable was so outraged he told MGM he would not attend the premiere unless she was allowed to attend, also. She eventually convinced him to attend without her.

Well known for his pipe smoking, sustaining at least two bowlfuls a day. To this day he still has pipes named after him.

Playing a cowboy in his last film, Os Desajustados (1961), which was also the final film for co-star Marilyn Monroe. The aging Gable diligently performed some of his own stunts, taking its toll on his already failing health. He died from a heart attack before the film was released.

In order to expedite the divorce from his second wife Ria so he could marry Carole Lombard, he paid her a $500,000 settlement in 1939, nearly everything he had at the time.

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.

In 1939, part of his 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 then.

Gable and Loretta Young had a romance during the filming of O Grito da Selva (1935). Young became pregnant. To hide that she and Gable had produced an out-of-wedlock child, fearing it would ruin both of their careers due to strict morality clauses, Loretta Young secretly gave birth to Judy Lewis, while ostensibly vacationing in Europe. When she returned to Hollywood, she claimed Judy was adopted. Gable met Judy only once when she was a teenager.

Prior to making Os Desajustados (1961), he crash-dieted from a bloated 230 lb. to 195 lb. Twice in the previous decade he had suffered seizures that might have been heart attacks; once, ten years earlier, while driving along a freeway he had chest pains so severe that he had to pull off the road and lie down on the ground until he felt well enough to continue on.

As head of the actors' division of the Hollywood Victory Committee, he 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 work at Hal Roach Studios--"Fort Roach", as the First Motion Picture Unit headquarters came to be known. His discharge papers were signed by Capt. Ronald Reagan.

He disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.

On November 6, 1960, Gable was devastated to learn of the unexpected death of his close friend Ward Bond from a heart attack. Shortly afterward, he also suffered a massive heart attack (while reading a magazine). President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend, sent him a message of support wishing him a speedy recovery. Gable died in the hospital ten days after his infarction. Although it is often claimed that he died as a result of Marilyn Monroe's behavior and performing his own stunts in Os Desajustados (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. He was interred at Forest Lawn, (Glendale, California) in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, on the left hand side, next to Carole Lombard.

He was dyslexic, a fact that didn't emerge until several years after his death.

Although discharged from the US Army Air Force early in 1944, he refused to make another movie until the war had ended.

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.

Baptized as a Catholic, but raised as a Protestant, Gable did not practice any religion as an adult. His private funeral service, at the Church of the Recessional in Forest Lawn Park, was attended by some 200 mourners, including Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, James Stewart, Norma Shearer, Ann Sothern, Marion Davies, Frank Capra, Robert Stack, Jack Oakie, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Van Johnson and Howard Strickling, Gable's longtime publicity man at MGM. There was no eulogy. The closed casket was adorned with yellow roses shaped like a crown, befitting the one-time King of Hollywood.

A few months after his death, Gable's widow, Kay (1917-1983), gave birth to John Clark Gable, a race-car driver and sometime actor.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, CA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, on the left hand side, next to Carole Lombard.

Had a fear of flying, and made all long journeys across America by train.

His father always opposed his decision to become an actor, and even after became a major star he still denounced acting as a "sissy" occupation. Gable became a Freemason in 1933 just to please his father. However, he showed no grief when his father died at age 78 from a heart attack on 4 August 1948, having outlived his three wives.

Served as a pallbearer and usher at Jean Harlow's funeral in 1937.

He and then future wife Carole Lombard first met in late 1924 while working as extras on the set of Ben-Hur (1925). They would make three films together as extras--Ben-Hur (1925), A Inundação (1926) and Luar, Música e Amor (1925)--and star together in Casar por Azar (1932), but not become romantically involved until 1936.

Was Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's inspiration for half of Superman's alter ego name Clark Kent ("Kent" came from Kent Taylor).

Despite his dyslexia, he became an avid reader. He would never allow himself to be photographed reading on film sets, fearing it would undermine his macho screen image.

He 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.

His first two wives--Josephine Dillon and Maria Franklin Gable (aka Ria Langham)--were 14 and 17 years older than he was, respectively.

Originally the image of him as an outdoorsman was an invention of the studios, designed to bolster his masculine screen image during the early 1930s. However, he soon discovered that he enjoyed hunting, shooting and fishing, so the image swiftly became the reality.

On November 5, 1960, Gable suffered his first heart attack when he was changing a tire on his jeep. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend of his, sent him a message of support wishing him a speedy recovery.

Wanted his headstone to read "Back to silents", but his widow didn't use it.

In the 1970s his Encino, CA, estate was subdivided and turned into a very upscale tract development called "Clark Gable Estates".

Once named O Grande Motim (1935) as the favorite of his movies, despite the fact that he did not like co-star Charles Laughton. He was also initially disappointed by the casting of Franchot Tone as Midshipman Byam, since the two actors had been bitter rivals for the affections of Joan Crawford. However, during filming they became close friends.

It was at his 36th birthday that Judy Garland sang "Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You".

So durable that he could play the same role in both an original (Terra de Paixões (1932)) with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor, and its remake (Mogambo (1953)) with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly.

He liked westerns, and once expressed his regret that he didn't make more of them.

At the time of his death his gun collection was valued at $500,000. He had a special gun room in his house filled with gold-inlaid revolvers, shotguns and rifles.

In 1949 he served as a pallbearer at the funeral of director Victor Fleming, whom he considered something of a father figure.

He was voted the 21st Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Premiere Magazine".

When he was born he was mistakenly listed as a female on his birth certificate.

His father was of German, some Swiss-German, and distant Irish, ancestry. His mother was of half German and half Irish descent.

He was a conservative Republican, although his third wife Carole Lombard, a liberal Democrat, encouraged him to support President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms. In February 1952 Gable addressed a televised rally at Madison Square Gardens in New York in support of Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, and a few days before his death he voted by post for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

He disliked his most famous film ...E o Vento Levou (1939), which he regarded as "a woman's picture.".

His 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?".

In the mid-1950s he started to receive television offers but rejected them outright, even though some of his peers, like his old flame Loretta Young, were flourishing in the new medium.

Despite his rising popularity, he balked at playing gangsters and overtly callous characters, and was therefore very pleased to be cast in Terra de Paixões (1932), the film that set the seal on his stardom.

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. (Crews would later play "Aunt Pittypat" in ...E o Vento Levou (1939).) His much older first wife served as his first acting coach and paid for his false teeth. Later he married a woman 17 years his senior, Texan heiress Maria Franklin Gable, who had underwritten his successful assault on Hollywood.

In 1955 he formed a production company with Jane Russell and her husband Robert Waterfield, and they produced Esse Homem é Meu (1956), the star's one and only production. The stress of making the film took such a toll on his health that he decided not to produce again.

He was so disappointed by the critical and commercial failure of Aventura (1945) that he did not agree to make another film until more than a year had passed. Fortunately, Mercador de Ilusões (1947) proved to be a success and his performance was acclaimed.

When he was first cast in Aconteceu Naquela Noite (1934) opposite Claudette Colbert, he told director Frank Capra that he would give the role a shot, but if things weren't going well after a few days, he would leave the production.