The Love of His Life
Clark Gable married five times, but he loved only once. Carole Lombard — the brilliant screwball comedienne, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, the woman who could out-drink, out-swear, and out-laugh any man in the industry — was the love of Gable’s life, and her death in 1942 destroyed him in ways he never recovered from.
They met in 1932, when both were rising stars, and were initially just friends. Gable was married (unhappily) to his second wife, Maria Langham. Lombard was married to William Powell. But the attraction was obvious to everyone. When both were free in the late 1930s, they began a courtship that was the stuff of Hollywood legend — passionate, playful, and deeply romantic.
Lombard was everything Gable wasn’t: spontaneous where he was controlled, irreverent where he was dignified, emotionally open where he was guarded. She teased him mercilessly, calling him “Pappy” and mocking his pomposity. He adored it. Friends said Gable was happier with Lombard than at any other time in his life — more relaxed, more genuine, more himself.
They married in 1939, in a small ceremony in Kingman, Arizona, during a break from Gone with the Wind. It was the happiest period of Gable’s life. He bought a ranch in Encino, where they raised chickens, rode horses, and lived — by Hollywood standards — a remarkably normal life. Lombard, who had been the ultimate party girl, settled into domesticity with surprising ease. Gable, who had been the ultimate bachelor, became a devoted husband.
It lasted three years.
The Crash
In January 1942, America had just entered World War II, and Lombard — fiercely patriotic — went on a war bond tour. She was in Indianapolis, having raised over $2 million in a single day, when she decided to fly home rather than take the train. She wanted to get back to Gable quickly. She flipped a coin to decide between the plane and the train. The coin said plane.
TWA Flight 3 crashed into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas, killing everyone aboard. Lombard was thirty-three.
Gable was devastated. He flew to Nevada and insisted on seeing the crash site, though there was nothing to see. He drank heavily. He couldn’t work. MGM, worried about its biggest star, gave him time off, but time didn’t help. Friends said he was never the same. The lightness, the joy — the qualities Lombard had brought out in him — were gone.
He never got over it. He married twice more — to Sylvia Ashley and Kay Williams — but both marriages were haunted by Lombard’s ghost. Kay Williams, his final wife, later said that Gable kept Lombard’s bedroom exactly as she had left it, and that he spoke to her photograph every night. “Carole was the love of his life,” Williams said. “I knew that. Everyone knew that.”
The War
Lombard’s death propelled Gable into the war. At thirty-one, he was too old to be drafted, but he enlisted in the Army Air Forces anyway — partly from patriotism, partly from guilt (he felt he should have been with Lombard), partly from a self-destructive urge to risk his life.
He served with distinction, flying combat missions over Europe as an aerial gunner and making a training film. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. But the war aged him. When he returned to Hollywood in 1944, he was different — harder, sadder, less vibrant. The King had been to hell, and he hadn’t come back whole.
MGM tried to restart his career with Adventure (1945), advertising it with the slogan “Gable’s back and Garson’s got him!” (co-starring Greer Garson). It was a hit, but Gable’s heart wasn’t in it. The postwar years were a long, slow decline — good films (The Hucksters, Command Decision) mixed with bad ones, but none recapturing the prewar magic. The world had changed, and Gable — now in his forties and fifties — was struggling to find his place in it.
The Man Behind the King
For all his fame, Gable was a deeply insecure man. He was self-conscious about his ears (which he thought were too big), his teeth (dentures from a young age), and his lack of education (he never finished high school). He compensated with charm, but the insecurity never left.
He was also, by many accounts, a difficult man — stubborn, temperamental, and demanding. He clashed with directors, feuded with co-stars, and had a reputation for being cheap (he was notoriously frugal, despite his wealth). But he was also generous to friends, loyal to those who earned his trust, and capable of great kindness.
His relationship with his children was complicated. He had a son, John Clark Gable, with Kay Williams, born after his death. He also had a daughter, Judy Lewis, with Loretta Young — the result of an affair during Call of the Wild (1935) that was kept secret for decades. Young, a devout Catholic, put Judy up for adoption and then adopted her back, claiming she was an orphan. The truth didn’t emerge until years later. Gable never publicly acknowledged Judy, though he supported her financially. It was the great shame of his life, and he carried it silently.
The Last Film
In 1960, Gable — now fifty-nine and in poor health — took what would be his final role: The Misfits, written by Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston, co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. It was a troubled production — Monroe was unstable, Clift was ill, Huston was gambling — but Gable was professional to the end. He did his own stunts, including a brutal scene where he wrestles a wild mustang, despite his heart condition.
He finished the film in November 1960. Days later, he suffered a massive heart attack. He died on November 16, 1960. He was fifty-nine.
The irony was cruel: Gable, who had survived the war, who had endured Lombard’s death, who had been the King for three decades, was killed by a movie stunt. But those who knew him said he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He died working, doing what he loved, being Clark Gable to the end.
The Legacy
Clark Gable remains the definitive movie star — the template for masculine charm, the “King of Hollywood” against whom all others are measured. The American Film Institute named him the seventh-greatest male star of classic Hollywood, but for many, he is the star, the one who embodied the studio era’s glamour and power.
But the real Gable — the insecure boy from Ohio, the grieving widower, the flawed, complicated man — is more interesting than the King. He was not perfect. He was not always kind. He made mistakes, hurt people, and carried wounds he never healed. But he was real, in a way few stars are.
He loved Carole Lombard. He served his country. He worked until he died. And he gave us Rhett Butler — the role that made him immortal, the character who, like Gable himself, was stronger and more vulnerable than he let on.
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” It was Rhett’s line, but it could have been Gable’s epitaph — the defiant shrug of a man who had seen it all and kept going. The King is dead. Long live the King.
The Secret Daughter
The story of Gable’s daughter with Loretta Young — Judy Lewis — is Hollywood’s most poignant secret. Conceived during Call of the Wild (1935), Judy was the result of an affair that Young, a devout Catholic, couldn’t acknowledge.
Young went to Europe to have the baby in secret, then put her up for adoption — only to adopt her back months later, claiming she was an orphan. The ruse fooled almost everyone. Judy grew up believing she was adopted, though she strongly resembled Gable.
The truth emerged gradually. Judy learned it as an adult. Gable never publicly acknowledged her, though he provided financial support. It was the era’s morality — a star couldn’t admit to an illegitimate child.
Judy Lewis, who became a therapist and author, wrote about her experience with grace. She didn’t condemn her parents; she understood their dilemma. But the secrecy wounded her.
Gable’s silence on the matter was his great shame. The King, who seemed to fear nothing, feared this truth. It is a reminder that even icons are human — flawed, frightened, and fallible.
The Ranch
Gable’s Encino ranch, which he shared with Lombard, was his sanctuary. He raised chickens, rode horses, and lived simply — a stark contrast to his glamorous image.
After Lombard’s death, he couldn’t bear to sell it. He kept it for years, though it pained him. It was the last place he’d been happy.
The ranch was eventually sold, but its memory endured. For Gable, it represented what might have been: a normal life, with the woman he loved.
He never found it again.