Clark Gable: A Biography » (Reprint)

Warren G. Harris has written critically acclaimed biographies of Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Sophia Loren, among others. He lives in New York City.

Clark Gable arrived in Hollywood after a rough-and-tumble youth, and his breezy, big-boned, everyman persona quickly made him the town’s king. He was a gambler among gamblers, a heavy drinker in the days when everyone drank seemingly all the time, and a lover to legions of the most attractive women in the most glamorous business in the world, including the great love of his life, Carole Lombard.

In this well-researched and revealing biography, Warren G. Harris gives an exceptionally acute portrait of one of the most memorable actors in the history of motion pictures—whose intimates included such legends as Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Loretta Young, David O. Selznick, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, and Grace Kelly—as well as a vivid sense of the glamour and excess of mid-century Hollywood.

Publishers Weekly

While throngs of female fans may have worshiped Gable, Harris illustrates that the "King of Hollywood" 's true self was barely visible beyond the camera's glare. Born in 1901 in rural Ohio to a "wildcatter" father and a mother who died not a year after he was born, Gable seemed more suited to becoming an oilrig operator than a movie star. But by the early 1920s, he had found his road to the big time: women. Harris pulls no punches in describing how the man who would become the "King" used many a queen including his first two wives to reach the status of celebrity. From Gable's early days with traveling stage shows to his fast climb up the Hollywood ladder, Harris (Gable and Lombard) presents a not-so-attractive side of Gable to combat his romanticized star image. His never-ending womanizing, utter denial of an illegitimate daughter and his insecurity over his acting abilities are qualities never before so illustrated in print. To most, Clark Gable stood alone atop the motion-picture world in 1939. He'd won an Oscar for his performance in It Happened One Night, had just completed his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind and had finally settled down with actor Carole Lombard, his third and he was sure would be final wife. Three years later, Lombard died in a plane crash. Her death changed everything. While Harris never says so explicitly, his description of Gable's string of box-office bombs, increased appetite for Scotch, and bitterness toward MGM executives make it plain that Gable had lost his one true love and his vigor for life. Those who wish to keep Gable on the pedestal Hollywood built for him should beware. Harris isn't as kind as Hollywood. Agents, Dan Strone and Owen Laster. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.