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Clark Gable was born William Clark Gable in Cadiz, Ohio in 1901. His mom died before he was one year old, and his dad re-married when he was two. His stepmom encouraged him to pursue singing, playing music, and acting. Gable left home at 16 and had odd jobs, but at 21 came into an inheritance and began trying to make a living acting. He moved to Oregon, where he met Josephine Dillon, a stage manager 17 years older than he was. She immediately recognized Gable's great potential, and became his personal "coach", teaching him acting, and also paying to have his teeth fixed and to dress better. In 1924 they moved to Hollywood and were married, and she also officially became his "manager". But Gable only got bit parts in movies, and he returned to the stage, first in Houston and then in New York. After he played a killer in The Last Mile on Broadway to much acclaim, he was signed by MGM to a contract, in 1930 and he also divorced his wife and immediately married again. In 1931, Gable was the lead "heavy" in in The Painted Desert, a cowboy movie starring William Boyd, and he also appeared in 12 other MGM movies that year! Most were pretty minor roles, but Joan Crawford had spotted him and asked for him to play a key role in Dance, Fools, Dance, and they ended up making a total of eight films together, and they had an on-again off-again affair for many years, including when one or both were married! Gable was the top male star of the 1930s, and his good friend Spencer Tracy dubbed him the King of Hollywood, and the nickname stuck. He co-starred opposite every top female MGM star, most notably Crawford and Jean Harlow. In 1934 MGM "loaned" Gable to Columbia to make It Happened One Night, and he won the Best Actor Oscar. In 1939 he was loaned to David Selznick to make Gone With the Wind, so ironically, even though Gable is strongly identified with MGM, his two greatest hits were made for other studios (although MGM did distribute Gone With the Wind). In 1935 Gable made The Call of the Wild with Loretta Young, and they had an affair, which resulted in a baby, and since that could have meant the end of both their careers, Young took a year off and pretended to adopt her own baby! In 1939 Gable divorced again and immediately married again, this time to film star Carole Lombard. By all accounts they were very happy together, but in 1942, Lombard was killed in a plane crash while selling war bonds, and Gable was devastated, and joined the Army Air Force at the age of 41. There he made recruiting films, but also went on five combat missions. After the war, Gable married two more times, in 1949, and in 1955. His post-War movies are mostly not very good, in part because Gable insisted on always playing a romantic lead, often with a much younger leading lady. In 1961 he was paired with Marilyn Monroe (and Mongomery Clift) in The Misfits, and that proved to be both Gable and Monroe's final movie. Gable had been a heavy smoker and drinker all his life, and he wanted to look his best opposite Marilyn, and he went on a crash diet, and soon after the movie was finished he had a heart attack, passing away in 1960 at the age of 59. Four months after his death, his wife gave birth to their son, John Clark Gable. If you want to understand why Gable was such an incredibly popular male star (maybe the greatest of all time) I suggest you begin with It Happened One Night. Gable is wonderful, as is the entire movie! AND Joan Crawford was born Lucille LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas in 1905 (later, she would claim she was born in 1908). Her father left her mother before she was born, and her mother re-married while she was a toddler, and for a while she grew up thinking that man was her father. Her mother divorced and re-married yet again before she was 16, moving to Kansas City. Lucille (now called Billie Cassin) started dancing as a chorus girl in Chicago, Detroit and New York City. In 1925, she went to Hollywood, and after her first movie, Pretty Ladies (where she was billed as Lucille Le Sueur), a movie magazine held a contest to pick her new name and the winning entry was Joan Crawford. Crawford had more determination to be a star than any other actress, before or since. One of her early major roles was as the love interest in Harry Langdon's Tramp, Tramp, Tramp in 1926, and by 1928 she had appeared in 24 movies, some small parts and some important ones. In 1928, she had the starring role in Our Dancing Daughters, and that made her a major star. In 1931, she made Laughing Sinners with up and coming star Clark Gable, which led to a series of movies they co-starred in (they also had a years long affair!). Throughout the 1930s, Crawford was one of MGM's top stars, in films like Grand Hotel, Rain, and The Women, plus a slew of romantic melodramas. She had a quickie marriage in 1923, and in 1929 she married Douglas Fairbanks Jr., which lasted until 1933, and in 1935 she married Franchot Tone, which lasted until 1939. In 1940, while unmarried, she adopted a daughter, Christina. In 1942, she married Phillip Terry, and together they adopted a boy, but their marriage only lasted until 1946. In 1943, after 18 years, MGM and Joan parted ways, by mutual consent. But Joan was not willing to fade from the limelight, and she made several very memorable movies with Warner Bros, including Mildred Pierce (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Humoresque, Possessed (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Sudden Fear (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and Flamingo Road. My very favorite movie of hers is the bizarre 1954 Nicholas Ray western, Johnny Guitar (if you have not seen it, I highly recommend it!). By 1956, however, her career was finally winding down, and she married Alfred Steele, President and CEO of the Pepsi-Cola Company. This might have worked out well for her, but he passed away in 1959, and Joan stayed on the Board of Directors of Pepsi until her forced retirement in 1973. In the 1960s, Joan, still not willing to "fade away" appeared in a series of increasingly low budget horror movies, the best of which was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis, with whom Joan had had a bitter feud for years in the 1930s and 1940s. Joan passed away in 1977 at the age of 71. It is easy to remember the crazy lady she clearly was (see Mommie Dearest, based on the bitter tell-all book by her adoptive daughter, Christina), but it is also important to recognize that she had an amazing talent, and that her own remarkable perseverance kept her a major star for over three decades!

Important Added Info: Note that this cool news photo shows Clark Gable and Joan Crawford buying tickets for the upcoming Flashlighter's Frolic. It was an evening staged by the Hollywood Press Photographers, where it was intended that tons of famous stars would appear, so that all the photographers could not only photograph them, but also photograph people together who were not normally seen together. We once before auctioned a really cool publicity photo for this event that showed Spanky McFarland mock photographing Laurel & Hardy (and the event was referred to as the "Flashlighter's Ball" on that photo), and that is the only other still from this event we have ever auctioned! Also note that this news photo has been trimmed and it now measures 7" x 9" [18 x 23 cm].

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