Clark Gable

Clark Gable was an American actor born on February 1, 1901, in Cadiz, Ohio, to William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller, and his wife Adeline. His mother died when he was ten months old, and his father later remarried Jennie Dunlap in 1903. Gable grew up in Ohio and Pennsylvania, spending time on his maternal uncle's farm in Vernon Township, Pennsylvania. As a teenager he became the only boy in the Hopedale Men's town band, and he worked for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron before pursuing an acting career.

Gable's interest in acting was sparked at age 17 when he saw the play The Bird of Paradise, though he did not begin pursuing the profession in earnest until he turned 21 and received a $300 inheritance from a Hershelman family trust. He toured with second-class stock companies and traveling tent shows across the Midwest, eventually settling in Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a necktie salesman at the Meier & Frank department store. There he met actor Earle Larimore, who introduced him to theater circles and to Franz Dorfler, with whom Gable began a relationship. The two auditioned for The Astoria Players and toured with the group until its bankruptcy. In Portland, Gable began studying under acting coach Josephine Dillon, who helped him improve his voice, posture, body control, and speech. Dillon later became his manager and wife, and the two traveled to Hollywood in 1924, where Gable changed his stage name from W. C. Gable to Clark Gable.

In Hollywood he appeared as an extra in silent films including Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow (1925), The Plastic Age (1925), and Forbidden Paradise (1924), as well as in a series of two-reel comedies called The Pacemakers and Fox's The Johnstown Flood (1926). Finding no major film roles forthcoming, he returned to the stage. During the 1927–28 theater season he performed with the Laskin Brothers Stock Company in Houston, Texas, where he gained substantial experience and became a local matinee idol. He then moved to New York City to pursue Broadway work.

Gable appeared on Broadway between 1928 and 1930, with credits including Machinal, Hawk Island, and Love, Honor and Betray. His performance in Machinal in 1928 drew favorable notices, with one critic describing him as young, vigorous, and brutally masculine. Hawk Island, which he worked on after separating from Dillon in 1929, ran for 24 performances. Gable and Dillon's divorce became final in April 1930, and shortly afterward he married Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham.

His stage work in the Los Angeles production of The Last Mile in 1930, in which he played the character Killer Mears, led to a film contract with Pathé Pictures. His first sound film role was as a villain in the western The Painted Desert (1931). He subsequently moved to Warner Bros. and then built a career as one of Hollywood's most prominent leading men over a 37-year period, appearing in more than 60 motion pictures across multiple genres.

Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) and received additional nominations in the same category for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), in which he portrayed Fletcher Christian, and for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939). He also earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Teacher's Pet (1958) and But Not for Me (1959). Among his other notable films were Call of the Wild (1935), Key to the City (1950), and Mogambo (1953). His final screen appearance was as an aging cowboy in John Huston's The Misfits (1961). The American Film Institute ranked Gable seventh on its 1999 list of the greatest male screen legends of classical Hollywood cinema, and he appeared 16 times on Quigley Publishing's annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll. Gable died of a heart attack on November 16, 1960, at the age of 59.