Shortly before Gable’s mother died, she had him baptized Roman Catholic, yet after her death, his Protestant father had no desire to raise his son as a Catholic. A family feud evolved with Gable eventually being able to spend time with his mother’s family again. His father married again, but she died and left Gable’s father a widower for the second time. With the family having financial troubles, Gable quit school at the age of sixteen and struck out on his own to make ends meet.

Initially Gable worked in the tire factories in Akron, Ohio, but after seeing a play, he decided to try his hand at acting. He used an inheritance he received at the age of twenty-one to pursue his craft, and worked his way across the country to Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a tie salesman, waiting on his big acting break. Gable enlisted the help of an acting coach, Josephine Dillon, and the two moved to Hollywood to find work for Gable. Josephine worked as his manager and later became his first wife, even though she was many years older than him.

Gable found some acting work in silent films and also a few movies with sound as well, but didn’t begin to make his mark in the acting world until he was offered a contract from MGM in 1930. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Gable also divorced Josephine around this time. His first MGM movie was Painted Desert, starring William Boyd. The ladies always took an interest in Gable, as he married his second wife, Texas socialite Maria "Ria" Langham, yet another much older woman. He married her within days of his divorce from Josephine. It was also at that time that legendary Joan Crawford requested him specifically to be her costar in Dance, Fools, Dance. They went on to star in many movies together, and their obvious onscreen chemistry sparked many rumors of a real-life affair between the two.

Another of Gable’s famous costars was Norma Shearer whom he slapped in A Free Soul. This movie also happened to be his last in a supporting role. His boss at MGM, Louis B. Mayer, tired of him and felt Gable was becoming difficult to work with in his increasing stardom. He farmed Gable’s talent out to the lesser studio, Columbia, to work in the movie It Happened One Night, with Claudette Colbert. It backfired on Mayer, as Gable went on to win an Academy Award for his role in the movie, and was then welcomed back to MGM with open arms.

Mutiny on the Bounty was another hit for Gable, as he starred alongside Charles Laughton. Unfortunately, the two actors didn’t get along, as Gable was extremely homophobic and Laughton was known to bring his boyfriend to the set. This same year Gable filmed The Call of the Wild with Loretta Young, and the two had an affair that resulted in the birth of a daughter, actress Judy Lewis.

A few years later, Gable filmed his most famous movie, the incredibly popular Gone with the Wind, starring as Rhett Butler with Vivian Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Also around this time, Gable divorced his second wife, Ria, and married actress Carole Lombard, reportedly the love of his life. The happy life was short-lived for Gable, as just three years after they wed, Lombard was killed along with her mother in a plane crash while out on a war bond drive. In his grief, Gable joined the Army and served his country for three years to honor his late wife.

Gable returned to movies after his return from his Army stint, although none of them gave him the success he had enjoyed earlier in his career. Four years later he married his fourth wife, Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She had had a string of husbands as long as Gable’s string of wives, and after she and Gable divorced after just three years of marriage, she went on to marry Prince Dimitri Djordjadze.

After an on-again off-again affair with Kay Williams, Gable made her his fifth and final wife. A few years after this union he filmed his final movie, The Misfits, which coincidentally also starred Marilyn Monroe in her last movie. Before the movie was released, Gable died from his years of unhealthy heavy drinking and smoking habits. Shortly before he died, Kay had informed him she was pregnant, and John Clark Gable was born four months after his father’s death.

YUDDY