Clark Gable Was ‘Lucky and He Knew It’: All About the Women Who Made Him a Hollywood Legend

In his lifetime, Clark Gable would be crowned the King of Hollywood — but it’s unlikely he would have achieved such heights without help. From his wives to his many costars, Clark was indebted to the women who paved the way and transformed him from an actor into a legend.

Born in Cadiz, Ohio, in 1901, William Clark Gable labored as a farmhand, a lumberjack and a telephone lineman as a young man. He grew up loving music and Shakespeare, but his yearning to be a stage actor ran up against his father’s wishes. “His father thought it was sissy work,” film historian Pierre Montiel tells Closer. “Once Clark broke away, he headed West.”

In Oregon, he met Josephine Dillon, a theater manager who took him under her wing. “She taught him how to talk and how to carry himself,” says Montiel. She also paid to have Clark’s teeth straightened, showed him how to dress and convinced him to use his middle name professionally.

Despite a 17-year age gap, the pair wed in 1924. “It was a strange marriage because she was old enough to be his mother,” says Montiel. Under Josephine’s management, Clark appeared onstage in Houston and New York and even began getting small roles in silent movies. They split in 1930, right around the time Clark committed himself to movie acting.

Success didn’t come easily. “His ears are too big, and he looks like an ape,” groused Darryl F. Zanuck, who declined to sign Clark with Warner Bros. MGM looked on the actor more kindly and paired him up with Joan Crawford in 1931’s Dance, Fools, Dance. “We had an affair — a glorious affair — and it lasted longer than anybody knows,” she confessed in 1968.

Joan could never get Clark to marry her, but the eight films they made together helped make him a leading man — and the subject of much romantic speculation! At one point, MGM boss Louis B. Mayer threatened to fire Clark — the lesser of the two actors — if his affair with Joan didn’t stop. But instead of tarnishing Clark’s star power, the rumors only helped to make him more desirable to his adoring fans.

Carole Lombard Brought Out Clark Gable’s Softer Side

Clark might have become just another actor, eventually forgotten by history, if not for his marriage to Carole Lombard and his role as Rhett Butler in 1939’s Gone With the Wind.

The actor met Carole when they were teamed up in 1932’s No Man of Her Own, but sparks only flew several years later when they ran into each other at a party. “He and Carole Lombard were made for each other,” says Montiel of the pair, who wed in 1939. After years as one of Hollywood’s biggest scoundrels, Clark’s union with Carole turned him into the marrying kind. “She tamed him,” says the historian. “For five years, until her death in a plane crash, they were Hollywood’s reigning king and queen.”

Carole was the first to bring Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind to Clark’s attention. Though Clark didn’t want to make a “women’s picture” and protested a scene where Rhett sheds tears over Scarlett’s miscarriage, his role in the movie opposite Vivien Leigh would cement his place in film history.

Clark, however, remained humble when confronted with his legacy. “I can’t emote worth a damn,” he insisted. “When I die, they’ll put on my tombstone, ‘He was lucky and he knew it.’”