November 7, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, by the time America entered World War II, Clark Gable was already one of the most famous men in the world. Known for Gone with the Wind and his larger-than-life charm, he could have easily stayed home, untouchable and adored. But at forty-one, Gable did something no one expected: he enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps, insisting, “I just want to be sent where the going is rough.”
The studio lights faded into the background as he trained alongside men half his age, learning to fly combat missions over Europe. His fame followed him wherever he went, but on base, he was just another soldier doing his part. Behind the uniform was a man determined to prove that courage wasn’t limited to the screen.
Historian Roger McGrath tells the story of Clark Gable’s service, from Hollywood’s red carpets to the open skies of war, where the King of Hollywood became a patriot who led by example.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
Ouramerican Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites. Clark
Gable was a Hollywood star and among the most famous
figures in the world when two events altered his life.
(00:33):
One of those events was the Japanese sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor. He sent a telegram to President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt asking for a role in the war effort. The
President replied, stay where you are. Gable didn't here to
tell the story is Roger McGrath. And Roger has appeared
on numerous History Channel documentaries and his regular contributor here
(00:56):
on Our American Stories, Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Clark Gable was known as the King of Hollywood. He
appeared in more than sixty movies over a span of
thirty seven years. He won the Academy Award for Best
Actor for his role in It Happened One Night, the
big hit of nineteen thirty four. He was nominated for
Best Actor two more times. He made the famous Top
(01:23):
ten Money Making Stars List sixteen times from nineteen thirty
two through nineteen fifty five. From nineteen thirty four through
nineteen thirty nine, he ranked number two four times. In
nineteen thirty nine, he starred as Rhett Butler in Gone
with the Wind, the greatest film of the era. During
(01:47):
the depths of the Great Depression, MGM paid him seventy
five hundred dollars a week equivalent to one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars a week today, whether or not he
was making a movie. His leading late We're a who's who.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
A female stars.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Before World War Two, they included Jean Harlowe, Carol Lumbard,
Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, Jeanette MacDonald,
Vivian Lee, Roslyn Russell.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And Lava Turner.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
After the war, they included Barbara Stanwick, Deborah Carr, Eva Gardner,
Jean Tierney, Sophia Lorett, and Marilyn Monroe. Born William Clark
Gable at home in February nineteen one in Cadiz, Ohio,
Gable is German on his father's side and German and
(02:42):
Irish on his mother's. His parents come from farm families,
but the father becomes a wildcat oil driller. The mother
dotes on her infant son, but she dies when he's
only ten months old. Gable is taken to be raised
by a maternal uncle and his wife on their farm.
They have no children of their own and love the
(03:03):
little Gable boy so much they want to adopt him.
Gable's father refuses to allow it, thinking he will soon remarry.
Two years later, the father does remarry and takes his
now three year old son back.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
The new wife.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Can't have children of her own and devotes herself to
the large for his age boy. Young Gable is rambunctious
and loves the outdoors, especially when his father takes him
hunting and fishing. Gable also spends each summer back on
the uncle farm until he's twelve years old. From then on,
(03:41):
he has full time jobs during the summer, usually driving
wagons and delivering goods. By the time Clark Gable is
sixteen years old, he reaches his full height of six
foot one and is one hundred and eighty pounds of muscle,
bone and sinew. He is his high school baseball team's
home run hitter. His towering drives land and cow pastures
(04:03):
will be.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
On the outfield.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Gable doesn't return to school for a senior year. Though
the United States enters the Great War in Europe and manpower.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Shortages begin to appear.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Gable gets a job on the production line at the
Firestone Tire plant in Akron. Akron tire plants are running
around the clock and the town's population grows more than
two hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Gable is in the big.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
City and life is at a pace he has never experienced.
It's an Akron. The Gable is bitten by the acting bug.
He attends a play at the Akron Music Hall and
is captivated by the theme and the performances. I clapped
my hands until my palms were sore. Gable later said,
(04:54):
I'd never seen anything as wonderful in my life, which
I guess had been here. Do you drab up until then?
Whenever he can, Gable is at the music hall. He
volunteers to be a callboy, which entails notifying actors in
their dressing rooms when it is their time to go
on stage. He watches and makes careful mental notes of everything.
(05:17):
His enthusiasm is evident to everyone. When an actor playing
a household servant suddenly takes sick. Gable is given the
opportunity to replace him. Said Gable, I had one line.
Your cab is here, madam. I thought I'd die while
I was waiting to go on. When I didn't fall
(05:37):
on my face, I thought I was an actor.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
It was all over then.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
As far as my future was concerned, I never wanted
to be anything else. With the end of the war,
in the sharp cutback on production, Akron falls on hard times.
Many lose their jobs, including Gable. He struggles on with
odd jobs for another before leaving and joining his father,
(06:02):
who was wild cat drilling in Oklahoma. His father finds
him a job as an apprentice tool dresser, swinging a
sixteen pound sledge hammer to sharpen the cutting edges of
drilling bits. After six months of daily twelve hour shifts,
his muscles are bulging and he weighs two hundred.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And five pounds.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Even among the rugged oil field workers, Gable stands out.
Tired of swinging a sledge hammer, Geble gets a job
in an oil refinery, but the work is just as rugged,
said Gable.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I was part of an eight man gang that cleaned.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Out the sledge which was almost like asphalt from stills
and storage tanks as soon as.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
They were emptied.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
The interior temperature and oil fumes were so terrific that
only one man would go in at a time with
a rope around his waist, and Casey passed out work
with a pick and shovel. You could only tolerate it
for about two minutes, so you are in and out
every sixteen minutes throughout the twelve hour shift. I saw
(07:10):
lots of men get a little hysterical. They started to laugh,
and I had to be hauled.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Out and sent home.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And you're listening to Roger McGrath to pick the early
life of actor Clark Gable and what a life When
we come back more of the story of Clark Gable.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Here on our American.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Stories, lead abebe Here, the host of All American Stories.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Every day on this show, we're.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
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Go to Alamericanstories dot com.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
And give.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And you're listening
to Roger McGrath, who also happens to be the author
of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. And
McGrath has done countless hours on the West with us.
And you can just google his name on our search
bar on our website and you'll hear so many beautiful
(08:31):
and good and compelling stories by McGrath. And by the way,
Greg Hangler, who's also the producer on this piece, studied
in McGrath when he was in college, and McGrath is
one of the great history teachers at UCLA. Now let's
return to McGrath and the story of Clark Gable.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
When Gable turns twenty one, he comes in a small
inheritance from his mother's side of the family. It's enough
money to quit the oil fields and pursue acting. Father
explodes when Gable tells him he's leaving. They almost come
to blows and vow never to see each other again.
(09:10):
For two years, Gable's on the road with a traveling
tent show, playing minor roles. The show gets stranded in Butte,
Montana in a terrible blizzard, which forces the cancelation of
the rest of its tour, and then the member of
the show tells Gable he has relatives in Oregon who
might have work for them. The two hop a freight
(09:31):
train and arrive in Oregon half frozen, hungry, and broke.
Gable finds a job at a lumber mill unloading logs
from delivery trucks. He eventually earns enough money to make
his way to Portland. In Oregon's Big City, he strings
wire for a telephone company, is briefly engaged to actress
(09:53):
Francis Doorfler, and appears on stage with the ass Storia players.
Gable's life changes dramatically when he meets Josephine Dylan, a
former Broadway actress who is opening an acting studio in
Portland within weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Gable is not only Dylan's.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Star student, but also living with her. He is twenty
three and she is thirty nine. However, the relationship is
not sexual. Dylan is fascinated by the prospect of turning
Clark Gable, who she sees as a diamond in the rough,
into not just a good actor but a star. After
(10:36):
a year of working with Gable, often to the neglect
of her other students, Dylan decides to relocate the Los
Angeles and establishes an acting studio in Hollywood. Gable arrives
in Hollywood no longer an awkward novice, but a fairly
competent actor. He also has acquired a degree of refinement
(10:56):
and sophistication to go along with his natural personal charm.
To avoid scandal concerning the relationship, Gable and Dylan agreed
to a marriage of convenience. For the next several years,
Gable appears in minor roles in movies, but in ever
greater roles in the theater. He goes on the road
(11:17):
with several different productions, and it's here he hones his
acting chops until critics.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Begin to take notice of him.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
He plays a great variety of characters, from a big
city newspaper reporter to an innocent, naive sailor to a
ruthless gangster, even sings and dances in a musical comedy.
After his performance as the male lead in Eugene O'Neill's Pueller's,
a prize winning play, Anna Christie, a critic, says of Gable,
(11:48):
he took the spotlight early in the play, and through
the character's ready wit and wisdom kept the audience in
an uproar from the opening scene to the final curtain.
Brave reviews confirm Gable's progress as an actor, but something
else is happening that poor tends his future stardom.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Dozens of women are.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
At the stage door waiting for him to leave the
theater at each of his appearances. Clock Gabel's first significant
movie role comes in The Painted Desert, released in nineteen
thirty one. By the end of nineteen thirty one, he
appears in ten more films and moves from supporting roles
(12:33):
to leading man. Nineteen thirty two sees Gable as the
male lead in four major motion pictures. Is leading ladies
are the greatest female stars of the day. He's making
two thousand a week, something like forty thousand a week today,
and the nation is in the depths of the Great Depression.
(12:54):
His star continues to rise through nineteen thirty three and
thirty four, and his salary is doubled.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It will double again.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
His movies are box office and critical successes, especially It
Happened One Night, which wins five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Gable wins the Oscar for Best Actor. Secretaries find it
difficult to keep up with his fan mail, and his.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Hit movies continue.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
China Seas, Call of the Wild, Mutiny on the Bounty,
San Francisco, Test Pilot, Too Hot to Handle, Gone with
the Wind, Where I Go?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Watch My do?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Frankly might heir. I don't give a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Damn women, money, cars, homes are his Clark. Gable is
the king of Hollywood. I can.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That must be somewhere to bring him back.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
In nineteen thirty nine, Gable marries the love of his life,
Carol Lombard. He continues to start in movies, and so
too does Lombard, until the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl
Harbor throws the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Into World War Two.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
A patriot, Lombard raises money for the war by going
on a bond tour on a return to Los Angeles,
though the plane she is on crashes into a mountain
in Vada, with the loss of all on board. Devastated,
Gable spends weeks swilling and whiskey, but sobers up and
completes a movie for MGM against the strong objections of
(14:43):
the studio bosses. The forty one year old King of
Hollywood now enlists as a private in the Army Air Corps.
I don't want to sell bonds to Clarence Gable. I
don't want to make speeches, and I don't want to entertain.
I just want to be sent where the going is tough.
(15:05):
Because of his age, commanding presence, and experience, Gable is
accepted for officers Candidate School is ordered to report to
a camp at Miami, Florida, for a thirteen week officer's course.
He travels by train, and wherever the train stops, women
by the hundreds are their waiting. When Gable asks to
(15:28):
change trains in New Orleans, a crowd of five thousand
female fans makes it impossible for him to catch his
connecting train. He arrives in Miami a day late. For
all his heavy smoking and drinking, Gables, in excellent condition,
is build and prowess impress the other candidates, but most
(15:52):
of them keep their distance, thinking Gable must have an
awfully high opinion of himself. Sensing the tension, Gable removes
his false teeth and waves them at the other men.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Look at the.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
King of Hollywood, he says, sure, looks like the jack
now doesn't he? Everyone laughs, and Gable is suddenly just
one of the guys. Physically, Gable sails through oss out
performing men half his age. Academically a high school dropout,
(16:28):
struggles until he decides to treat classroom material like a
movie script. While other candidates are sleeping at night, he
sits in a lighted latrine and memorizes page after page
of subject matter until he can recite the material. He
finishes oss in the top one quarter of his class,
(16:50):
and at the request of the other candidates, delivers the
graduation address. After commissioning, Gable spends several more months training
at gunnery schools. Having spent years hunting and shooting skeet
Hick sells as a gunner and is promoted to first
lieutenant by the end of January nineteen forty three. There's
(17:12):
no question that Gaeble will be a top aerial gunner,
but the war Department and the army also want them
to make training films with footage from actual combat.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And you're listening to a heck of a story about
the biggest star in the world at the time, and
at the age of forty one, after suffering perhaps the
greatest loss of his life, the love of his life enlists.
I don't want to raise no money for bonds. I
want to go where the going is tough. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story, a story of sacrifice,
(17:46):
a story of love of country. And at forty one,
the story of Clark Gable continues here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Clark Gable and his military service in World War Two.
We've heard about the man, his life, and my goodness,
all of the tough work he did prepared him for well,
the physical nature of war, the psychological nature of war. Well,
that's another thing. Let's pick up what we last left off.
(18:29):
Here's Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
After more training, Gable is deployed with the three point
fifty first Bomb Group to Polebrook, England, some eighty miles
north of London. His arrival in April nineteen forty three
is first announced by German radio broadcasts, which say he
will be welcomed in Germany when his plane is shot down.
(18:53):
Hitler has a large collection of American films and has
stated more than once his favorite Hollywood actor is Clark Gable.
German air Minister Hermann Gerin announces that any pilot who
shoots down Gable's plane will receive the equivalent of five
thousand dollars something like one hundred thousand today. If Gable
(19:16):
survives to shoot down and is captured, the German pilot
will also be promoted and given a paid vacation. Exactly
how many combat missions Clark Gable flies is not known,
because he is not a regular crew member for any
particular bomber, but simply climbs aboard whenever he can to
(19:36):
shoot aerial footage or serve as a replacement for a
wounded ill gunner. The logbooks record Gable on five missions,
but he probably flies.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
More than twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
His commanding officer, Colonel William Hatcher, says, the dam fool
insists on being a rear gunner on every mission. Gable's
first officially recorded combat mission comes in May nineteen forty three.
He's aboard a B seventeen on a bombing raid targeting
factories in German occupied Belgium. Besides filming, he also serves
(20:12):
as a gunner. Not wanting to diminish his dexterity for
camera work, he wears light leather gloves and suffers frostbite.
Two B seventeens are shot down and the others sustained damage.
His second mission takes him to a German airfield in France,
but clouds are obscuring the target and the B seventeens
(20:34):
cannot drop their bombs.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
German fighters, though, come.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Up through the clouds to attack the American bombers. Several
sustained damage, but none are lost. Gables third mission targets
chemical plants in German occupied Norway. It's the longest flight
for the Eighth Air Force, yet two B seventeen suffer
damage from flak. His fourth mission, almost his last, The
(21:02):
target is a synthetic oil plant in Germany's Ruhr Valley.
In a massive air ray by several bomb groups, three
hundred planes participate, twenty five American bombers are shot down
and double that number badly damaged. Many men are killed
or wounded. In the midst of the battle, Gable wedges
(21:24):
himself behind the top turret gunner to film German fighters
as they make passes at the American bomber, which is
named it. Gruesome bursts of machine gun fire rip into
the B seventeen, and then a twenty millimeters shell comes
up through the top turret, but miraculously doesn't explode. The
(21:47):
shell rips through the heel at Gabel's boot and then
misses his head by inches. Although shot full of holes,
ain't at Gruesome makes it back to base. When reporters
see Gable with a mangled boot and ask him how
it happened, Gable says, I didn't know what happened. I
(22:08):
didn't know anything about it until we had dropped eleven
thousand feet and could get off oxygen and look around.
Only then did I see the hole in the turret.
Gable's next mission targets a shipping port used by the
Germans on the coast of France. The American bombers are
jumped by German fighters and suffer extensive damage. When the
(22:32):
nosegunner in Gable's B seventeen is wounded, Gable takes his place.
Between missions. Gable heads to the MGM offices in London
and screens footage that he and other members of his
film unit have shot. He also visits David Niffen, who
is now in the British Army and stationed near London,
(22:53):
but living in a house off base. I came home
one night, said niffn to find a large American Air
Force officer sitting in my chair on his knee. Was
my son, serving him from my last bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Was my wife.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
It was a great reunion. He became devoted to my family,
always showing up with unheard of goodies such as concentrated
orange juice and nylons from the bountiful American PX. Back
at the three point fifty first Bomb Group, Gable rides
a motorcycle around the base and becomes acquainted with everyone,
(23:33):
from privates to colonels. He writes letters of condolence to
families of his fellow airmen who die, and regularly visits
patients in the base hospital. Clark Gable was a human
with a heart, said a sergeant. When Bob Hope and
his troop came to the base to put on an
outdoor show. There were thousands of guys in the audience
(23:55):
with Clark tucked in there somewhere. Hope stood in the
bike trying his day to get Clark on the stage.
Hope kept joking, I know.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
There's a celebrity out there. Where is he?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But he couldn't get him to even stand up the
guys laughed, and some sitting near Clark shouted here and
started to applaud and whistle. Clark half got up, smiled
and gave half a wave, and then put his head down.
The applause and whistling went on. She it must have
been for ten minutes. Everybody thought it was great. In
(24:29):
October nineteen forty three, Gable has awarded the Distinguished Flying
Cross in.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
The Air Metal.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
He's ordered home, arriving in November with fifty thousand feet
of film. He stationed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City,
now used by the Army's Signal Corps for the production
of training and recruiting films. The studios are nicknamed Fort Roach.
Also serving at Fort Roach as Captain Ronald Reagan, Gable
(25:00):
works on turning is fifty thousand feet of footage into
training films, visits military hospitals, and makes appearances at war
bond rallies. By May nineteen forty four, he's finished with
his film projects and is promoted to major. He now
hopes for an assignment to the Pacific theater of the war.
(25:22):
When he learns the Army will not allow him in
combat again, he requests a discharge and is separated from active.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Duty in mid June.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Gable doesn't return to making movies until the war is
over in Europe and nearly over in the Pacific, saying
is uncomfortable doing so when men are still dying in combat.
He stars in twenty two movies following World War Two.
(25:53):
Because of his movies, most people today still know of
Clark Gable the actor.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
What they don't know is that he left his wife as.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
The King of Hollywood to play his greatest role, a
real life role as Captain Clark Gable, an aerial gunner
in a B seventeen facing German fighters in the skies
over Europe.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And great work by Roger McGrath.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And he does great work for us regularly, and he's
one of our most regular contributors. And by the way,
McGrath is a US Marine, and I don't say former,
because once a marine, always a marine. And you could
tell there was a special connection to the material. Clark
Gable's greatest roll of his life playing Captain Clark Gable
himself in war an aerial gunner B seventeens. And imagine
(26:49):
that Hermann Goring put a bounty on Clark Gable's head.
And I just love that quote from one of his
commanders that damn fool insists on being a rear gunner
on every mission, And that tells you everything you need
to know about Clark Gable when he's in all the way.
A beautiful story about a great star, the star behind
(27:11):
the star, the real man, Clark Gable's story, his World
War Two story here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
Ouramerican Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites. Clark
Gable was a Hollywood star and among the most famous
figures in the world when two events altered his life.
(00:33):
One of those events was the Japanese sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor. He sent a telegram to President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt asking for a role in the war effort. The
President replied, stay where you are. Gable didn't here to
tell the story is Roger McGrath. And Roger has appeared
on numerous History Channel documentaries and his regular contributor here
(00:56):
on Our American Stories, Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Clark Gable was known as the King of Hollywood. He
appeared in more than sixty movies over a span of
thirty seven years. He won the Academy Award for Best
Actor for his role in It Happened One Night, the
big hit of nineteen thirty four. He was nominated for
Best Actor two more times. He made the famous Top
(01:23):
ten Money Making Stars List sixteen times from nineteen thirty
two through nineteen fifty five. From nineteen thirty four through
nineteen thirty nine, he ranked number two four times. In
nineteen thirty nine, he starred as Rhett Butler in Gone
with the Wind, the greatest film of the era. During
(01:47):
the depths of the Great Depression, MGM paid him seventy
five hundred dollars a week equivalent to one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars a week today, whether or not he
was making a movie. His leading late We're a who's who.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
A female stars.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Before World War Two, they included Jean Harlowe, Carol Lumbard,
Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, Jeanette MacDonald,
Vivian Lee, Roslyn Russell.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And Lava Turner.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
After the war, they included Barbara Stanwick, Deborah Carr, Eva Gardner,
Jean Tierney, Sophia Lorett, and Marilyn Monroe. Born William Clark
Gable at home in February nineteen one in Cadiz, Ohio,
Gable is German on his father's side and German and
(02:42):
Irish on his mother's. His parents come from farm families,
but the father becomes a wildcat oil driller. The mother
dotes on her infant son, but she dies when he's
only ten months old. Gable is taken to be raised
by a maternal uncle and his wife on their farm.
They have no children of their own and love the
(03:03):
little Gable boy so much they want to adopt him.
Gable's father refuses to allow it, thinking he will soon remarry.
Two years later, the father does remarry and takes his
now three year old son back.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
The new wife.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Can't have children of her own and devotes herself to
the large for his age boy. Young Gable is rambunctious
and loves the outdoors, especially when his father takes him
hunting and fishing. Gable also spends each summer back on
the uncle farm until he's twelve years old. From then on,
(03:41):
he has full time jobs during the summer, usually driving
wagons and delivering goods. By the time Clark Gable is
sixteen years old, he reaches his full height of six
foot one and is one hundred and eighty pounds of muscle,
bone and sinew. He is his high school baseball team's
home run hitter. His towering drives land and cow pastures
(04:03):
will be.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
On the outfield.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Gable doesn't return to school for a senior year. Though
the United States enters the Great War in Europe and manpower.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Shortages begin to appear.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Gable gets a job on the production line at the
Firestone Tire plant in Akron. Akron tire plants are running
around the clock and the town's population grows more than
two hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Gable is in the big.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
City and life is at a pace he has never experienced.
It's an Akron. The Gable is bitten by the acting bug.
He attends a play at the Akron Music Hall and
is captivated by the theme and the performances. I clapped
my hands until my palms were sore. Gable later said,
(04:54):
I'd never seen anything as wonderful in my life, which
I guess had been here. Do you drab up until then?
Whenever he can, Gable is at the music hall. He
volunteers to be a callboy, which entails notifying actors in
their dressing rooms when it is their time to go
on stage. He watches and makes careful mental notes of everything.
(05:17):
His enthusiasm is evident to everyone. When an actor playing
a household servant suddenly takes sick. Gable is given the
opportunity to replace him. Said Gable, I had one line.
Your cab is here, madam. I thought I'd die while
I was waiting to go on. When I didn't fall
(05:37):
on my face, I thought I was an actor.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
It was all over then.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
As far as my future was concerned, I never wanted
to be anything else. With the end of the war,
in the sharp cutback on production, Akron falls on hard times.
Many lose their jobs, including Gable. He struggles on with
odd jobs for another before leaving and joining his father,
(06:02):
who was wild cat drilling in Oklahoma. His father finds
him a job as an apprentice tool dresser, swinging a
sixteen pound sledge hammer to sharpen the cutting edges of
drilling bits. After six months of daily twelve hour shifts,
his muscles are bulging and he weighs two hundred.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And five pounds.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Even among the rugged oil field workers, Gable stands out.
Tired of swinging a sledge hammer, Geble gets a job
in an oil refinery, but the work is just as rugged,
said Gable.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I was part of an eight man gang that cleaned.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Out the sledge which was almost like asphalt from stills
and storage tanks as soon as.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
They were emptied.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
The interior temperature and oil fumes were so terrific that
only one man would go in at a time with
a rope around his waist, and Casey passed out work
with a pick and shovel. You could only tolerate it
for about two minutes, so you are in and out
every sixteen minutes throughout the twelve hour shift. I saw
(07:10):
lots of men get a little hysterical. They started to laugh,
and I had to be hauled.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Out and sent home.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And you're listening to Roger McGrath to pick the early
life of actor Clark Gable and what a life When
we come back more of the story of Clark Gable.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Here on our American.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Stories, lead abebe Here, the host of All American Stories.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Every day on this show, we're.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
do the show without you. Our stories are free to
listen to, but they're not free to make. If you
love what you hear, go to Alamericanstories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little give a lot.
Go to Alamericanstories dot com.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
And give.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And you're listening
to Roger McGrath, who also happens to be the author
of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. And
McGrath has done countless hours on the West with us.
And you can just google his name on our search
bar on our website and you'll hear so many beautiful
(08:31):
and good and compelling stories by McGrath. And by the way,
Greg Hangler, who's also the producer on this piece, studied
in McGrath when he was in college, and McGrath is
one of the great history teachers at UCLA. Now let's
return to McGrath and the story of Clark Gable.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
When Gable turns twenty one, he comes in a small
inheritance from his mother's side of the family. It's enough
money to quit the oil fields and pursue acting. Father
explodes when Gable tells him he's leaving. They almost come
to blows and vow never to see each other again.
(09:10):
For two years, Gable's on the road with a traveling
tent show, playing minor roles. The show gets stranded in Butte,
Montana in a terrible blizzard, which forces the cancelation of
the rest of its tour, and then the member of
the show tells Gable he has relatives in Oregon who
might have work for them. The two hop a freight
(09:31):
train and arrive in Oregon half frozen, hungry, and broke.
Gable finds a job at a lumber mill unloading logs
from delivery trucks. He eventually earns enough money to make
his way to Portland. In Oregon's Big City, he strings
wire for a telephone company, is briefly engaged to actress
(09:53):
Francis Doorfler, and appears on stage with the ass Storia players.
Gable's life changes dramatically when he meets Josephine Dylan, a
former Broadway actress who is opening an acting studio in
Portland within weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Gable is not only Dylan's.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Star student, but also living with her. He is twenty
three and she is thirty nine. However, the relationship is
not sexual. Dylan is fascinated by the prospect of turning
Clark Gable, who she sees as a diamond in the rough,
into not just a good actor but a star. After
(10:36):
a year of working with Gable, often to the neglect
of her other students, Dylan decides to relocate the Los
Angeles and establishes an acting studio in Hollywood. Gable arrives
in Hollywood no longer an awkward novice, but a fairly
competent actor. He also has acquired a degree of refinement
(10:56):
and sophistication to go along with his natural personal charm.
To avoid scandal concerning the relationship, Gable and Dylan agreed
to a marriage of convenience. For the next several years,
Gable appears in minor roles in movies, but in ever
greater roles in the theater. He goes on the road
(11:17):
with several different productions, and it's here he hones his
acting chops until critics.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Begin to take notice of him.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
He plays a great variety of characters, from a big
city newspaper reporter to an innocent, naive sailor to a
ruthless gangster, even sings and dances in a musical comedy.
After his performance as the male lead in Eugene O'Neill's Pueller's,
a prize winning play, Anna Christie, a critic, says of Gable,
(11:48):
he took the spotlight early in the play, and through
the character's ready wit and wisdom kept the audience in
an uproar from the opening scene to the final curtain.
Brave reviews confirm Gable's progress as an actor, but something
else is happening that poor tends his future stardom.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Dozens of women are.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
At the stage door waiting for him to leave the
theater at each of his appearances. Clock Gabel's first significant
movie role comes in The Painted Desert, released in nineteen
thirty one. By the end of nineteen thirty one, he
appears in ten more films and moves from supporting roles
(12:33):
to leading man. Nineteen thirty two sees Gable as the
male lead in four major motion pictures. Is leading ladies
are the greatest female stars of the day. He's making
two thousand a week, something like forty thousand a week today,
and the nation is in the depths of the Great Depression.
(12:54):
His star continues to rise through nineteen thirty three and
thirty four, and his salary is doubled.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
It will double again.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
His movies are box office and critical successes, especially It
Happened One Night, which wins five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Gable wins the Oscar for Best Actor. Secretaries find it
difficult to keep up with his fan mail, and his.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Hit movies continue.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
China Seas, Call of the Wild, Mutiny on the Bounty,
San Francisco, Test Pilot, Too Hot to Handle, Gone with
the Wind, Where I Go?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Watch My do?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Frankly might heir. I don't give a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Damn women, money, cars, homes are his Clark. Gable is
the king of Hollywood. I can.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That must be somewhere to bring him back.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
In nineteen thirty nine, Gable marries the love of his life,
Carol Lombard. He continues to start in movies, and so
too does Lombard, until the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl
Harbor throws the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Into World War Two.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
A patriot, Lombard raises money for the war by going
on a bond tour on a return to Los Angeles,
though the plane she is on crashes into a mountain
in Vada, with the loss of all on board. Devastated,
Gable spends weeks swilling and whiskey, but sobers up and
completes a movie for MGM against the strong objections of
(14:43):
the studio bosses. The forty one year old King of
Hollywood now enlists as a private in the Army Air Corps.
I don't want to sell bonds to Clarence Gable. I
don't want to make speeches, and I don't want to entertain.
I just want to be sent where the going is tough.
(15:05):
Because of his age, commanding presence, and experience, Gable is
accepted for officers Candidate School is ordered to report to
a camp at Miami, Florida, for a thirteen week officer's course.
He travels by train, and wherever the train stops, women
by the hundreds are their waiting. When Gable asks to
(15:28):
change trains in New Orleans, a crowd of five thousand
female fans makes it impossible for him to catch his
connecting train. He arrives in Miami a day late. For
all his heavy smoking and drinking, Gables, in excellent condition,
is build and prowess impress the other candidates, but most
(15:52):
of them keep their distance, thinking Gable must have an
awfully high opinion of himself. Sensing the tension, Gable removes
his false teeth and waves them at the other men.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Look at the.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
King of Hollywood, he says, sure, looks like the jack
now doesn't he? Everyone laughs, and Gable is suddenly just
one of the guys. Physically, Gable sails through oss out
performing men half his age. Academically a high school dropout,
(16:28):
struggles until he decides to treat classroom material like a
movie script. While other candidates are sleeping at night, he
sits in a lighted latrine and memorizes page after page
of subject matter until he can recite the material. He
finishes oss in the top one quarter of his class,
(16:50):
and at the request of the other candidates, delivers the
graduation address. After commissioning, Gable spends several more months training
at gunnery schools. Having spent years hunting and shooting skeet
Hick sells as a gunner and is promoted to first
lieutenant by the end of January nineteen forty three. There's
(17:12):
no question that Gaeble will be a top aerial gunner,
but the war Department and the army also want them
to make training films with footage from actual combat.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And you're listening to a heck of a story about
the biggest star in the world at the time, and
at the age of forty one, after suffering perhaps the
greatest loss of his life, the love of his life enlists.
I don't want to raise no money for bonds. I
want to go where the going is tough. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story, a story of sacrifice,
(17:46):
a story of love of country. And at forty one,
the story of Clark Gable continues here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Clark Gable and his military service in World War Two.
We've heard about the man, his life, and my goodness,
all of the tough work he did prepared him for well,
the physical nature of war, the psychological nature of war. Well,
that's another thing. Let's pick up what we last left off.
(18:29):
Here's Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
After more training, Gable is deployed with the three point
fifty first Bomb Group to Polebrook, England, some eighty miles
north of London. His arrival in April nineteen forty three
is first announced by German radio broadcasts, which say he
will be welcomed in Germany when his plane is shot down.
(18:53):
Hitler has a large collection of American films and has
stated more than once his favorite Hollywood actor is Clark Gable.
German air Minister Hermann Gerin announces that any pilot who
shoots down Gable's plane will receive the equivalent of five
thousand dollars something like one hundred thousand today. If Gable
(19:16):
survives to shoot down and is captured, the German pilot
will also be promoted and given a paid vacation. Exactly
how many combat missions Clark Gable flies is not known,
because he is not a regular crew member for any
particular bomber, but simply climbs aboard whenever he can to
(19:36):
shoot aerial footage or serve as a replacement for a
wounded ill gunner. The logbooks record Gable on five missions,
but he probably flies.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
More than twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
His commanding officer, Colonel William Hatcher, says, the dam fool
insists on being a rear gunner on every mission. Gable's
first officially recorded combat mission comes in May nineteen forty three.
He's aboard a B seventeen on a bombing raid targeting
factories in German occupied Belgium. Besides filming, he also serves
(20:12):
as a gunner. Not wanting to diminish his dexterity for
camera work, he wears light leather gloves and suffers frostbite.
Two B seventeens are shot down and the others sustained damage.
His second mission takes him to a German airfield in France,
but clouds are obscuring the target and the B seventeens
(20:34):
cannot drop their bombs.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
German fighters, though, come.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Up through the clouds to attack the American bombers. Several
sustained damage, but none are lost. Gables third mission targets
chemical plants in German occupied Norway. It's the longest flight
for the Eighth Air Force, yet two B seventeen suffer
damage from flak. His fourth mission, almost his last, The
(21:02):
target is a synthetic oil plant in Germany's Ruhr Valley.
In a massive air ray by several bomb groups, three
hundred planes participate, twenty five American bombers are shot down
and double that number badly damaged. Many men are killed
or wounded. In the midst of the battle, Gable wedges
(21:24):
himself behind the top turret gunner to film German fighters
as they make passes at the American bomber, which is
named it. Gruesome bursts of machine gun fire rip into
the B seventeen, and then a twenty millimeters shell comes
up through the top turret, but miraculously doesn't explode. The
(21:47):
shell rips through the heel at Gabel's boot and then
misses his head by inches. Although shot full of holes,
ain't at Gruesome makes it back to base. When reporters
see Gable with a mangled boot and ask him how
it happened, Gable says, I didn't know what happened. I
(22:08):
didn't know anything about it until we had dropped eleven
thousand feet and could get off oxygen and look around.
Only then did I see the hole in the turret.
Gable's next mission targets a shipping port used by the
Germans on the coast of France. The American bombers are
jumped by German fighters and suffer extensive damage. When the
(22:32):
nosegunner in Gable's B seventeen is wounded, Gable takes his place.
Between missions. Gable heads to the MGM offices in London
and screens footage that he and other members of his
film unit have shot. He also visits David Niffen, who
is now in the British Army and stationed near London,
(22:53):
but living in a house off base. I came home
one night, said niffn to find a large American Air
Force officer sitting in my chair on his knee. Was
my son, serving him from my last bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Was my wife.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
It was a great reunion. He became devoted to my family,
always showing up with unheard of goodies such as concentrated
orange juice and nylons from the bountiful American PX. Back
at the three point fifty first Bomb Group, Gable rides
a motorcycle around the base and becomes acquainted with everyone,
(23:33):
from privates to colonels. He writes letters of condolence to
families of his fellow airmen who die, and regularly visits
patients in the base hospital. Clark Gable was a human
with a heart, said a sergeant. When Bob Hope and
his troop came to the base to put on an
outdoor show. There were thousands of guys in the audience
(23:55):
with Clark tucked in there somewhere. Hope stood in the
bike trying his day to get Clark on the stage.
Hope kept joking, I know.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
There's a celebrity out there. Where is he?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But he couldn't get him to even stand up the
guys laughed, and some sitting near Clark shouted here and
started to applaud and whistle. Clark half got up, smiled
and gave half a wave, and then put his head down.
The applause and whistling went on. She it must have
been for ten minutes. Everybody thought it was great. In
(24:29):
October nineteen forty three, Gable has awarded the Distinguished Flying
Cross in.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
The Air Metal.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
He's ordered home, arriving in November with fifty thousand feet
of film. He stationed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City,
now used by the Army's Signal Corps for the production
of training and recruiting films. The studios are nicknamed Fort Roach.
Also serving at Fort Roach as Captain Ronald Reagan, Gable
(25:00):
works on turning is fifty thousand feet of footage into
training films, visits military hospitals, and makes appearances at war
bond rallies. By May nineteen forty four, he's finished with
his film projects and is promoted to major. He now
hopes for an assignment to the Pacific theater of the war.
(25:22):
When he learns the Army will not allow him in
combat again, he requests a discharge and is separated from active.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Duty in mid June.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Gable doesn't return to making movies until the war is
over in Europe and nearly over in the Pacific, saying
is uncomfortable doing so when men are still dying in combat.
He stars in twenty two movies following World War Two.
(25:53):
Because of his movies, most people today still know of
Clark Gable the actor.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
What they don't know is that he left his wife as.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
The King of Hollywood to play his greatest role, a
real life role as Captain Clark Gable, an aerial gunner
in a B seventeen facing German fighters in the skies
over Europe.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And great work by Roger McGrath.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And he does great work for us regularly, and he's
one of our most regular contributors. And by the way,
McGrath is a US Marine, and I don't say former,
because once a marine, always a marine. And you could
tell there was a special connection to the material. Clark
Gable's greatest roll of his life playing Captain Clark Gable
himself in war an aerial gunner B seventeens. And imagine
(26:49):
that Hermann Goring put a bounty on Clark Gable's head.
And I just love that quote from one of his
commanders that damn fool insists on being a rear gunner
on every mission, And that tells you everything you need
to know about Clark Gable when he's in all the way.
A beautiful story about a great star, the star behind
(27:11):
the star, the real man, Clark Gable's story, his World
War Two story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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