August 9, 2024 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Clark Gable was beyond the draft age when the U.S. entered World War II, but the 41-year-old enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps. He said: “I just want to be sent where the going is rough.” Here to tell the story is Roger McGrath.
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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
our American 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 Delana
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 leg We're a Who's
who a female stars. Before World War Two, they included
Jean Harlowe, Carol Lumbard, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy,
(02:13):
Loretta Young, Jeanette MacDonald, Vivian Lee, Roslyn Russell, and Lana Turner.
After the war, they included Barbara Stanwick, Deborah Carr, Ava Gardner,
Jean Tierney, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. Born William Clark
(02:33):
Gable at home in February nineteen one in Cadiz, Ohio,
Gable is German on his father's side in German and
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
(02:54):
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
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
(03:16):
now three year old son back. The new wife 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
(03:37):
uncle farm until he's twelve years old. From then on,
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 teams
(04:00):
home run hitter. His towering drives land and cow pastures
will be on the outfield. Gaeble doesn't return to school
for a senior year. Though the United States enters the
Great War in Europe and manpower shortages begin to appear.
Gable gets a job on the production line at the
Firestone Tire plant in Akron. Akron tire plants are running
(04:24):
around the clock and the town's population grows more than
two hundred thousand. Gable is in the big 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
(04:45):
is captivated by the theme and the performances. I clapped
my hands until my palms were sore. Gable later said,
I'd never seen anything as wonderful in my life, which
I guess had been pretty drab up until then. Whenever
he can, Gable is at the music hall, he volunteers
(05:06):
to be a callboy, which entails notifying actors in their
dressing rooms when it's their time to go on stage.
He watches and makes careful mental notes of everything. 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
(05:31):
cab is here, Madam. I thought I'd die while I
was waiting to go on. When I didn't fall on
my face, I thought I was an actor. It was
all over then. 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
(05:52):
falls on hard times. Many lose their jobs, including Gable.
He struggles on with odd jobs for another year before
leaving and joining his father, 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
(06:14):
sharpen the cutting edges of drilling bits. After six months
of daily twelve hour shifts, his muscles are bulging and
he weighs two hundred and five pounds. Even among the
rugged oil field workers, Gable stands out. Tired of swinging
a sledge hammer, Gebel gets a job in an oil refinery,
(06:35):
but the work is just as rugged, said Gebl. I
was part of an eight man gang that cleaned out
the sledge which was almost like asphalt from stills and
storage tanks as soon as they were emptied. The interior
temperature and oil fumes were so terrific that only one
man would go in at a time with a rope
(06:56):
around his waist, and Casey passed out working 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 lots of
men get a little hysterical. They started to laugh, and
I had to be hauled 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
here on Our American Stories. Lead Habibe here the host
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
(07:40):
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 Olamericanstories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little Give a lot.
Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give and we continue
(08:11):
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 and good and
(08:32):
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 the 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. Another member of the
show tells Gable he has relatives in Oregon who might
have work for them. The two hop a freight train
(09:32):
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, It Strings Wire
for a telephone company, is briefly engaged to actress Francis Storfler,
(09:55):
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. Gable is not only Dylan's star student, but
(10:15):
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 a year
(10:36):
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 and sophistication
(10:58):
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 with several
different productions, and it's here he owns his acting chops
(11:22):
until critics begin to take notice of him. 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
(11:43):
prize winning play, Anna Christie, a critic, says of Gable,
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
(12:05):
else is happening that poor tends his future stardom. Dozens
of women are at the stage door waiting for him
to leave the theater at each of his appearances. Clock
Gabele's first significant movie role comes in The Painted Desert,
released in nineteen thirty one. By the end of nineteen
(12:28):
thirty one, he appears in ten more films and moves
from supporting roles 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
(12:49):
a week today, and the nation is in the depths
of the Great Depression. His star continues to rise through
nineteen thirty three and thirty four, and his salary is
It's doubled, it will double again. His movies are box
office and critical successes, especially It Happened One Night, which
(13:09):
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 hit movies continue.
China Seas, Call of the Wild, Mutiny on the Bounty,
(13:29):
San Francisco, Test Pilot, Too Hot to Handle, Gone with
the Wind.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Read you where I Go, Watch my do Frankly my hair.
I don't give a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Damn women, money, cars, homes are his Clark. Gable is
the king of Hollywood. Can that must be somewhere to
bring him back? In nineteen thirty nine, Gable marries the
love of his life, Carol Lombard. He continues to start
(14:09):
in movies, and so too does Lombard, until the Japanese
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor throws the United States into
World War Two. A patriot, Lombard raises money for the
war by going on the 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
(14:32):
on board. Devastated, Gable spends weeks swilling and whiskey, but
sobers up and conpletes a movie for MGM against the
strong objections of 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
(14:55):
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. 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,
(15:17):
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 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
(15:39):
Miami a day late. For all his heavy smoking and drinking,
Gable's in excellent condition. Is build and prowess impress the
other candidates, but most of them keep their distance, thinking
Gable must have an awfully high opinion of himself. Sensing
(16:00):
the tension, Gable removes his false teeth and waves them
at the other men. Look at the 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,
(16:21):
Gable sails through oss out performing men half his age.
Academically a high school dropout, 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
(16:43):
can recite the material. He finishes oss in the top
one quarter of his class, 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 excels as a gunner and
(17:07):
is promoted to first lieutenant by the end of January
nineteen forty three. There's no question that Geble 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 act 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 shootdown 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 shoot aerial
(19:37):
footage or serve as a replacement for a wounded ill gunner.
The logbooks record Gable on five missions, but he probably
flies more than twenty. 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
(20:01):
May nineteen forty three. He is aboard of B seventeen
on a bombing raid targeting factories in German occupied Belgium.
Besides filming, he also serves 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
(20:24):
down and others sustained damage. His second mission takes him
to a German airfield in France, but clouds are obscuring
the target and the B seventeens cannot drop their bombs.
German fighters, though, come up through the clouds to attack
the American bombers. Several sustained damage, but none are lost.
(20:46):
Gables third mission targets chemical plants and German occupied Norway.
It's the longest flight for the Eighth Air Force, yet
two B seventeen suffer damage from flack. His fourth mission
is almost his last. The target is a synthetic oil
plant in Germany's Ruhr Valley. In a massive air raid
(21:08):
by several bomb groups, three hunder 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 himself behind the top turret gunner
to film German fighters as they make passes at the
(21:31):
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 shell rips through the heel at
Gabel's boot and then misses his head by inches. Although
(21:54):
shot full of holes, ain't at Gruesome makes it back
to base, and the reporters see Gable with a mangled
boot and ask him how it happened. Gable says, I
didn't know what happened. I 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
(22:17):
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 nosegunner in Gable's B seventeen is wounded,
Gable takes his place. Between missions. Gable heads to the
(22:41):
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, 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
(23:04):
his knee. Was my son, serving him from my last
bottle of whiskey. Was my wife. 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
(23:27):
fifty first Bomb Group, Gable rides a motorcycle around the
base and becomes acquainted with everyone, 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.
(23:48):
When Bob Hope and his troop came to the base
to put on an outdoor show. There were thousands of
guys in the audience 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 there's
a celebrity out there.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Where is he?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
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. Gee, 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 the Air Metal. 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.
(24:51):
The studios are nicknamed Fort Roach. Also serving at Fort
Roach as Captain Ronald Reagan, Gable works on turning his
fifty thousand feet of footage into training films, visits military hospitals,
and makes appearances at war bond rallies. By May nineteen
(25:12):
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. When he learns the
Army will not allow him in combat again, he requests
a discharge and is separated from active duty in mid June.
(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.
(25:54):
Because of his movies, most people today still know of
Clark Gable the actor. What they don't know is that
he left his wife as 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
(26:16):
German fighters in the skies over Europe.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
And great work by Roger McGrath. 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 it was a special
connection to the material. Clark Gable's greatest roll of his
life playing Captain Clark Gable himself in war an aerial
(26:46):
gunner B seventeen's And imagine 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
(27:09):
a great star, the star behind 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
our American 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 Delana
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 leg We're a Who's
who a female stars. Before World War Two, they included
Jean Harlowe, Carol Lumbard, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy,
(02:13):
Loretta Young, Jeanette MacDonald, Vivian Lee, Roslyn Russell, and Lana Turner.
After the war, they included Barbara Stanwick, Deborah Carr, Ava Gardner,
Jean Tierney, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. Born William Clark
(02:33):
Gable at home in February nineteen one in Cadiz, Ohio,
Gable is German on his father's side in German and
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
(02:54):
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
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
(03:16):
now three year old son back. The new wife 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
(03:37):
uncle farm until he's twelve years old. From then on,
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 teams
(04:00):
home run hitter. His towering drives land and cow pastures
will be on the outfield. Gaeble doesn't return to school
for a senior year. Though the United States enters the
Great War in Europe and manpower shortages begin to appear.
Gable gets a job on the production line at the
Firestone Tire plant in Akron. Akron tire plants are running
(04:24):
around the clock and the town's population grows more than
two hundred thousand. Gable is in the big 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
(04:45):
is captivated by the theme and the performances. I clapped
my hands until my palms were sore. Gable later said,
I'd never seen anything as wonderful in my life, which
I guess had been pretty drab up until then. Whenever
he can, Gable is at the music hall, he volunteers
(05:06):
to be a callboy, which entails notifying actors in their
dressing rooms when it's their time to go on stage.
He watches and makes careful mental notes of everything. 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
(05:31):
cab is here, Madam. I thought I'd die while I
was waiting to go on. When I didn't fall on
my face, I thought I was an actor. It was
all over then. 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
(05:52):
falls on hard times. Many lose their jobs, including Gable.
He struggles on with odd jobs for another year before
leaving and joining his father, 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
(06:14):
sharpen the cutting edges of drilling bits. After six months
of daily twelve hour shifts, his muscles are bulging and
he weighs two hundred and five pounds. Even among the
rugged oil field workers, Gable stands out. Tired of swinging
a sledge hammer, Gebel gets a job in an oil refinery,
(06:35):
but the work is just as rugged, said Gebl. I
was part of an eight man gang that cleaned out
the sledge which was almost like asphalt from stills and
storage tanks as soon as they were emptied. The interior
temperature and oil fumes were so terrific that only one
man would go in at a time with a rope
(06:56):
around his waist, and Casey passed out working 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 lots of
men get a little hysterical. They started to laugh, and
I had to be hauled 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
here on Our American Stories. Lead Habibe here the host
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
(07:40):
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 Olamericanstories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little Give a lot.
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(08:11):
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 and good and
(08:32):
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 the 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. Another member of the
show tells Gable he has relatives in Oregon who might
have work for them. The two hop a freight train
(09:32):
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, It Strings Wire
for a telephone company, is briefly engaged to actress Francis Storfler,
(09:55):
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. Gable is not only Dylan's star student, but
(10:15):
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 a year
(10:36):
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 and sophistication
(10:58):
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 with several
different productions, and it's here he owns his acting chops
(11:22):
until critics begin to take notice of him. 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
(11:43):
prize winning play, Anna Christie, a critic, says of Gable,
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
(12:05):
else is happening that poor tends his future stardom. Dozens
of women are at the stage door waiting for him
to leave the theater at each of his appearances. Clock
Gabele's first significant movie role comes in The Painted Desert,
released in nineteen thirty one. By the end of nineteen
(12:28):
thirty one, he appears in ten more films and moves
from supporting roles 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
(12:49):
a week today, and the nation is in the depths
of the Great Depression. His star continues to rise through
nineteen thirty three and thirty four, and his salary is
It's doubled, it will double again. His movies are box
office and critical successes, especially It Happened One Night, which
(13:09):
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 hit movies continue.
China Seas, Call of the Wild, Mutiny on the Bounty,
(13:29):
San Francisco, Test Pilot, Too Hot to Handle, Gone with
the Wind.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Read you where I Go, Watch my do Frankly my hair.
I don't give a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Damn women, money, cars, homes are his Clark. Gable is
the king of Hollywood. Can that must be somewhere to
bring him back? In nineteen thirty nine, Gable marries the
love of his life, Carol Lombard. He continues to start
(14:09):
in movies, and so too does Lombard, until the Japanese
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor throws the United States into
World War Two. A patriot, Lombard raises money for the
war by going on the 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
(14:32):
on board. Devastated, Gable spends weeks swilling and whiskey, but
sobers up and conpletes a movie for MGM against the
strong objections of 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
(14:55):
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. 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,
(15:17):
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 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
(15:39):
Miami a day late. For all his heavy smoking and drinking,
Gable's in excellent condition. Is build and prowess impress the
other candidates, but most of them keep their distance, thinking
Gable must have an awfully high opinion of himself. Sensing
(16:00):
the tension, Gable removes his false teeth and waves them
at the other men. Look at the 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,
(16:21):
Gable sails through oss out performing men half his age.
Academically a high school dropout, 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
(16:43):
can recite the material. He finishes oss in the top
one quarter of his class, 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 excels as a gunner and
(17:07):
is promoted to first lieutenant by the end of January
nineteen forty three. There's no question that Geble 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 act 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 shootdown 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 shoot aerial
(19:37):
footage or serve as a replacement for a wounded ill gunner.
The logbooks record Gable on five missions, but he probably
flies more than twenty. 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
(20:01):
May nineteen forty three. He is aboard of B seventeen
on a bombing raid targeting factories in German occupied Belgium.
Besides filming, he also serves 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
(20:24):
down and others sustained damage. His second mission takes him
to a German airfield in France, but clouds are obscuring
the target and the B seventeens cannot drop their bombs.
German fighters, though, come up through the clouds to attack
the American bombers. Several sustained damage, but none are lost.
(20:46):
Gables third mission targets chemical plants and German occupied Norway.
It's the longest flight for the Eighth Air Force, yet
two B seventeen suffer damage from flack. His fourth mission
is almost his last. The target is a synthetic oil
plant in Germany's Ruhr Valley. In a massive air raid
(21:08):
by several bomb groups, three hunder 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 himself behind the top turret gunner
to film German fighters as they make passes at the
(21:31):
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 shell rips through the heel at
Gabel's boot and then misses his head by inches. Although
(21:54):
shot full of holes, ain't at Gruesome makes it back
to base, and the reporters see Gable with a mangled
boot and ask him how it happened. Gable says, I
didn't know what happened. I 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
(22:17):
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 nosegunner in Gable's B seventeen is wounded,
Gable takes his place. Between missions. Gable heads to the
(22:41):
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, 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
(23:04):
his knee. Was my son, serving him from my last
bottle of whiskey. Was my wife. 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
(23:27):
fifty first Bomb Group, Gable rides a motorcycle around the
base and becomes acquainted with everyone, 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.
(23:48):
When Bob Hope and his troop came to the base
to put on an outdoor show. There were thousands of
guys in the audience 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 there's
a celebrity out there.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Where is he?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
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. Gee, 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 the Air Metal. 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.
(24:51):
The studios are nicknamed Fort Roach. Also serving at Fort
Roach as Captain Ronald Reagan, Gable works on turning his
fifty thousand feet of footage into training films, visits military hospitals,
and makes appearances at war bond rallies. By May nineteen
(25:12):
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. When he learns the
Army will not allow him in combat again, he requests
a discharge and is separated from active duty in mid June.
(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.
(25:54):
Because of his movies, most people today still know of
Clark Gable the actor. What they don't know is that
he left his wife as 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
(26:16):
German fighters in the skies over Europe.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
And great work by Roger McGrath. 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 it was a special
connection to the material. Clark Gable's greatest roll of his
life playing Captain Clark Gable himself in war an aerial
(26:46):
gunner B seventeen's And imagine 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
(27:09):
a great star, the star behind 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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