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Carole Lombard Part II

© K Cruver

Carole lived a wild life in Hollywood. She swore like a sailor, played practical jokes all the time, and she was always the most entertaining part of any party. At one such party, which Carole had agreed to host, the guests were required to wear white. When Norma Shearer showed up in a red gown, Carole was livid. She spent the night tangling with Shearer and flirting with Clark Gable on the dance floor. Gable was smitten.

It was after this night that Carole and Clark began their famous love affair. People who know nothing about Carole's movies are quite familiar with this touching story of true love. You only need look at a picture of the two together to understand the power of their mutual attraction.

Of course, the Hollywood press couldn't keep quiet about the affair. Though Clark was still married, an issue of Photoplay included Carole and Clark in a feature about "Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives". The article was a great humiliation for Clark's society belle wife. She knew that divorce was inevitable, but she had been promised that she would be the one to divorce Clark. Now that the lid was officially off the affair, Clark initiated the divorce proceedings himself. Carole and Clark were married in 1939.

When Carole and Clark appeared together at the opening of "Gone With the Wind", it created a sensation. However, though both were at the peak of their careers, Carole and Clark retreated to the country. They surrounded themselves with animals on a ranch in then desolate Encino, California and took to calling each other "Ma" and "Pa".

Both still appeared in movies. Carole even tackled drama again, with some success. Though it seems a bit soapy today, she shined in "Made for Each Other" with Jimmy Stewart. She also starred in "To Be or Not To Be" with Jack Benny. It was another great black comedy and Carole toned down her insanity with hilarious results. Her style was evolving, but unfortunately, she never had a chance to reach the heights of her talents.

In January 1942, Carole took a private plane with her mother and 20 other passengers in order to participate in a war bond rally in her home state of Indiana. On the trip home, the plane crashed in the hills outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. None of the passengers survived.

Clark had to be forcefully restrained from scaling the hills to look for Carole. He screamed that he didn't want to go home to an empty house. He never entirely recovered from Carole's death. It is possible that comedy in the movies never did either. Carole was a success in every way: she excelled in her craft, her marriage, as a person and as a movie star. It is one of the saddest movie tragedies that she died at the age of 33, before she had even reached the extent of her greatness. Her genius movie performances are our solace and treasure.

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