William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Hollywood ". He appeared in more than 60 motion pictures across a variety of genres during a 37-year career, three decades of which he spent as a leading man. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gable as the seventh-greatest male screen legend of classical Hollywood cinema.
Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) and earned nominations in the same category for portraying Fletcher Christian in Frank Lloyd's Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind (1939). For his comedic performances in George Seaton's Teacher's Pet (1958) and Walter Lang's But Not for Me (1959), Gable received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. His other notable films include William A. Wellman's Call of the Wild (1935), George Sidney's Key to the City (1950), and John Ford's Mogambo (1953). His final onscreen role was as an aging cowboy in John Huston's The Misfits (1961).
Gable was one of the most consistently bankable stars in the history of Hollywood, appearing 16 times on Quigley Publishing's annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll. He appeared opposite many of the most popular actresses of their time. He died of a heart attack in 1960 at age 59.
1901–1919: Family and upbringing
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901, in Cadiz, Ohio, to William Henry "Will" Gable (1870–1948), an oil-well driller, and his wife Adeline (née Hershelman). His father was a Protestant and his mother a Catholic. Gable was named William after his father, but he was almost always called Clark, and referred to as "the kid" by his father.
Gable was six months old when he was baptized at a Roman Catholic church in Dennison, Ohio. When he was ten months old, his mother died. His father refused to raise him in the Catholic faith, which provoked criticism from the Hershelman family. Gable and his father were active in the Methodist church where his father was a Sunday School teacher. The dispute was resolved when his father agreed to allow him to spend time with his maternal uncle Charles Hershelman and his wife on their farm in Vernon Township, Pennsylvania. In April 1903, Gable's father married Jennie Dunlap (1874–1920).
Gable's stepmother raised the tall, shy child with a loud voice to be well-dressed and well-groomed. She played the piano and gave him lessons at home. He later took up brass musical instruments, becoming the youngest member of the Hopedale Men's town band at age 13. Gable was mechanically inclined and loved to repair cars with his father, who insisted that he engage in masculine activities such as hunting and hard physical work. Gable also loved literature; he would recite Shakespeare among trusted company, particularly the sonnets.
His father had financial difficulties in 1917 and decided to try his hand at farming, and moved the family to Palmyra Township, near Akron, Ohio. He insisted that Gable work the farm, but the latter soon left to work in Akron for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.
Gable was inspired to become an actor after seeing the play The Bird of Paradise at age 17, but he was unable to make a start in acting until he turned 21 and received his $300 inheritance (equivalent to $5,770 in 2025) from a Hershelman trust. After his stepmother died in 1920, his father moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, going back into the oil business. He worked with his father for some time wildcatting and sludge removing in the oil fields of Oklahoma before traveling to the Pacific Northwest.
Gable toured in second-class stock companies, finding work with traveling tent shows, lumber mills, and other odd jobs. He made his way across the Midwest to Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a necktie salesman in the Meier & Frank department store. Also working there was local stage actor Earle Larimore (the nephew of Laura Hope Crews, who portrayed Aunt Pittypat alongside Gable in Gone with the Wind), who encouraged Gable to return to acting. Though Larimore didn't invite him to join his theater group The Red Lantern Players, he did introduce Gable to one of its members, Franz Dorfler, and they started dating. After the couple's audition for The Astoria Players, Gable's lack of training was evident, but the theater group accepted him after cajoling from Larimore. Gable and Dorfler moved to Astoria, Oregon, touring with the group until its bankruptcy, and then moved back to Portland where Gable obtained a day job with Pacific Telephone and started receiving dramatic lessons in the evening.
Gable's acting coach, Josephine Dillon, was a theater manager in Portland. She paid to have his teeth fixed and his hair styled. She guided him in building up his chronically undernourished body, and taught him better body control and posture. He slowly managed to lower his naturally high-pitched voice, his speech habits improved, and his facial expressions became more natural and convincing. After a long period of her training, Dillon considered Gable ready to attempt a film career.
1924–1930: Stage and silent films
Gable and Dillon traveled to Hollywood in 1924. Dillon became his manager and also his wife; she was 17 years his senior. He changed his stage name from W. C. Gable to Clark Gable and appeared as an extra in such silent films as Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow (1925), The Plastic Age (1925) starring Clara Bow, and Forbidden Paradise (1924) starring Pola Negri. He appeared in a series of two-reel comedies called The Pacemakers and in Fox's The Johnstown Flood (1926). He also appeared as a bit player in a series of shorts. However, he was not offered any major film roles, so he returned to the stage in What Price Glory? (1925).
He became lifelong friends with Lionel Barrymore, who initially scolded Gable for what he deemed amateurish acting but nevertheless urged him to pursue a stage career. During the 1927–28 theater season, he acted with the Laskin Brothers Stock Company in Houston, Texas; while there, he played many roles, gained considerable experience, and became a local matinee idol. He then moved to New York City, where Dillon sought work for him on Broadway. He received good reviews in Machinal (1928), with one critic describing him as "young, vigorous, and brutally masculine".
Gable and Dillon separated, filing for divorce in March 1929, while he began working on the play Hawk Island in New York, which ran for 24 performances. In April 1930, Gable's divorce became final, and a few days later he married Texas socialite Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham, nicknamed "Ria". After moving to California, they were married again in 1931, possibly due to differences in state legal requirements.
In 1930, after his impressive appearance as the seething and desperate character Killer Mears in the Los Angeles stage production of The Last Mile, Gable was offered a contract with Pathé Pictures. His only film for them and first role in a sound picture was as the unshaven villain in their low-budget William Boyd western, The Painted Desert (1931). The studio experienced financial problems after the film's delayed release, so Gable left for work at Warner Bros.
The same year in Night Nurse, Gable played a villainous chauffeur who knocked Barbara Stanwyck's character unconscious for trying to save two children whom he was methodically starving to death. The supporting role was originally slated for James Cagney until the release of The Public Enemy catapulted him to star status. "His ears are too big and he looks like an ape", said Warner Bros. executive Darryl F. Zanuck about Gable, after testing him for the second male lead in the studio's gangster drama Little Caesar (1931). After his failed screen test for Zanuck, Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg for $650 per week (equivalent to approximately $13,761 in 2025). He hired the well-connected Minna Wallis, a sister of producer Hal Wallis, as his agent, whose clients included actresses Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer.