Clark Gable was a Golden Age actor so successful that he was dubbed “the King of Hollywood”
during the height of his career.
The actor was married five times over the course of his lifetime and was romantically
involved with many more women than just his five wives.
Amongst the innumerable women that Clark hooked up with over the course of his life, the woman
that that actor went to his deathbed claiming was the love of his life was third wife Carole
Lombard, whom Clark ended up being buried alongside in the wake of his 1960 death.
Join Facts Verse as we explore how Clark Gable’s gravesite proves he never recovered from the
tragic accident that killed third wife Carole Lombard.
The Old Hollywood Pairing of Clark and Carole If you’re a fan of real-life Old Hollywood
romances, you’re likely no stranger to the pairing of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.
Carole was Clark’s third wife out of five that the star attracted over the course of
his lifetime.
Though Clark married twice following his marriage to Carole, he went to his deathbed believing
that the actress had been the love of his life and was buried alongside her upon his
passing.
Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were both huge stars at the time that their marriage was
initiated, and they made a perfect pair.
The two met in the 1920s, while they were both fledgling stars.
They met while working as extras on the film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Several years later, when they had both begun making their respective waves in the industry,
the pair met again during the filming of the movie No Man of Her Own.
The film was released in 1932 and featured the two stars as its romantic leads.
Despite the fact that romance blossomed between Clark Gable and Carole Lombard on the screen
in 1932’s No Man of Her Own, the two stars didn’t actually hit it off very much during
the picture’s filming.
It wouldn’t be until several years later that the two would end up becoming romantically
involved.
At the time of No Man of Her Own’s filming, Clark was married to his much older second
wife.
Meanwhile, Carole was married to second husband William Powell.
Clark and Carole Tied the Knot in 1939 Real-life romance wasn’t to develop between
Clark and Carole during the filming of No Man of Her Own, but that didn’t mean that
the pair’s relationship wasn’t meant to be.
Several years later, the pair met up again at a party.
Carole had divorced from William Powell in 1933, while Clark was separated from his second
wife.
As a result, the pair was finally allowed the chance to see that they had a good deal
of romantic chemistry together outside of the screen.
Both Clark and Carole knew that there was something more to their romance, though Clark’s
wife was trying as hard as she could not let her husband divorce her.
Clark eventually managed to convince his second wife to make their separation official, and
Clark and Carole were free to get married by 1939.
The two tied the knot while Clark was on a break from filming Gone with the Wind, which
would be released later that year and make Clark a gigantic star.
Clark Gable was already a major star before the release of Gone with the Wind, which was
how he got the lead role!
However, the release of the film, with its massive critical and commercial success, solidified
Clark’s status as “the King of Hollywood”.
Clark and Carole were head over heels in love, but their marriage sadly wouldn’t last for
very many years.
World War II Ended Clark and Carole’s Marriage Towards the end of 1941, only a little over
two years after the marriage of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor and America entered into World War II.
As one of the biggest female stars of the time, Carole was greatly encouraged by the
American government to go on a war-bond tour.
Not wanting to let her country down, Carole willfully agreed to do what she could.
Regrettably, tragedy would strike during the tour.
The American government preferred that its touring war-bond stars travel by train.
However, by the end of her tour, Carole was so anxious to reunite with Clark that she
demanded she returns home by plane.
This demand ended up proving disastrous for the actress, as the plane that she was riding
hit the side of a mountain during its flight.
All of the passengers, including Carole, were killed upon impact.
As soon as he heard the news of the tragedy that had befallen his wife’s flight, Clark
Gable rushed to her location and hoped for the best.
Clark prayed for a miracle that his wife had somehow survived, but no such miracle proved
to have occurred.
Instead, Clark was forced to accept that he had lost the love of his life.
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Clark Claimed Carole Was the Love of His Life Though Clark Gable had been married twice
previously before tying the knot with Carole Lombard and would remarry twice after the
actress’s tragic 1942 death, the actor went to his deathbed firmly believing that Carole
was the love of his life.
This is why the actor chose to be buried alongside Carole upon his passing instead of the woman
that he was currently married to and who had recently born him a son.
Both of the marriages that Clark had maintained before marrying Carole were completely loveless,
and the star only entered into them as a way to further his Hollywood career.
Clark Gable was born at the turn of the 20th century and didn’t decide that he wanted
to become a movie star until his coming of age.
The epiphany came when the 17-year-old future celebrity was watching a stage production.
The young man began performing odd jobs while moonlighting as an aspiring actor.
Clark could be seen in stage productions across Middle America.
During these years, he fell in love with a fellow aspiring star by the name of Franz
Dorfler.
Clark and Franz got engaged in the early 1920s, but the actress’s parents advised her against
marrying the poor actor.
As a result, Franz pushed Clark to find more work so that he could start receiving a more
stable income and become a more suitable beau in her parents’ eyes.
This pushing from his fiancée led Clark into the hands of a famed Broadway acting coach
by the name of Josephine Dillon, who was attempting to start up a new theatrical troupe.
Clark Gable and His Sugar Mamas Franz wanted Clark to impress Josephine Dillon
and get a spot in her new troupe.
The actor certainly did impress the notable acting coach, so much so that the much older
woman ended up falling in love with him!
Josephine was over 10 years Clark’s senior, but Clark knew that entering into a relationship
with the older woman could be a great move for his career.
Clark passed along the regrettable news to his fiancée that their marriage wasn’t
meant to be, and subsequently tied the knot with Josephine.
Thus, Josephine Dillon became Clark Gable’s first wife, even though Clark went to his
deathbed claiming they never had sex.
Franz Dorfler never moved on from Clark Gable, but Clark Gable certainly moved on from her.
Clark also eventually moved on from first wife Josephine Dillon after finding a wealthier,
older, and more influential figure that he could coast off of.
In 1930, Clark divorced Josephine Dillon so that he could enter into a relationship with
a wealthy Texas socialite by the name of Maria Langham.
Clark made no qualms about the fact that he was simply moving onto Maria because she had
more money and influence than Josephine.
The power and influence of Clark’s wealthy second wife certainly opened up more doors
than ever for the burgeoning star, and he went on to become the face of Hollywood over
the course of the 1930s.
Of course, this culminated in the actor achieving superstardom with his turn in the aforementioned
Gone with the Wind at the end of the decade.
After achieving fame and fortune, Clark was finally free to break away from the loveless
marriage that he had maintained with his wealthy second wife and find someone that he actually
cared for to spend the rest of his life with.
Clark Finally Finds Love… and Loses It Whereas Clark hadn’t loved either of his
previous spouses, he fell head over heels for Carole Lombard.
Perhaps Carole being taken away from the actor so early into their marriage was karmic retribution
for the actor having taken advantage of so many old ladies early in his career!
The years that Clark spent with Carole were the happiest of the actor’s life, and her
aforementioned tragic death dealt a serious blow.
Clark was in the middle of filming 1942’s Somewhere I’ll Find You alongside Lana Turner
when he got the news that his wife had been in a tragic accident.
Oddly, despite the fact that he was supposedly so in love with Carole, Clark had entered
into an extramarital affair with Lana Turner during the picture’s filming.
This fact likely exacerbated the guilt that the actor felt when his third wife was announced
dead.
Clark Gable entered into a period of binge drinking and isolation before returning to
film the remainder of Somewhere I’ll Find You.
While the actor remarried twice after the tragic dissolution of his third marriage,
he never truly moved on from Carole Lombard.
When Clark died in 1960 at the age of 59, he was buried alongside her.
Though Clark Gable’s marriage to Carole Lombard only lasted for a couple of years,
the actor went to his deathbed claiming that the actress had been the love of his life
and was buried alongside her instead of his wife.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Clark Gable got his footing in Hollywood
by whoring himself out to influential women and that he chose to be buried alongside third
wife Carole Lombard instead of the wife that he was married to at the time of his passing
and who birthed his last child?
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