1945: Clark Gable

By Vicki Baum

Modern Screen, June 1945

A great writer tells the life story of “just a guy” who’s learning to laugh again

We sat around the fire after a dinner party. Among us was a young and very excited actor. That day he had been cast in a Clark Gable picture. He was a sweet boy, well-mannered, charming. All evening he had tried to hold his excitement down. Now we encouraged him to let it boil over—

“This guy’s a legend already,” he said. “You hear so many stories. I wonder what he’s really like—”

I knew Gable as you know many people who work on the same lot. To smile, to say good morning, to exchange a few words about the weather, a preview, a mutual acquaintance. I had no intimacy with him. We had never sat down together to take the world apart—

Yet, as a writer, I am trained to observe. I had observed Gable, on the screen and off. I had observed the reaction of others to him. To such a man, you cannot be indifferent even if you’ve never met him, even if you know him only from films. You may life or refuse to like him, but you cannot say he doesn’t matter, he’s of no consequence. Whatever feeling he leaves you with is a positive feeling. Mine was very positive…

“I could wish nothing better for my boys,” I said, “than they should grow up to be like Clark Gable—”

“You mean movie stars like Clark Gable?” somebody teased.

But I was in earnest. “I mean men like Clark Gable. The rest is nothing—”

That was ten years ago. Much has happened to Gable in the meantime. Great wealth and fame. Great happiness. Great sorrow. In public affection, he has ranked higher over a longer period than any other star. In his personal life, he found love, and lost. He entered the service of his country and served her well. Now, more popular than ever, he returns to the films.

I have followed him through the years, and my feeling about him remains unchanged. It is the man who counts, the rest is nothing. As a farmer, a tool-dresser, a lumber-jack, he would still have been Gable. This is no story of a movie star, but the story of an American.

First there was the child in a little Ohio town. A child of Pennsylvania Dutch stock, who inherited their strain of simplicity and strength. When his mother died, the baby was seven months old. His father—like Clark, a man of few words, especially where his emotions are concerned—took the child to the farm of his dead wife’s parents. There he stayed till he was four.

They had no close neighbors. The barnyard animals were his playmates, the changing aspects of nature his wonderland. With his father’s visits, the tales of his grandfather, his grandmother’s tenderness, it was enough. They were none of them the kind whose love took the form of endearments. Hugging, kissing, would have embarrassed them. Their feeling expressed itself in other ways.

The little boy stood at the window of the big warm kitchen, watching the snow fall, smelling the tomato ketchup Grandmother cooked over the wood stove. Suddenly he cried out, “The chicken! Granny, the poor chicken!” Across the snow the poor chicken stumbled, battling foolishly, feebly with the gale. Grandmother caught it up in a heavy shawl, ran out and rescued it, laid it gently in a box near the stove. Clark stroked the wet feathers, smiled up at Grandmother, who was smiling back. Her face was beautiful. The child’s heart swelled with love for the goodness of his granny.

Another mom…

Then his father married again. It was hard for the boy to leave his grandparents, still harder for them. But to their clear way of thinking, it was right that he should go to his father—as it had been right that they should give him shelter when it was needed.

The new home was at Hopedale, ten miles from Cadiz, where he was born. The new mother was all a mother should be—gentle and kind and one who understood boys. Here there were children to play with and, a little later, school. School was good because it brought games and companionship. But without books, it would have been still better. He was no student.

At eight he fell in love and remained true to his love for five long years. She was small and dainty, with soft brown eyes and hair, and her name was Treela. Instead of fishing on Sunday, he went to Sunday school because Treela was there. The boys called him Sissy, yet he went—even then his own master, bent on living his own way. As they all grew older and had little parties, he and Treela refused to play kissing games. To kiss each other in public was to spoil something, and by no means would they kiss anyone else.

For the rest, he played baseball, tooted a horn in the school band, and spent summers caring for the horses on his grandfather Gable’s farm. Meantime, his father, having turned from farming to the oilfields, turned back to farming again. They moved to Ravenna, sixty miles away. This meant farewell to Treela. The girl cried, the boy tried not to. It was many years before they met again. Treela was married, the mother of two pretty children. But through all the years she remained a fragrant memory to Clark.

He was fifteen and restless, bored with high school, tired of forking hay and feeding hogs. “Let’s go to Akron,” said his friend, Andy Means.

“I want to go to Akron,” Clark told his father.

“To do what?”

“Work. Study medicine, nights.”

“You’re too young to be turned loose in a big town.”

He knew better than to argue with his father. But he also knew that where he would fail, his stepmother might succeed. He took his problem to her, and somehow, she gained his father’s consent. I have already said she understood boys. Her parting gift was a razor, which enchanted Clark.

“I know you don’t need it yet, son, but you will before long. And if you ever get tired of being away, remember we’ll be waiting for you.”

In Akron the boys went to work, molding treads for the Firestone Company. Every morning Clark attended pre-medical courses at the University. He was quite in earnest about meaning to be a doctor. “Principally,” he explained to Andy, “because if I’m a doctor, I won’t have to be a farmer—”

Had medicine been the goal of his dearest hopes, he would have stuck to medicine. It was merely a stopgap, an excuse to escape from the farm. There was nothing he had a burning desire to be…

Till he saw his first play.

Sunday was his one free evening. Down at the Music Hall, the Clark-Lilly Players were giving “Bird of Paradise.” Andy and some of the other boys were going. Clark went along. Stepping into the theater changed the course of his life.

He could never explain what happened to him that night. A farm boy, his background and heritage alien to all the stage represented, he left the theater resolved to be an actor. Forgotten the medicine, forgotten the rubber factory. Each night he sat in the gallery, each day he hung round the stage door, and finally plucked up the heart to walk in.

“I want a job,” he told the manager. “Any job.”

The manager knew how to deal with stage-struck youngsters. “We need a call boy, but we can’t pay you anything. You can sleep backstage.”

Clark felt this was just. Why should he be paid for admission to paradise? He was a good call boy. His players were all out front on time, even if he had to sew on their buttons for them. In return for these and other small services, they took care that he ate.

Back in Ravenna his father said: “The boy’s gone crazy.” But at such a distance, there was little he could do about it. Clark was even beginning to do walk-ons when the wire came, calling him home. His stepmother was dying. He arrived barely in time to see her. He had loved her deeply. For the first time, he knew the desolation of a loss that cannot be measured.

The elder Gable had had enough of farming, enough of this place of sorrows. Always he had preferred the oil field to plowing. Now there was an oil boom in Oklahoma. He and Clark would go there.

Clark said, “I want to go back to the theater.” But there was no longer one who could speak for him, and this time the father had his way. The boy went to the oil fields.

The crossroads…

For two years he worked as a tool dresser, earning twelve dollars a day. Earning nothing a day in the theater, he had been happier. One night, in the shack he shared with his father, the end came.

“I’m quitting,” said Clark.

His father’s opposition broke against rock. He was nineteen now—a man, with a man’s will. At length, the other recognized defeat.

“If you want to throw your life away, I guess I can’t stop you.”

They parted grimly—one to return to the oil fields, the other to start on his unknown road.

Thus came the wandering years.

Kansas City and a third-rate road show. Traveling through the Middle West on ten dollars a week. Stranded in Butte, Montana, and a moment that might have meant surrender. Heartsick, all but penniless, he entered a telegraph office, composed a wire asking his father for train money back to Oklahoma. For a moment he stared at it, then crumpled and tossed it into the wastebasket. Wandered through the streets, made for the depot, hopped a freight train to Portland. Portland, he’d heard, was a good show town.

First, he must have money. Leaving the freight car at Bend, he worked for three months as a lumberjack. At first his palms bled constantly—to the scorn of his partner, a big silent Swede. “Ay tank you bane verkin’ inside too much,” said his partner. In three months, it was the only observation he made.

Portland. Selling neckties in a department store. Meeting Earle Larimore, then a fellow salesman. Joining his Little Theater Group and working with them to organize a professional company. Opening in Astoria, a hundred miles north. In the first play, Clark was a Negro cook. In another, a seaman. In a third, a huge baby in a huge crib. Plenty of fun, but no money. The drama held no appeal for fishermen. On milkboats, they worked their way back to Portland…

One of the group was a pretty girl names Franz Doerfler. She and Clark fell in love. He asked her to marry him, but Franz was afraid. What would they live on? He spent a few weeks with her family on their ranch near Portland—a few idyllic weeks, running around in overalls with Franz, forgetting his troubles. The girl’s pet name for Clark was Big Calf, because of his ears. Later, Spencer Tracy was to call him The Moose for the same reason.

He worked in the hop fields, he worked on a logging road and—again—in a lumber camp. Again with a Swede. Clark had no luck with Swedes. One day Ole said, “Dis fella too dumb for work wit’ me,” and walked out.

Money saved again. Back to Portland. Back to the endless hunt for a place in the theater. Knocking at every door till his money gave out. Then a job in the want-ad department of a morning paper. There might come an ad for work round a theater. If so, Clark would see it first.

No such ad came. The indoor life was too much for him. So when the telephone company wanted a lineman, Clark put the ad in his pocket and applied and went to work, never guessing that the telephone line would lead straight to his heart’s desire.

What was destined to happen didn’t happen for a year.

Telephone for a ticket…

Miss Josephine Dillon of Los Angeles, dramatic coach, came to Portland to start a Little Theater. A telephone wire in her theater broke down. She called the company. They sent Clark to mend it.

Before he left, Miss Dillon had heard his story and had offered to help. At first, her interest was wholly professional. She saw Clark’s possibilities. She taught him stage presence, how to walk and sit and use his hands. She read plays with him. For the first time, his floundering efforts were being directed by someone who understood, and she found him and eager, appreciative pupil. Through her influence, he joined the Forest Taylor Stock Company. But by now they were more than teacher and pupil. When Josephine returned to Los Angeles, Portland ceased to hold much charm for Clark. He followed. On December 13, 1924, they were married.

It was the end of lumber camps, but far from the end of struggle. They lived in a bungalow, their rent twenty dollars a month. To begin with, Clark tried the studios. In the tight suit of a grenadier, carrying a sword, he made his first appearance before the cameras in a Lubitsch picture. Mr. Lubitsch did not cry “The great Gable!” Mr. Lubitsch took one look at the grenadier and passed on.

A day’s work here and there. Soon Clark felt sure that the movies were not for him. He began to think of New York, where plays were produced. But for New York, again one needs money. Louis MacLoon was about to present Jane Cowl to Los Angeles in “Romeo and Juliet.” The call went out for tall men to play the guards of Verona. Being six foot one, Gable was hired. Through the twelve-week run, MacLoon watched him. He was getting ready to produce “What Price Glory?” One of the characters, Sgt. Kiper, was described as lean and hungry-looking. Clark was lean and hungry-looking. The producer offered him the job.

His first speaking part on a professional stage. That was fine enough. Yet finer things were to come. MacLoon proved his good angel. When Sgt. Quirt gave notice, he said, “Like to play it, Clark?” All through Clark’s opening performance, he stood in the wings, coaching, encouraging. When the curtain fell, he said: “You’ll do, my boy.”

Gable stayed with him till the end of the season, appearing in six plays. One was “The Copperhead,” with Lionel Barrymore. Like Josephine Dillon, Barrymore found qualities in Gable that promised well. The two became friends—a friendship that was to bear fruit.

Meantime Clark took a job as second lead with a Texas company. Again, the leading man left, again the newcomer stepped in. Earning two hundred a week, he saved most of it. Then back to Los Angeles to seek MacLoon’s advice—

“What do you think of my going to New York?”

“I don’t have to think. Go while you’ve still got money in your jeans. Or you’ll never get there—”

Josephine went with him. They’d been married almost four years, not too successfully. For months they’d been drifting farther and farther apart. This was to be their final try together. It didn’t work out. Early in ’29, Clark’s wife returned to Los Angeles and filed suit for divorce.

To Arthur Hopkins, he presented a letter of introduction from MacLoon. He made no effort to impress Mr. Hopkins. With complete candor, he unfolded his odyssey, including the milkboats. The producer cast him as the Young Man in “Machinal.” He might have done worse. “Young, vigorous and brutally masculine,” said one paper. “Plays the casual, good-humored lover without a hackneyed gesture,” said another.

Hollywood bound…

Play followed play. In none did he create a sensation, but work came without too much difficulty. He liked New York and had ceased to give the movies a thought. Had the offer from MacLoon come at another time, he might have refused it. But in May, the New York season was over. “Will you come out to play Killer Mears in ‘The Last Mile?’” MacLoon had wired. A fine part in a fine play. And he owed MacLoon a lot…

He owed MacLoon still more when the curtain fell on opening night. The audience had cheered. The Hollywood which had ignored him now sang his praises. All the studios wanted to test him. But by virtue of their friendship, Lionel Barrymore’s claim came first. He took his brother, John, back to Clark’s dressing room.

“Young man,” said John, “you’re going far.”

Lionel shook his dead. “You’re wrong, John. He’s already there.”

Not quite.

Barrymore took him to Irving Thalberg. “I want to test him as a native for ‘Bird of Paradise.’” By an odd coincidence, the first play Clark had ever seen.

Thalberg looked him over—the ears, the shoulders, the toughness. Enthusiasm was lacking, but he said all right.

They took him to make-up. They smeared him dark all over. They curled his hair, dressed him in a G-string, stuck a hibiscus behind his ear. Never had he felt such a fool. Barrymore showed the test to Thalberg. Thalberg, a man of great self-posession, lost his composure. “Not that, not that!” he groaned. “Take it away!” Clark, for one, didn’t blame him.

Other tests were made by Warners and Universal. No good. His ears stuck out. He looked lumpy. He was all over knuckles. Once more he prepared to shake the dust of Hollywood. In New York Al Woods wanted him for a part in “Farewell to Arms.” He was packing when an agent called. “Come on out to Pathe. Come running—”

At Pathe they said: “It’s a Western. Do you ride?”

“Sure—”

“That’s fine. We’ll pay you seven-fifty—”

Seven-fifty! Today they were paying extras more. He opened his mouth to protest, but the agent nudged him. Outside, Clark asked, “What’s this seven-fifty business?”

“Seven hundred and fifty bucks a week—”

Clark whistled. “For that I ought to know how to ride—”

“You mean you don’t?”

“Haven’t been on a horse since I was a kid. But I’ll learn—”

Gangster Gable…

“The Painted Desert” didn’t start for five weeks. When it did, Clark could ride. Also he made an impression as the heavy. An impression so good that MGM forgave the hibiscus and signed him as the heavy in “The Easiest Way.” But not yet did the women claim them as their own. Not till one woman—Joan Crawford—asked that he be cast as the gangster in “Dance, Fools, Dance.” That was when it began—a small but persistent chorus that swelled into full power with “A Free Soul.”

MGM was having a hard time, finding this gangster to play opposite Norma Shearer. He must be a combination of villainy and charm, a thoroughly bad man who could yet turn the head of a girl of gentle breeding. It was offered to many well-known actors and turned down. “Too small,” they said, “and too unsympathetic—”

As Clarence Brown, the director, lunched in the commissary one noon, a tall young man entered—a young man who carried his broad shoulders easily, whose blue eyes held the look of far spaces, who smiled with a touch of ironic humor—

“Do you know that fellow?” Brown asked his companion.

“His name’s Gable. We have him under contract.”

“Ask him to come over.”

He took Clark to Hunt Stromberg, the producer, who approved his choice. With the actor, Mr. Stromberg was frank. “You’re getting it because nobody else’ll touch it. But I’ll make a prediction. When it’s over, you’ll be a star—”

The prediction came true. Norma Shearer explained why. “No matter how despicable he was, the sympathy went his way. You couldn’t help liking him.” The unpleasantness belonged to the character, the tough masculinity was Gable’s own. It triumphed over the implications of the role. MGM wisely let women have their way. Gable the heavy became Gable the hero.

There is little point in detailing his triumphal march—from “Susan Lennox” with Garbo through “Dancing Lady” to another landmark—“It Happened One Night,” which brought him an Oscar and a reputation for light comedy. From “Mutiny on the Bounty” through “Test Pilot” to “Gone with the Wind”—because moviegoers would hear of no other Rhett Butler. All this, with no diminution of popularity. For eight consecutive years among the big box office ten. For five of those years, second only to Will Rogers or Shirley Temple.

In 1940, MGM destroyed his un-matured contract, and signed him to a new one. Seven years without options, at a figure that would bring him a fortune, whatever Uncle Sam took. On the studio’s part, it was a declaration of faith in his long-term hold on the public. Holding the pen, Clark felt slightly ill at ease—as he always feels on formal occasions. He sought to lighten the moment. “How’m I doin’?” He grinned.

Mistaken love…

In spite of his early economic self-reliance, in spite of his years of roving, my feeling is that the young Clark understood little of women. Himself uncomplicated, not given to self-searching, neither did he try to analyze feminine psychology. At 23, he married Josephine Dillon—an older woman, opening vistas on a new way of life.

In a way, the situation repeated itself. Rhea Langham too, was older than Clark, mother of two children. She too, showed him a new way of life. Poised, sophisticated, with a Park Avenue background, she moved in a circle of brilliance, gaiety and wit. There can be no question but that Clark was dazzled—by her charm, by the difference between her and any other woman he’d met.

Through the frictions of his second marriage, he learned to know himself. The first suspicion of basic differences stunned him. In ’32 they separated briefly but reconciled. Clark fought for this marriage. He tried hard and honestly to fit himself into the rigid pattern of that social existence which was natural to his wife.

But finally, he learned to know the kind of man he was. A man who had to be himself, who would fit into nobody’s pattern. To whom money and social standards meant nothing.

This life was not Rhea’s life, which was no reflection on either. He didn’t expect her to change. Nor could he change himself. So they parted. He took a suite at the Beverly Wilshire, with no one to question his comings and goings. Shortly thereafter, he left on a 25,000-mile tour of South America.

In 1933, Clark and Carole Lombard made a picture together— “No Bed of Her Own.” People say they didn’t get along too well. In 1936 they met at the Mayfair Ball. She was with Cesar Romero. He arrived late. He promised himself to dance one dance and leave. That dance was with Carole Lombard, and he didn’t leave. They danced again, and again. The room was crowded. But for these two, it might have been an island where they were alone.

So began their love. Not till three years later were they to marry. For this, there were several reasons…

From the beginning, Carole made no secret of her feeling. She too, had tried marriage and failed. But on her, the failure had left no scar. As surely as if an angel had pointed him out, she knew that Clark was her man…

With him, it was different. Every instinct drew him toward this honest, gay-hearted girl, and yet he was afraid—the burnt child, dreading the flame. How could he know? Twice before he had thought himself in love. Twice the end had been disenchantment. Despite two mistakes, he was no man to step easily in and out of marriage. Resolved on freedom to be himself, he longed for anchorage, too—in the warmth of home, the comradeship of laughter, the blessing of love. Perhaps all this was too much to expect…

Especially from Carole. Carole was a party girl—a restless seeker of excitement, living in a whirl of nightclubs and hilarity. The last girl in the world from whom you’d expect peace.

Yet all this was camouflage over a spirit which itself sought peace. She found it in Gable, like a lost child come home. He was her world and the rest dropped away.

And at last Clark realized that the miracle had happened. Knowing himself at last, he knew that he’d reached emotional maturity, that this was the love all men wait for and few achieve…

One obstacle remained. Legally, Rhea Langham was still Mrs. Gable. However, her only reason for not giving Clark a divorce was a simple one—he’d never asked for it.  Now he paid $286,000 plus taxes for a release and in March of ’39, he was free to marry…

On a March day in ’39, a car drove through the streets of Kingman, Arizona. It stopped at the parsonage where Carole and Clark stepped out—as well as Otto Winkler, their friend of the MGM publicity department.

The parson was out, calling on a sick parishioner. His wife asked them to wait. Side by side on a sofa in the little parlor they sat till the parson arrived…

“Miss Lombard and Mr. Gable are here,” said his wife. “They’d like to be married—”

There was no time for a honeymoon, not then. When Clark’s picture was finished, they started for New York. But in a Mexican auto camp they were sidetracked. What matter that theaters and gayety waited? Here they tramped around all day in slacks and jeans, here the country was beautiful, nobody bothered them. Day after day they stayed, till the weeks of their holidays were gone, and they drove contentedly home.

It was an idyll that lasted not quite three years.

Out in the valley lay a ranch, for which Clark had hungered. It belonged to Raoul Walsh, the director. Clark was crazy to buy it. “And Walsh,” he grinned, “would be crazy to sell it.”

But one day a real estate agent called Carole. He told her the Walsh place was for sale. She called MGM. Clark was in the midst of a scene. “I’ll hang on,” she said, “if it takes all night. Because if he hears this from someone else, I’ll do murder.”

When he came, she said, “You still want the Walsh ranch, Pappy?”

He said, “If this is a gag—”

“It’s no gag, it’s for sale—”

They bought it that day, trading in another place as part payment.

There, in the house of shingles and whitewashed brick, they found happiness as complete as it’s given anyone in this world to know. There Carole made for Clark the home that was not a showplace, where dogs were welcome, where mud on the feet was no tragedy. A home of friendliness, of chintz and maple, sunshine and flowers and open hearths—a home for living. And the fields outdoors, where Clark worked with the hired man. Horses to ride, and chickens that Carole took care of. Carole, darling of the night clubs, learned about tractors and irrigation ditches and alfalfa. She learned to hunt and fish. She refused to make pictures when he wasn’t working. Once, asked for his favorite type of girl, he answered, “A girl who likes my type of man. If I come home Friday and say, let’s grab a few clothes and dig out for the weekend, my kind of girl will say fine, and mean it.”

Clark had found his kind of girl.

December 7, 1941. Bombs crashed on Pearl Harbor.

December 8. America was at war.

In January, the Treasury geared its forces to a huge bond drive. Carole’s hometown was Indianapolis. Carole’s personality was electric, compelling. Her presence at rallies would sell more bonds. They asked her to go to Indianapolis.

So one day she left the beloved home at Encino. Clark drove her to the train. They stopped for her mother, who was going along to see old friends. At the station, Otto Winkler waited—the same Otto who had been their marriage witness. He would handle details of the trip, of the speaking engagement.

There were pictures of Carole in Indianapolis—a slender, fair-haired young woman, wrapped in furs against the cold of outdoors, vital, aflame, conveying the passion of her convictions to her countrymen. Ten days of unflagging labor. Then, with the knowledge of a job well done, with the sale of millions of bonds credited to her efforts. She turned her face toward home.

The story goes that a coin was flipped: Heads, they would take the train—tails, the plane. The story goes that Carole was pleased when it turned up heads. The plane would get them in on Friday, and she would have Sunday with Clark who had just begun working in “Somewhere I’ll Find You.” When he worked, Sundays were doubly precious…

So came the last day of her life. At the airport he waited with a friend. First, they were told that the plane would be an hour late—then, that it had been grounded at Las Vegas. Clark grew uneasy, but his friend persuaded him to go home, since Carole might be trying to get him there. He himself would call Las Vegas for information. As he stepped into the phone booth, the news came in.

It was Eddie Mannix who had to go out and tell Clark. Not that Carole was dead. He couldn’t face the man who loved her and push the dreadful words across his lips. There had been an accident, he said, no details had come through. They would fly to Las Vegas.

Clark spoke no word, asked no questions, moved with unseeing eyes. From the car to the airport, from the airport to the un-chartered plane. The blue eyes were blank, looking inward on chaos. At Las Vegas they still said they didn’t know. The plane had crashed. Searchers had gone out. Some in the plane might be alive.

None were alive. The bodies were brought down. By war regulations, Army personnel first. Women next. Carole and her mother. Clark refused to leave till Otto had been found. The day after Carole and her mother were buried, he sat through the services for Otto, beside Otto’s wife. Then he collapsed.

Not for weeks did he mention Carole’s name. The first person he spoke it to was his father…

For Clark it had been a major achievement to get his father to Hollywood. Being a normal parent, he was enormously proud of his son. Being himself, he never admitted in words that Clark had done well to become an actor.

After Carole’s death, the older man took to coming over for breakfast. For the rest, he left his son to himself. He too, had known what it was to lose a young wife. A man must find his way through agony alone.

Out from the shadows..

Little by little, Clark moved on from under the shadows back to life. First, he finished the interrupted picture to which his studio was committed. On August 11, 1942, he enlisted as a private in the Army Air Force. Found qualified for OCS, he started the rigorous training at 41 among men who were fifteen and twenty years his junior. In a class of 2,600, he finished gunnery school No. 700. By the time he was shipped to England, he’d earned his Captaincy.

As gunner and operational photographer, his job was to take action pictures over enemy territory, and from those pictures to make a training film. His other job was to man a gun and shoot at attacking planes. Next to being under fire, his greatest discomfort was the publicity he couldn’t always avoid. What he wanted most was to do a good job. What he wanted almost as much was to be left alone—not to be singled out because once upon a time he’d been a movie actor.

A year later he returned with campaign ribbons, the Air Medal for his combat missions and 50,000 feet of film. A press conference in Washington. A hundred reporters and one uneasy Air Corps Captain. Yes, he’d shot at many German planes. No, he didn’t think he’d hit any. Yes, he’d been a little scared. Yes, his own plane had been hit, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Then someone asked for a fifty-word tribute to the men he’d fought with.

He answered quietly. “That’s something I couldn’t put into words—”

He spent almost a year on his picture. It’s called “Combat America.” Originally, it was meant for the Armed Forces only. Because of its excellence, the government will give it general release.

Late in ’44, Captain Gable was placed on inactive duty. For obvious reasons. Flights at 20,000 feet are hard on the system even of youngsters, and after a year on the ground, he was out of training. Rather than keep him on minor assignments, the AAF felt he could be of greater service in the movies, rated essential to soldier and civilian morale. Clark didn’t like it, but the choice wasn’t offered him. On one point he had his way. No discharge. He’s still a member of the AAF, subject to recall, should he be needed.

Once out of uniform, he went to Oregon on a tow-months’ fishing trip. Then to Florida and New York. At MGM, his first picture was in preparation: “Strange Adventure,” in which Clark will play a Marine on furlough. If the schedule holds, he will be at work when you read this.

The movies didn’t make Gable. He was fashioned by the land he was born on and the people he came from, by the dragons he vanquished and the dream he followed. Through such adulation as few have known, he has kept the simplicity of his forbears, Through tragedy. He has gained new strength. Through the comradeship and service of the battle, he has found meanings in life beyond the personal. Through all the tests by which we are measured, he has been weighed in the balance and found not wanting. The rest doesn’t matter.

He would laugh at all this. “Too many words, and they’re all too long.”

So let us put an end to words. Let this story of an American speak for itself.