1939: How Gable’s Wives Made Him Great

How Gable’s Wives Made Him Great

Screen Guide magazine, November 1939

Any wife who is worthy of having a husband gives him a great deal more than he possibly can give her. And if a woman improves the man she marries, it is evidence not that he wasn’t much in the beginning, but that she is wholly a woman, and that love is to her an ever-fresh challenge to give some man the fruits of that wisdom all women have.

If this is true—and epigrams galore attest that it is—a thrice-married man whose wives in turn were women of great character and may gifts would be surely a sort of product of their handiwork—a woman-made man.

Perhaps that is why Clark Gable is such a remarkable person, and so appealing to males and females alike. He has been wedded three times, and each wife has contributed to the man of today.

First of his wives was Josephine Dillon. A great actress, producer, writer and dramatic coach, she taught Gable as she never did any other pupil.

Second was Rhea Langham Lucas, a wealthy Texas widow when he met her. She had graciousness and social bearing. From her Clark learned much of his present suavity.

Third is Carole Lombard whose companionship all Hollywood calls a real treasure.

Marriage began for him almost exactly when a career did. Fifteen years ago he had learned he could “knock around” forever without getting anywhere. Born Feb.1, 1901, in Cadiz, Ohio, he decided after a taste of pre-medical study at University of Akron that he was going to be an actor. But before amounting to a smear of grease-paint in that profession, he was a timekeeper in a rubber factory; an extra in a stock-company; a driller in the Oklahoma oil fields; a “rod man” for an engineering survey, a classified advertising clerk; a telephone lineman; a logger in a lumber camp. Then he entered a night dramatic school in Portland Ore., conducted by Josephine. Under his real name, William, she gave him a role in a play she produced, “The Contrast.” And when she came to Hollywood, he followed and married her. That was in 1924. While he was playing bits on the stage and in silent pictures, she was his only coach. After seven years they separated; he had just been hired by MGM for $350 a week. Today she still has her dramatic school in Hollywood where she trains many discoveries.

Clark met Rhea, 11 years his senior, after separation from Josephine, but before his divorce was final. When his decree became final, they were married in Santa Ana on June 19,1931. All “in the know” hailed her as a great help to Gable after he got his start in “The Last Mile” at MGM—and her aid did not stop with financial backing. She made hm socially acceptable and popular. He became a “solid” citizen of Los Angeles through her. But they separated in 1934 and bickered in court for a while over money. The settlement finally worked out in January of this year revealed he had given her $286,000 in cash and property. She spent six weeks in Las Vegas, Nev., and won an absolute decree March 7.

Twenty-two days later Clark married the girl who had been his steady companion for three years, Carole Lombard, in Kingman, Ariz. Both of his other wives had been at least ten years older than he; Carole is 8 years younger. She inherits from her predecessors an ideal man—and she’s giving him his greatest happiness!