This week (January14-20) in Hollywood History – Marilyn Monroe
married Joe Dimaggio (January 14, 1954); Hal Roach was born (January 14, 1892);
Ray Bolger died (January 15, 1987); Carole Lombard died in plane crash (January
16, 1942); John Wayne married Esperanza Baur (January 17, 1946); Oliver Hardy
was born (January 18, 1892); Cary Grant was born (January 18, 1904); Danny Kaye
was born (January 18, 1913); Hedy Lamarr died (January 19, 2000); Audrey
Hepburn died (January 20, 1993); Sharon Tate married Roman Polanski (January
20, 1968).
Highlighted Story
of the Week –
On January 16, 1942, actress Carole Lombard and wife of
Clark Gable was killed in a plane crash. Gable and Lombard met in 1932 during
the filming of No Man of Her Own. He
was just starting out on his trajectory as one of Hollywood’s top leading men
and she was a talented comedic actress trying to prove herself in more serious
roles. Both were married at the time, Gable to a wealthy Texas widow 10 years
his senior and Lombard to actor William Powell and neither showed much interest
in the other. When they met again, three years later, Lombard had divorced
Powell and Gable was separated from his wife, and things proceeded quite
differently. Much to the media’s delight, the new couple was open with their
affection. In early 1939, Gable’s wife finally granted him a divorce, and he
married Lombard that April.
In January 1942, shortly after America’s entrance into
World War II, Howard Dietz, the publicity director of the MGM film studio,
recruited Lombard for a tour to sell war bonds in her home state of Indiana.
Gable, who had been asked to serve as the head of the actors’ branch of the
wartime Hollywood Victory Committee, stayed in Los Angeles, where he was set to
begin filming Somewhere I’ll Find You
with Lana Turner. Dietz advised Lombard to avoid airplane travel, because he
feared for its reliability and safety, and she did most of the trip by train,
stopping at various locations on the way to Indianapolis and raising some $2
million for the war effort.
On the way home, however, Lombard didn’t want to wait for
the train, and instead boarded a TWA DC-3 in Las Vegas with her mother,
Elizabeth Peters, and a group that included MGM publicity agent Otto Winkler
and 15 others. Shortly after takeoff, the plane veered off course. Warning
beacons that might have helped guide the pilot had been blacked out because of
fears about Japanese bombers, and the plane smashed into a cliff near the top
of Potosi Mountain. Search parties were able to retrieve Lombard’s body, and
she was interred in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale,
California.
Hysterical with grief and adrift in the empty house he
had shared with Lombard, Gable drank heavily and struggled to complete his work
on Somewhere I’ll Find You. He was
comforted by worried friends, including actress Joan Crawford. That August,
Gable decided to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corp. He spent most of the war in
the United Kingdom, and flew several combat missions (including one to
Germany), earning several decorations for his efforts. He would remarry twice
more, but when he died in 1960 Gable was interred at Forest Lawn, next to
Lombard.
Check back every
Wednesday for a new installment of “This Week in Hollywood History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction
books that includes Fade to Black
Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following
link:
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