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William Clark Gable was born February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio. His mother died when he was seven months old. At sixteen he quit high school, went to work in an Akron tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties.In 1923,Clark married Josephine Dillon, an acting teacher 11 years his senior. Gable worked as an movie extra and unskilled stage actor while he waited for better parts to come along. His marriage to Joesphine was going in a downward spiral and in 1927 they divorced.

After bit parts he returned to theatre, becoming lifelong friends with Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (Barrymore and Zanuck) he was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in Free Soul, A (1931) the same year. His unshaven love-making with braless Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star. The studio punished him for refusing an assignment; he was farmed out to Columbia where he won an Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934). He returned to substantial roles at MGM, winning nominations for Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939). When his third wife Carole Lombard died in a plane crash returning from a War Bond drive, a grief-stricken Gable joined the Army Air Corps, out of movies for three years.

When he returned, the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He free-lanced, but his films didn't do well at the boxoffice.His personal life was more successful. He and his fifth wife,Kay Williams Spreckels were expecting their first child. Sadly he would never get to see the birth of his only child. He suffered a fatal heart attack on November 16, 1960 shortly after finding out he was going to be a Father. He is buried in Forrest Lawn Cemetary next to his third wife, Carole Lombard.

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