January


 


January 16, 1942, was a day that changed the life of the then world’s number 1 movie star forever. It was the day the love of his life, Carole Lombard died in a plane crash. She had been on a trip for the government selling war bonds when she decided to hurry back to Clark by air rather than overland. A later theory was that they had quarreled the night she left over his lack of fidelity in the marriage. There was a rumor he was having an affair with his costar, Lana Turner. Carole’s biographer, Robert Matzen wrote, "Gable was self-centered and never felt it necessary to have self-discipline when it came to sex outside the relationship because he had a sense of what a catch he was.”


Her death led him to drink and smoke heavily and he enlisted in the air force soon after. ‘’I’m going in and I don’t expect to come back, and I don’t really give a hoot whether I do or not,’’ he said to a friend. When he joined up he wore the same suit he had worn to Carole’s funeral.


Surprisingly, or not, Adolf Hitler was a huge fan and offered a fortune to anyone who brought Clark to him alive. He served extremely well and flew missions over Germany.


Clark was to marry two more times, but he was buried beside Carole.



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