Product Description
Clark Gable arrived in Hollywood after a rough-and-tumble youth, and his breezy, big-boned, everyman persona quickly made him the town’s king. He was a gambler among gamblers, a heavy drinker in the days when everyone drank seemingly all the time, and a lover to legions of the most attractive women in the most glamorous business in the world, including the great love of his life, Carole Lombard.

In this well-researched and revealing biography, Warren G. Harris gives an exceptionally acute portrait of one of the most memorable actors in the history of motion pictures—whose intimates included such legends as Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Loretta Young, David O. Selznick, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, and Grace Kelly—as well as a vivid sense of the glamour and excess of mid-century Hollywood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

OK
the writer spent too much time discussing in detail about the films he had made.

GABLE - MACHO HERO OR SELF CENTERED RAT?
.....Warren G. Harris gives a superficial and not too admirable view of the man who was sold as "The King of Hollywood".How much of Gable was real and how much a product of MGM's PR Dept is not known and Harris does not provide much insight as his book is skimpy on cited facts and references.

.....One thing seems certain, Gable was driven at an early age to become a success in his chosen field and was not above using people to achieve this end and then tossing them aside when they were no longer useful to him.

.....His first victim was Franz Dorfler, an aspiring actress, whose family took him in when he was penniless and sick and whom he wanted to marry until he found a better prospect in Josephine Dillion, a much older woman who promised to make him a star.When he felt he no longer needed her he dumped her for Maria Langham a wealthy socialite who was also much older.This marrige was one of convience for Clark partially pressured by his studio to cover his many indiscretions with multiple woman.

.....One such woman was his co-star, Loretta Young when they were making the movie "Call of the Wild".To Clark, Loretta was just another conquest to be discarded when she was no longer convient.What he didn't count on was that she would get pregnant and seek marriage.Clark tried to pressure her to have an abortion and when she would not, he refused to acknowledge the child.He saw the child, Judy Lewis, twice in her lifetime, once when she was a baby and he gave Loretta $400 to buy her a decent bed, and once when she was fifteen.The reason for his second visit is left to the reader to try to figure out as he never saw her again or acknowledged her in any way.When she got married he did not go to her wedding or even send a gift.For a man who built his career on a macho image his behavior in regards to his daughter was not very manly.

.....His love for Carole Lombard seemed sincere and her death affected him deeply, but except for Carole and later Kay, who resembled Carole in many ways, Clark's main love affair was always with himself.Carole and Kay were hunting and fishing buddies who tolerated his infidelities with a very liberal "boys will be boys" attidude and this suited Clark's macho image of himself perfectly.

.....All in all the book reinforced my admiration of Gable the actor but my opinion of Gable the man dropped like a lead baloon.His refusal to acknowledge his daughter and the fact that of all his many leading ladies, only Norma Shearer came to his funeral, speaks volumes about the man's character.

.....For someone as religious as Loretta Young it might have seemed like Divine retribution that Clark was denied seeing the son he wanted so badly with Kay because he had never accepted the daughter he didn't want with Loretta.

Definitive narrative of Gable's rise
The first fifty pages of the novel is a fascinating look at Gable's early years up to his debut on Broadway at the Plymouth theatre.Gable's rise from a squeaky voiced novice with bad teeth and outsized ears to the polished professional (under the direction of much older "sugar mammas" Josephine Dillon and Ria Langham) ranks right up there with the best rags to riches stories ever told.

The rest of the novel is a fair look at Gable's life and career with a few surprises-most notably details of an illegitimate daughter with Loretta Young.

A Good Account of the King
This is a well researched bio of Clark Gable.He was not a perfect man but some of his issues certainly had their roots in the crushing poverty of his youth.It seems that with him what you saw on the screen was pretty much the man.And what a man!I enjoyed this book thououghly and reccommend it to anyone interested in Gable and Hollywood movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s.

Plagiarism?
He lifted whole passages from Lyn Tornabene's bio "Long Live the King" but did not list her in the bibliography. ... Read more

Product Description
Dubbed "the king of Hollywood", Clark Gable was one of the greatest stars of cinema history. Gable established himself in the movies in the 1930s, playing supporting roles as a thug or gangster. In this book Gable speaks for himself. His words, thoughts and remarks to friends and colleagues are reprinted around a collection of photographs to create a portrait of this legend of the silver screen. Neil Grant is the editor of "Marilyn In her Own Words". ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (19)

Wonderfully researched!
This book may disappoint some fans of Gable who refuse to acknowledge that he was only human, but a very great star. The author researched his subject w/the precision of a surgeon and thus we have a lot of what propelled Gable through out his life.His sexuality was just a small part of who Gable the man was and though some people may not like it, it makes him no less the ultimate movie star.

Please do your research before you write a biography
Though I just received the book yesterday and thus have not read it thoroughly yet, I still managed to find two obvious mistakes. On page 93, the author says that Paul Muni won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Black Fury. That is absolutely not true, just look that up in any almanac. That category wasn't even created until the following year. Also, on page 237, the author also said that Carroll Baker was the sexy teenaged star from Lolita. Also not at all true. That movie didn't come out until 1962, two years after Clark died and Sue Lyon stared in it. The movie Carroll Baker was in (and yes, she did play a "teenage sex kitten" was called Baby Doll). So, although I'm not upset I bought the book, it just makes me mad that these mistakes were not caught by the editor and most certainly the author.

One of the best
Excellent service, I received the book within two days and it was exactly as described.I most certainly will buy from them again.

Don't waste your time or money.
The only people who will enjoy this are people who live on gossip and half truths! The writer obviously does not know films nor does the editor. Hewrites that Carol Lynley was in the film Lolita, please!!! Don't waste your time on this one.

Very poorly researched book
Go ahead and buy this book if you like shoddily researched biographies or you can be like me and go to the public library and save yourself twelve bucks. The "author" wrote an answer to the negative reviews posted here on Amazon.com and basically said he didn't care what we thought because "he was laughing all the way to the bank". I'm glad he is because now he can go and buy himself a college education. I have never read such a poorly researched and poorly edited book such as Mr. Bret's book on Clark Gable. He claims that we Americans are anti-gay which is why he got such negative reviews. I, for one, am not anti-gay and it doesn't matter to me that Gable was bi-sexual to or not. What matters to me is when the town of Encino (here in CA) is called "Elcino" throughout the whole book! Mr. Bret claims that after Irving Thalberg died, Norma Shearer "out of respect for Irving Thalberg, never married again."As an amateur film historian I almost lost it when I read that piece of "information" -the "author" has obviously never really done any serious research for this this book because Norma did indeed marry again...and remained married to her second husband for over 30 years!I never finished the book after reading that because if he didn't care enough to recheck his facts then I really didn't care to finish the book. All I can say is that there is hope for ANYONE to become a writer...because if certain writers can write junk and get away with it then I'm next--let's see...maybe I should write a book about Jimmy Stewart and come up with some morbid scandal... ... Read more

Product Description
Clark Gable - The King of Hollywood is the biography of Clark Gable, an iconic and legendary Academy Award-winning American film actor. Gable has been nicknamed by fans and the movie industry as "The King of Hollywood." His most famous role was in the 1939 epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he co-starred with Vivien Leigh. Clark Gable worked with many leading ladies including Joan Crawford in eight films, Myrna Loy in seven films, and Jean Harlow in six films. He also starred in numerous films with Lana Turner and Norma Shearer. Despite his reluctance to play the role, Gable is best known for his performance in Gone with the Wind (1939), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time. Clark Gable - The King of Hollywood is highly recommended for those interested in learning more about this popular American film icon. ... Read more

Product Description
Long Live the King: A Biography of Clark Gable, 1976 BCE, by Lyn Tornabene. Hardcover with dust jacket, 429 pages, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Cool, Before The Day of WWW, MTV, or TMZ
This biography was published before the World Wide Web introduced us to the wide open world of celebrity worship, back in the day when celebrities could have their own hidden life, back in the day of Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe. Back in the day before cell phones, digital cameras, and cell phones with digital cameras.Back in the day when movie starlets could skip wearing their filthy dirty panties and not run the risk of being snapped by some goofy paparazzi.Back when they was a little RESPECT!Yessir!

So anyway, this was a good read and remains so to this day.It takes you back, back in time, back to when men were men and smoked cigarettes and knew how to use a Zippo lighter, not some gay Bic butane flame machine.And movie starlets were sweet, and pretty, and wore panties.And lived in Hollywood bungalows so Jim Morrison could write about them.

Back in the day when the San Fernando Valley was still full of farms, ranchitos, and wide open spaces, and not some drug and gang infested rathole waiting to be nuked.

By the way, after reading the book, I went up to Potosi Mountain outside of Vegas and visited the site where Carole Lombard died in a horrific plane crash.I also visited their graves in the Great Mausoleum in Forest Lawn.Tough to do today, but it's just off the viewing room of the Last Supper Window.Back in the day, I just grabbed a handful of cheap flowers, showed up at one of the entrances and said I was visiting so-and-so and they beeped me in and I could roam around the tombs of the stars.

Back in the day.....

Boring and out of date
I found this book to be a sort of boring story of the life of Clark Gable. Also there has been information about Clark Gable that makes this book out of date.

The book hardly mentions Loretta Young and in the early 1990's it came out that Clark Gable and Loretta Young had a secret love child. Instead of this I would recommend the biography by Warren Harris instead. It is more up to date

Lombard almost lives again
This is an excellent book, with perhaps the best word portrait of Lombard in existence, and with that portrait, one understands better the man Gable was after January 16, 1942.The text gives a well developed dimensional portrait of Gable that explores the darker sides of the man - and gives credible support to the Hollywood conviction that Carole Lombard died because of Gable's womanizing, specifically citing Lana Turner (Gable had just started work on 'Somewhere I'll Find You' with Turner when Lombard left on her war bond tour).

Nope, it ain't about Elvis
Clark Gable was The King long before Elvis started shaking his booty and long before Elvis even had a booty to shake! It's refreshing, in this biography, to read what a humble man this gorgeous, virile man had. Farfrom being the Rhett Butler-egomaniac, Gable actually thought he wasn't"that good-looking!" "I'm just a lucky slob from Ohio,"Gable is quoted in the book as telling an interviewer.

Known largely forhis on-stage role as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, also starringVivien Leigh -- and his off-screen romance with Carole Lombard, Gable wooedmore women than he ever could have bedded, what with those "comehither" eyes and dimples. Every woman who watched Gone With the Windwould have changed places with Vivien in a second in the famous"rape" scene where he roughly sweeps Scarlett in his arms andcarries the kicking and screaming wife up the stairs. Of course, anyone whoknows anything about love, Scarlett and that movie knows it surely wasn'trape!

Tornabene's book explores Gable's extreme professionalism as anactor and bits and pieces of the private life he chose to hide while alive.He was even described by the media as "boring" because hewouldn't talk about his private life!

Interesting in the book is thatthis journalist decided to make a most humble move and talk to apscyhologist about the research to gain a different view of Clark Gable, asresearch alone provided pieces to the Gable puzzle but not the entirepicture. ... Read more

Product Description
"Clark Gable is a man de-classed. You can't guess in any way where he came from or what he was." Frank Taylor, producer of Gable's last film, The Misfits (1961), said this of the man who, to many people, will forever be Southern gentleman Rhett Butler of Gone with the Wind. This work tells Gable's life story, from his birth in 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to his death in 1960 in Hollywood. It chronicles his stage career, and of course gives information on every one of his films. His family background, his development as a person, the many romances including five marriages, and his relationships with friends and co-workers are all explored in detail. The sources used and the bibliography are fully annotated. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Best of all Gable biographies
In my research for Warm and Wonderful Stepmothers of Famous People (also carried by amazon.com), I looked through virtually all Gable biographies, including the one by Harris. This is the best by far. It has everything but is not gossipy, is very well-written--I found myself reading much more of it than my needs required. Chrystopher Spicer liked his subject yet was thorough and objective--all necessary for a good biography, and with all the biographies I've used in research for my books, I should know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

clark gable's later years
This is a great book illustrating the time in Clark Gable's life after his celebrity
waned as he aged. Based on Kay Spreckels account they enjoyed a very close knit
family life which is what he had wanted later in life. ... Read more

Product Description
Over 100 black and white photos with movie synopses and commentary ... Read more

Product Description
It's 1939 and Atlanta is preparing for the premiere of "Gone with the Wind". But Hollywood has a bigger story breaking: a kidnapper has been targeting star babies. The amateur sleuthing team of Carole Lombard and her dashing husband Clark Gable are in hot pursuit--vintage Hollywood and vintage Baxt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Last in Baxt's celebrity mystery series.
I'm not that sorry to see the end of Baxt's celebrity murder case series.The books are not bad stories, but not great either.I did like the many glimpses I got of famous starts from the 30's and 40's.In this book, I particularly enjoyed Groucho Marx and W.C. Fields.As I read the books, I found that I picked up a lot of celebrity gossip, as Baxt appears to be intimately acquainted with these glamourous people.In this book Carole and Clark try to help Detective Villon find one of Carole's missing protégés, who had been kidnapped.While everyone is working on this case, a body of a man washes ashore at celebrity beach party.Could these two seemingly unrelated instances be connected?Carole thinks so, and puts her considerable intelligence to work to help the police find Lydia Austin, and to determine who killed the gangster that washed up on the beach.It was not a bad story, with Baxt's trademark satire liberally sprinkled throughout.For anyone who is interested in this golden era in Hollywood, this series will be worth the time.

Ar play witht he stars
Wonderful book, puts you right in the niddle of the era and makes you part of the goings on, I am old enough to remember a lot of these stars and the columnists. The bits of whimsical insight into what was going on behind the scenes is really fun to learn.I worked at Paramount Pictures for two years and this brought it back. Besides I could just hear Enda Mae Oliver saying "Mr. Dick what shall we do with this boy" or "you evil woman" to Madame Defarge in Tale of Two Two Cities.Wonderful book.

Clever dialogue and delightful dish
Though not one of Baxt's strongest (I would heartily recommend The Dorothy Parker Murder Case), there is enough clever dialogue and delightful dish to carry you through the rather weak plot. Baxt once again takes great joy in raking through the bones of celebrities, exposing the sexual proclivitiesand excesses of Hollywood stars. I found reading it enjoyable, though notcompletely satisfying as a murder mystery

I wpuld love to read that book.
Is this book at the libaray yes or no and can the libarary get it

Famous Personalities In Search Of A Decent Plot
This book was an immense disappointment.The vivid personalities of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable might have lent themselves to any number of marvelous plot situations.Unfortunately, author Baxt chose to write MissLombard as a giggling dingbat (the words "tee hee hee" arescattered liberally throughout) with the wit of a gnat.Poor Clark Gabledoesn't fare any better.This mystery inspires the question,"Whodunnit?"Unfortunately, the author GEORGE BAXT "dunnit" ~and he done it all over Carole Lombard and Clark Gable.What a misbegottenmess. ... Read more

Product Description
Recounts the life and career of a larger-than-life Hollywood legend, including his ruthless ambition and his affairs with stars such as Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard. By the author of Marilyn's Men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Charisma& Charm trumps all.
Hollywood's moral values were not those of the rest of the country even in the 1920's & 30's. Anywhere else Clark Gable is a cheating swine. Nobody knew this at the time because big brother MGM protected it's own from unpleasantness leaking out to his adoring public. His acting ability & magnetism allowed him to have any women anytime he wanted, if you believe the author Jane Ellen Wayne.She blows hot, cold & lukewarm on her subject. I guess that passes for objectivity.
Gable was a whinner, over-sexed & never satisfied. His first two marriages to older mentors were shams. They served their purpose & were discarded. He cheated on them both regularly.
His rise to stardom was slow & tedious, like the first two tapes of this audio version. But then it picked up. He was committed at first to the live stage. But, like many otherlegitimate actors, he was seduced by the $$$ to be made inHollywood. His timing was excellent. Many silent era stars could not make the transition to talkies. His voice was very masculine & very sexy. He cleaned up his act with a new set of teeth & physique. He life was owned by MGM. He never had the backbone to defy Louis B. Mayer. He hated him & griped constantly, but did what he was told. MGM in turn, made him their biggest star, & his fans could not get enough of him. He was dubbed the King of Hollywood & never relinquished that title. He was a working actor & made many very good movies such as "It Happened One Night", "Saratoga", five with Jean Harlow, & of course "Gone With the Wind".
The turning point in Gable's life was his marriage to THE love of his life, Carole Lombard. She died a hero's death as she returned to California from a bond drive early in the war. She was flying back rather than taking the train & her plane crashed in the mountains near Las Vegas. She had decided to fly because either she missed Clarkvery much (they were in love with each other) or she suspected him of cheating on her. Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, or ??? Take your pick. He was fooling around on the only women he ever really loved. He never recovered from her death or the guilt he felt. Thismade him a more serious, introspective & maybe better actor. He saw action in the Army Air Corps in World War II but was pulled out of the line of fire when it became more of a hassle keeping Hollywood's greatest star from harm than it was worth. A remake of the 1932 movie "Red Dust' was renamed "Magambo' with Ava Gardner & a young Grace Kelly wasprobably his most ballyhooed post war movie. Others such as "Run Silent Run Deep" were also pretty decent.
A lifetime of abusing his body plus a lot of booze & cigarettes were
taking their toll. The great male actors were dying in the 50's. Bogart, Cooper, Flynn, all gone. Gable died shortly after making "The Misfits" with Marilyn Monroe, also her last movie. His only child was born to his fifth wife, Kay Speckles, shortly after his death.

A detailed movie star bio
Started reading this book after the death of Katharine Hepburn. Gable is another one of those great stars I know and love only from GWTW and black and white movies on TCM. I knew little of his personal life, except for his storybook marriage to Carole Lombard. This book filled me in on his background. I had no idea he worked so hard on the craft he made look so effortless. Nor did I know how complicated he was. Knowing this will make me appreciate his work that much more. Does it bother me that the biographer writes as if she was in the room for some of the conversations? Not really. This is, after all, a movie star biography, not a history book. If Gable had been a politician or statesman, it might concern me more.

Not the most interesting
I didn't really like the book and the author seems to reiterate information from her different books into others. I had just borrowed the book from the library as well as the book on Grace Kelly and neither thisor the book on Grace had any pictures to speak of and any author who cannotbe resourceful enough to get pictures to include in the biography is lazyor did not try hard enough...others have been able to so why can't she?Soyou definitely can't say I am her biggest fan.

Flighty bio written for the vicarious
This biography is saddled with many flaws.It often reads like one of those silly romance novels one sees at the literature sections of such famous bookshops as Walmart, K-Mart, Walgreens and B.Daltons.It is filledwith irrelevant gossip, much of it more suitable for a luncheon oflate-middle aged hens rather than a serious biography.The author'sinterviews with Joan Crawford(one of Gable's many lovers) dominate too manysections of the bio; much of what Miss Crawford says is taken at face valuewith little to counter-balance her assertions.Most undefensible is theauthor's portrayal of intimate conversations as if she were there with amicrophone and tape recorder.Many of the precise"conversations" alleged by the author were between two peoplelong since dead.How would Jane Ellen Wayne know precise conversationsbetween Louis B. Mayer and Clark Gable?Both have been dead for overthirty years.Did the author interview either man from beyond the grave? This technique of the author is most dishonest.However, this biographyhas some very good points.Gable's early life and rise are covered ingreat detail. The author's desriptions of the big studio milleu of pre-TVHollywood are interesting.The author paints a thorough personalityportrait of Gable- his calculated decisions, his high sex drive, hisalcoholism, his love of the outdoors, his tight wallet.Gable's marriageto Carole Lombard is handled rather well.Oddly, the Gable-Lombardmarriage reminds one of the marriage of the current First Couple in theWhite House, only Carole Lombard is better looking and much, much betterhumoured than Hillary R. Clinton and Clark Gable is much more manly thanBill Clinton. Clark Gable is worthy of a fine biography; Jane Ellen Wayne'sis not it, however. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What a man!They don't make them like him anymore!
As you can tell, I am a big Gable fan.Alas, he died the year I was born.I bought this book about a year ago at a used bookstore in Orlando, Florida and love it.There is a wonderful foreward by Charles Champlain followed by an informative and interesting biography of Clark and then two reminiscences of people that knew him before he became a superstar. One memoir is by a woman named Franz Dorfler who loved him deeply.Following Dorfler's fond recollection, we read one by Paul Fix, who recalled the days Gable was a stage actor.It is intriging to see Gable through two people that knew him well long before he became the indisputed King of Hollywood.The book has beautiful, big, black and white photos on nearly every page.It also details every film he was in, from his bit part in small films to the classic films of the thirties and forties, example, "Mutiny on the Bounty", "Gone with the Wind", "It Happened One Night", "Adventure" etc.For anyone out there who is a Gable fan of any degree, this is a MUST to own.I refer to it often, sometimes just to stare at his beautiful face and masculine build. It's definetly a keeper!

A must for all Gable fans!
I've seen a lot of Gable filmographies, but this one is definitely the best.Great photos, too.Get it if you can!

Lots of facts and adorable photos of Clark Gable.
I already knew most of the facts, but it's the type of book that you just buy to swoon over the photos of Clark. He's the best actor ever! There's sections for all his movies and Broadway performances, complete with photos and reviews. He's just so gorgeous! ... Read more

Product Description
On November 16, 1960, Clark Gable died. Jean Garceau, his personal secretary for 20 years, knew him well. In this biography, published the year after his death, she tells his story in a captivating and warmly personal manner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

just so so
I thought the pictural series of stars must be wonderful, yet I have to say I am depressed. the book is small size, and not so many pics. ... Read more