Clark Gable

Clark Gable (1901-1960), American film actor, noted as the prototype of the virile, charming American male. He was born in Cadiz, Ohio. Before achieving fame, Gable performed a wide variety of jobs, from drilling oil wells to playing minor parts in silent films. He made a successful Broadway appearance in Machinal (1928). The first notable film in which he featured was The Painted Desert (1931), a western. During the 1930s Gable was at his height as the outstanding leading man in American films; he played opposite the best-known female stars of the time and was frequently cited as the personality whose films made the most money at the box office. He starred in such films as A Free Soul (1931); It Happened One Night (1934), for which he won an Academy Award; Mutiny on the Bounty (1935); and, in his most famous role, as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind (1939). Gable served as a combat gunner in World War II, returning once the war was over to the screen in such films as Command Decision (1948), Across the Wide Missouri (1951), and Mogambo (1953). He died a few days after completing his last film, The Misfits, which also starred Marilyn Monroe.