Customer Reviews

Clark Gable: A Biography

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Warren G. Harris has put together a very readable book which devotes itself almost exclusively to Gable (his previous book Gable and Lombard basically chronicled the relationship of Gable and third wife Carole Lombard). While there is still a lot of information about the spectacular Lombard in this book, the thrust of this book concentrates on the time before CL and after CL.
In spite of the fact that Gable has been dead for over forty years (and you might have figured that there is nothing more to say about Gable), this book still covers a lot of material that I was not aware of. Author Harris has dispelled rumors that Gable killed a woman in an auto accident which was covered up by his studio MGM. Harris also provides a lot of information regarding Gable's three failed marriages which ended in divorce, the inner-workings of the studio system and MGM's publicity department.
This book is extremely well written and very difficult to put down. It is the compelling story of a man who quickly overcame a humble midwestern upbringing to meteorically rise through the ranks to genuine super stardom. Along the way, Harris also allows us to glimpse at the personalities that Gable knew and interacted with. The book is rich with anecdotes about some of stars of Hollywood's Golden Age and leaves one with the feeling that you actually knew these people.
In spite of the time which has passed since Gable's somewhat premature death, his charisma still grabbed this reader. To me, no one that I can think of in terms of today's cinema even comes close to grabbing the title "KING". This book secures his reputation and legend.

This simplistic, underwritten bio of one of the great Hollywood icons is surprising only if you wonder how it got published at all. Did anyone at the publishing house actually read this awful book about Gable?

If you compare, simply on journalistic terms, the weight and writing style of Mr. Harris to, for example, A. Scott Berg's recent treatment of Charles Lindbergh, it's astonishing that Mr. Harris got his material published. As you read through the Gable biography, not only are you annoyed at the carping comments of the author, you begin to doubt the actual facts in the book. And the author's penchant of asking rhetorical questions is not only annoying, it has no place in a biography where the author's job is to find out as much important detail as possible. Instead of a mature, thoughtful attempt to define Gable as an actor and inform the reader about his life, Mr. Harris peppers his writing with unanswerable and unimportant questions which rate below the "E Entertainment" level of discussion.

Mr. Gable deserved much better that what Mr. Harris delivers.

"Clark Gable : A Biography" by Warren G. Harris offers a readable yet incomplete glimpse into the life and career of the undisputed King of Hollywood, the late Clark Gable.

At no point does this biography bore the reader. On the contrary, it is packed with gossip about Gable's affairs with such actresses as Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Merle Oberon and Grace Kelly while also giving us a glimpse of his professional relationships with fellow actors like Spencer Tracy and John Barrymore. Also highly enjoyable were the chapters alluding to Clark's marriage with beautiful Carole Lombard.

However, these interesting passages hardly manage to fill in the voids in this bio caused by the author's apparent ignorance as to Clark Gable's real personality and by the author's limited vocabulary. (He seemed to have a passion for calling any event that ever occured throughout Gable's life as 'ironic'. One felt like handing the man a dictionary, as he clearly had no idea of what the word actually means.)

I myself am a huge Gable fan and therefore was shocked at the way he was presented in this book. Even though there were certain passages refering to his nice personality, for the most part he was portrayed as an impatient and grouchy old man. Perhaps these negative things about Gable are true, but it is highly probable that many positive things were omitted from the book in order to make for a more interesting or controversial read.

When summarizing the movies Gable made, the author tended to misquote characters from the movie and even wrongly sum up the plots. I had to ask myself if he had even watched these movies.

I was also angered by a passage in the last chapter in which "The Misfits", Gable's last film, was described as one of the biggest failures in Clark's career, calling his performance 'tired' and zombie-like. At no point does the author bother to make reference to the fact that the reviews for this movie were highly favourable, even if it made poor box-office. Many regarded it as Gable's greatest accomplishment and Clark himself was very pleased with his last film.

The author no doubt had every intention of writing a good book, but his lack of real facts was somewhat disconcerting and the the final product is no more than a biography based entirely on word of mouth, on rumour and on heresay. At no point do you get the sense that you are even close to understanding the man behind that wicked, dimpled smile.

This new biography of Clark Gable by Warren G. Harris (who also wrote "Gable and Lombard") is a highly entertaining if not particularly incisive read. Farm boy Billy from Cadiz, Ohio transforms into suave Clark Gable during the course of this book, not above using attentive women like his first two wives. Josephine Dillon and Ria Langham were older women who were not terribly attractive, but between the two of them helped to manufacture the "vibrantly masculine" King of Hollywood. Gable's father considered acting a "sissy occupation," and throughout his life seemingly in reaction, Gable exuded a palpable machismo - often to the detriment of relationship with co-stars. Myrna Loy (Queen of Hollywood to Clark's King) was not receptive to Gable's overtures and consequently was given the cold shoulder by him. She perceptively observed, "Clark suffered so much from the macho thing."

Not in the least deterred by his macho image was screen lovely Carole Lombard. She and Gable were perfectly matched; though it would take several years from the first meeting for the sparks to ignite. Gable was devastated by her death, commenting, "Let's face it; there's a hole in me now that will never be filled up." Indeed, this book illustrates how Gable lost his interest in much of life after Carole died.

Also trotted out here are the relationships with (among others) Joan Crawford, Merle Oberon, Jean Harlow, and Grace Kelly. Gable had virtually nothing to do with Judy Lewis, the child born of his "Call of the Wild" affair with the ostensibly virtuous Loretta Young. One wonders why, but there is no illumination here.

Harris does not shrink from revealing the negative aspects of Gable's personality, like his homophobia, alcoholism, and miserliness. Jewel-maven Paulette Goddard, he relates, was disappointed not to receive sparkly baubles from Gable during their liaison; predictably, it didn't last long. Upset by the homosexuality of director George Cukor during the filming of "Gone With The Wind," Gable complained until L.B. Mayer switched Cukor to the more appropriate bitch-fest, The Women."

This book does provide a superficial glimpse of the Hollywood of the 30s, and provides gossipy tidbits I didn't know, like the lesbianism of Claudette Colbert. I recommend it, but not as an in-depth look at Gable's acting abilities, which are barely touched on. The Oscar he won for "It Happened One Night", seemed mainly given to applaud his overwhelming popularity. I san see Rhett Butler smirking now!

I just bought this book and noticed that Warren Harris list Clark Gable character in "Cain and Mabel" as "Joe Cain" instead of "Larry Cain" which is the actual name of the character.

How many other things are wrong in this book?

I know that only so much can be written about Clark Gable but Warren Harris's book is yet another rehash of his book, "Gable and Lombard".

First, I have an extreme bias against books that don't document sources. Harris makes several statements as fact without backing them up with sources, like saying that Gable was forced to marry Ria Langham because she went to Thalberg and Mayer complaining that he wouldn't marry her. But he doesn't say where he gets this tidbit from. I know that it can be done, because David Stenn does a remarkable job of it in "Bombshell" and "Runnin' Wild".

Second, if you read "Gable and Lombard", you can see that Harris is much more partial to Lombard and really had no love for Gable. I got the impression that (and this is just my impression) that he blames Gable for Lombard's death because he might have been fooling around with Lana Turner. You can see this some more in this newest book. I just felt that Harris really doesn't care much for Gable. I think he would have been better off writing about Lombard than he would have been writing about Gable.

I guess it there is only so much you can write about one person but this book doesn't cover anything new or interesting about Gable, the man nor Gable, the star.

.....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.

This bio is an acceptably detailed basic account of Gable's life and career, but the quality of the writing is poor; it would not pass muster in even most entertainment magazines. It gives little sense of Gable as a personality or a man, being far more interested in cataloguing his various trysts and affairs. Fans of major Gable films like GONE WITH THE WIND should not expect any significant insight into the making of those films. Behind-the-scenes detail and anecdotes are perfunctory at best. Lacking either craft in its writing or insight into Gable himself, it's hard to recommend this one.

I'm on page 350 now in the book and wonder how on earth the reader from 2002 (Rehash) came to the conclusion that the author preferred Lombard and disliked Gable?
This is one of the best movie books I have read for quite a while (and I read hundreds of movie books in my life). Very well researched with lots of new information and every movie is mentioned with locations and how much the movie made and how much Gable earned.
For me this book was well worth the time spent on reading and I will now read "Lombard and Gable" and check out if the author wrote any other actor biographies.

I tried to read the new biography on Cary Grant by Mark Eliot last year and was so disappointed, because it was not written in a chronological way which for me is the only way how to write any biography.

Mr. Harris however did a great great job! He tells the story in chronological order and in such a compelling way that you keep reading and wish the book had 200 pages more.

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.