Long live The King: A Biography of Clark Gable [UNABRIDGED] (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 396 pages
• Publisher: Putnam; BCE edition (1976)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0006COY8G
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #713,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nope, it ain't about Elvis, July 3, 2000

By	Andrea Egger, author of Grave Accusations (Gallup, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Long live The King: A biography of Clark Gable (Hardcover)

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. Far from 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 for his on-stage role as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, also starring Vivien Leigh -- and his off-screen romance with Carole Lombard, Gable wooed more women than he ever could have bedded, what with those "come hither" eyes and dimples. Every woman who watched Gone With the Wind would have changed places with Vivien in a second in the famous "rape" scene where he roughly sweeps Scarlett in his arms and carries the kicking and screaming wife up the stairs. Of course, anyone who knows anything about love, Scarlett and that movie knows it surely wasn't rape!

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

Interesting in the book is that this journalist decided to make a most humble move and talk to a pscyhologist about the research to gain a different view of Clark Gable, as research alone provided pieces to the Gable puzzle but not the entire picture.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lombard almost lives again, August 27, 2004

By	B. Washburn "Lombard!" (Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Long live The King: A biography of Clark Gable (Hardcover)

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).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Boring and out of date, April 27, 2006

By	Courtney Rabideau (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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