Customer Reviews

Long live The King: A Biography of Clark Gable

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

I wish Clark Gable had lived long enough to have a real biography. This compilation is a bit second rate. The reader can't be certain of validity, throughout the book. That said, it is till worth the read. Who wouldn't want to see more photos of Clark Gable! So, you wish there were more, though it includes a good number of photos. I haven't finished the whole book yet--almost half way. My concern stems from the 'twist' on some of the text, that seems to cheapen the character of Gable with a two sided sword. If that wasn't the intention, then it is poorly written.

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.....

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

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).