Clark Gable
A Biography
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3.9 • 57 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher 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.
Customer Reviews
What a Shame
Considering that Clark Gable lived long enough into the modern age to have a profusion of written records about him, this book often reads like a student book report that borrows heavily from rote passages out of an encyclopedia. There is little exploration of the real person behind the publicity, hype and sensationalized journalism, so very quickly the reader becomes anesthetized to the artificial personality created for Gable—and gushingly perpetuated by the author. No doubt the titillation of sex, scandal, and stereotyping might draw some readers in, but the reality is that no one has ever seemed able to overcome the hyperbole and hypocrisy of the movie star, the star “system” of the entertainment industry, or the cultural judgements of the period to produce a genuine portrait of this uneducated, emotionally stunted, and greatly conflicted man.