Fireball

by Robert Matzen

  Anderson felt duty-bound to press on, and he and the two others headed south by southwest along the foot of the mountain in the faint hope that they would pick up the scent of the still-smoldering wreck and it would guide them in. They passed a pack of wild burros and then found campfires and cowboys. “Did you see a plane fly over?” Anderson would ask. “Sure did,” came the answer. “Flew right over, trailing bright orange flame out of the left wing.”

  The soldiers moved on, found another cowboy encamped. Same story—a streak of orange flame trailing the left engine as the plane flew over the desert.

  “We would see a cowboy here and a cowboy there,” said Anderson later. “They all clicked on this left engine. One man said he saw this orange flame and I asked him what he meant, if the flame was all over the engine, and he said, ‘No, it was out of the exhaust.’ I asked him why that appeared unusual to him, and he said it wasn’t the normal blue exhaust. He said he was quite accustomed to these things.”

  The Army men walked another mile in the impenetrable night and realized they were on a fool’s errand and would never reach the crash site this way. At somewhere around 4 A.M. they turned back toward Blue Diamond and stumbled along as batteries drained in their flashlights.

  18. Malaise

  At the end of March 1939, Carole and Clark eloped to Kingman, Arizona, found a Methodist minister, and made it through the marriage ceremony with MGM press agent Otto Winkler and two strangers as witnesses. Clark fumbled the vows; Carole’s voice shook and she cried. Otto had driven them to the far-flung location for the ceremony and managed to keep the press in the dark throughout. It was the beginning of a short blissful period for the newlyweds, with Carole following the usual practice of nicknaming her mate. Once there had been Popsie, and then Pookie, and Gable became Pa. And he called her Ma, names that became the stuff of filmland legend, perpetuated in part by Kodachrome home movies showing the new spouses clowning on a hunting trip after the fashion of a silent comedy and generally appearing to be happy.

  Lombard had reason to be in her glory in 1939, not just because she had landed a king, but because now she could establish a home for them at the ranch in Encino. The 20 acres featured stables, a workshop, barn, kennels, chicken houses, vineyard, alfalfa field, and citrus groves. In short order, under Carole’s management, assisted by Jean Garceau, the Gables’ ranch sold fowl to the MGM commissary and oranges and lemons through the Farmers Association. The Gables used alfalfa to feed the livestock and donated grapes to local hospitals.

  Louella, Carole’s African-American cook, took over in Encino, as did Juanita, Carole’s Hispanic maid. The screwball girl wouldn’t entertain any other ideas. She told Gable he needed a valet, and the king groused he needed no such thing. But when Carole hired Rufus Martin to tend Gable’s wardrobe and see to maintaining Clark’s portion of the house, the groom had to admit that maybe a valet wasn’t her worst idea.

  Then Carole turned her attention to the property. She envisioned a grand, walk-in cage for the doves, which she used to send Gable as peace offerings and now had been brought over lovingly from Bel Air. She refurbished the living room of Raoul Walsh’s former residence in Early American, painted the pine paneling white, and laid down canary yellow carpet. She bought oversized sofas, also yellow, and oversized green club chairs. The tables were maple and oversized—all the furniture was king-sized for her king. Gable shared with other movie stars the hobby of collecting 16mm film and made arrangements with MGM to obtain a print of each of his pictures for movie nights in the living room. All of his pictures except Parnell.

  A downstairs bedroom became Jean Garceau’s office, and the knotty pine den became Gable’s gun room, featuring a 30-foot built-in cabinet filled from ceiling to floor with his firearm collection. The gun room included enough leftover space for oversized chairs and smoking tables. Here most evenings they hung out, playing backgammon. There were two bedrooms upstairs, his in brown and beige, and hers in blue and white. He didn’t want a fancy bath, so his was modest; hers befitted a movie queen, with white marble walls, wraparound mirrors, and crystal and silver fixtures. Conspicuous by its absence at the Gable ranch was a guest bedroom because for all her acts of kindness, Carole made no secret that she did not welcome overnight guests. It was a rule never violated.

  Here in the sweltering heat of July 1939 she participated in the culmination of Alice Marble’s comeback when Allie tore through the women’s field and won Wimbledon—not just singles but doubles with partner Sarah Fabyan and mixed doubles with partner Bobby Riggs. In fact, Americans swept all six titles as Riggs also won the men’s singles title and the doubles title with Elwood Cooke. Lombard knew them all and tuned in the championships on multiple radios, as she would the U.S. National Championships in September, and pace from set to set muttering, “Come on, Champ! Come on, Champ!” And the champ came through.

  Back in Hollywood, Allie landed a singing gig at Club Lamaze on the Sunset Strip and there were Carole and Clark to cheer her on—so what if Lombard had to drag Gable there? Carole and Allie had remained close and shared all each other’s secrets. And there were secrets for Hollywood’s dream couple. Gable had an insecure streak about his acting, a big, wide one. Actor Richard Gere looked in retrospect at Gable the actor and saw someone who rushed through his dialogue. Gere found Gable to be “not totally comfortable in being that big and butch, macho-whatever-thing Clark Gable was. It’s kind of an interesting dynamic.... We identify with people who aren’t totally comfortable. Very few of us are. Even in Gone With the Wind, this is a very fragile guy.... I think it works because he is so fragile.”

  Said Delmer Daves, who directed Gable with Gene Tierney in the 1953 feature Never Let Me Go, “He was not a flexible actor. There was a Clark Gable way of doing a scene.”

  Gable wasn’t just insecure about his acting. He was insecure about money, like always. He didn’t trust banks and carried thousands in cash at all times simply because he could; because he had to. He never knew when he would need it. When he walked into the Brown Derby for lunch he ordered the special to save a couple bucks. He didn’t have what one would call an altruistic side; no siblings or close family ties, and he wasn’t fond of Carole’s elder brother Fred, whom he considered to be judgmental and humorless. Clark didn’t mind younger brother Stuart—Stuart liked to drink—but Gable never grew close to any of the Peters clan and thought of the brothers as freeloaders.

  Clark tended to be thin-skinned about romantic rivals Howard Hughes, George Raft, and particularly Russ Columbo, who would forever have one up on the king. Columbo had been there first, and he had died in such a way that his memory would linger, despite the fact that the crooner had been, in Gable’s eyes, a pansy.

  From Lombard’s point of view Russ Columbo’s death at such a tender age and in so sudden a manner made her appreciate Gable all the more and seek to give her all to married life. She actually acquiesced to a monogamous lifestyle, she who in 1933 had stated that “marriage fits neither human nature nor human needs.” She didn’t know how long she would continue to abide by a one-man rule, but for now it held firm.

  “She had such enormous energy,” said Margaret Wyler. “That was one of her main qualities. When she would zero in on something, that was it, and she wanted this relationship. On every level, she was a driving force, because I think she had more energy than he did. Maybe it was glandular or I don’t know what.”

  But all the glands weren’t performing, because Carole wanted to get pregnant and figured every month this was it, and it kept not happening. Fieldsie had no trouble—a year and change after her wedding, Carole rushed Fieldsie to the hospital and stood by for the birth of Walter Richard Lang. Fieldsie described Carole the delivery room coach as “completely adequate except that she turned pretty white,” and after the birth, Fieldsie named Carole godmother. Lombard delighted in lavishing the baby with attention while wondering at the same time what the hell was wrong that she couldn’t produce one of her own, an heir to the king, a
new generation for the kingdom. Then finally, it happened. At the beginning of December she missed her period and in the slang of the day, “the rabbit died” and Carole Lombard was a mother to be.

  Every month the fan magazines had speculated, jumping at every hint of a Lombard pregnancy, and the timing was terrible with the Gables traveling to Atlanta, Georgia, for the ultimately glitzy premiere of Gone With the Wind, where 150,000 adoring fans showed up in the cold Georgia air for a parade, and there were Clark and Carole, oh so serene, oh so regal, lending so much elegance to the proceedings. She couldn’t say anything to anyone, even Gable. They flew in on an American Airlines DC-3, and Carole took Alice Marble along since Fieldsie was home with the baby. By now, they had grown so close that Allie had confided that she ended each day with a prayer her mother had taught her, “God bless and angels keep.” From then on she and Carole ended each day or each phone call with Allie saying, “God bless,” and Carole answering, “Angels keep.”

  In Atlanta Carole and Clark shared adjoining hotel rooms and plenty of downtime because, said Marble of Gable, “Every day he had to have some quiet time for himself, for though he loved Carole, she was a chatterbox.” Especially in a new city. Especially with the hubbub of the premiere. Lombard saw it as a kid on a wild ride; Gable found it agonizing, the culmination of a year of hell on a picture he never wanted to make, and the crowds—this renowned he-man withered at the thought of crowds and public speaking. He had to be coached every red-carpeted step by Lombard as he approached the microphone to say a few carefully crafted, long-rehearsed words before the show went on. But then Carole had plenty of experience. “Come on, Champ! Come on, Champ!”

  As far as anyone knew that evening, all the stars on the red carpet were perfect. David Selznick, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Margaret Mitchell, tennis champion Alice Marble, and especially Lombard and Gable. Never had anyone been more elegant than these two, certainly not in America. Admirers searched the history books for something comparable and found Caesar and Cleopatra, maybe. But even in Atlanta there was intrigue and feuding, because Victor Fleming, who directed most of Gone With the Wind, felt slighted by Selznick’s decision to split the “Directed by” credit between Fleming and George Cukor, who had been fired after only three weeks. Gable’s loyalty was to Fleming, and Lombard’s loyalty was to Gable, despite her love of David Selznick. The Gable contingent had taken one plane; the Selznick contingent another. Fleming had agreed to go on Gable’s DC-3, but just prior to departure, the director’s close friend, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., had died. Fleming remained in Hollywood while the feud moved on without him. Atlanta grew chilly for more reasons than the onset of winter, as when Selznick publicity man Birdie Birdwell tried to pick a bar fight with MGM publicity chief Howard Strickling, and Gable squared his shoulders and sidled over to the two of them. Glaring at Birdwell, Gable asked his friend Strickling, “Is he giving you a bad time, Howard?” Birdwell retreated.

  Gable was a handful all right. After spending months making David Selznick’s epic, he was down on everything Selznick, including David’s brother, who was Carole’s agent—the one who had made her a couple of fortunes as the highest-paid woman in Hollywood. Carole had always been loyal to her friends, but now, to keep the peace, she sued Myron to get out of her contract. The two would part amicably, although Hollywood was a small town and found it puzzling. It would cost Carole, but that was one of the prices of being married to the king.

  Another price was infidelity, because Pa was screwing around just as he had from way back in his barnstorming days. After he played Rhett Butler, there was no doubt that Gable had ascended to the most desired man in 1930s America, able to choose freely, cafeteria style, from just about any living, breathing woman. They literally fell at his feet in all shapes, sizes, and hair colors at MGM, from bargain-basement script girls to glamour queen Joan Crawford. Yes, Lombard was comfortable in her own skin, and yes, Lombard attempted to look the other way. Intellectually, she knew his dalliances were necessary. He needed an ego; he needed women to fall over him. It was all part of a thriving Gable brand.

  In particular, Clark found himself drawn to a delicate 5-foot-5 blonde screen hopeful named Virginia Grey, age 20, and secured bit parts for her in his 1938 pictures Test Pilot and Idiot’s Delight. Carole knew about Virginia’s rise to prominence in Gable’s affection, but somehow also seemed to sense who comprised a threat and who didn’t, and picked her battles carefully as a result. Carole found herself disarmed by the sweet, very religious Virginia Grey and never made a fuss when Gable strayed in Virginia’s direction. On the other hand, another chorine on Idiot’s Delight prompted a rampaging Lombard to storm the set and scream, “Get that whore out of here!” The offender was dismissed.

  “He was running around a lot,” said Richard Lang, who grew up from the baby of 1939 to know Gable well and learn of Lombard from his mother, “which is not to say he didn’t love her. With the drinking and the hunting, he was that type of guy. It’s only wrong in the wife’s eyes. I think she knew about most of his affairs, and gave him hell about it. In the normal course of events, she probably screamed at him every six, eight weeks, and he was a good boy for a while.”

  Of course Gable had that closed-off corner of his soul, dark, impenetrable, the one that had shut out his own kid, Judy Lewis. Lombard had learned about Loretta Young and the resulting Judy because Carole lived for gossip and knew all the bedroom shenanigans in town. And this was frightening that Gable could harden his heart to such a degree—that he was at times dangerously aloof, that he could retreat easily and shut everyone out, even her.

  Within a week of their return from Atlanta, page-one newspaper copy read: “The movie colony is as excited as a couple of maiden aunts over the persistent rumor that both Carole Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck are expecting babies. There’s no denying that Miss Lombard isn’t herself on the set these days. More than once she has displayed a Victorian fragility quite uncommon to her usual vivacious character by fainting during the filming of Vigil in the Night.”

  Then she miscarried. It was a lousy start to the year, and both were ready to crack, Carole from the personal tragedy of losing a child and Clark from the hellacious production of Gone With the Wind and the previous month’s nightmarish string of premieres in Atlanta, New York, and Hollywood. But the Gables had a solution, one they had employed in the past and would employ in the future: escape.

  She had just bought him a station wagon capable of going off road. Its 65-gallon gas tank meant capabilities for long drives into wilderness. The food, supplies, blankets, water, guns, and other provisions on board meant roughing it would be no problem. Gable was also armed with a 16mm movie camera and a box full of film. They took nobody with them, gave few clues regarding their destination, and headed toward Mexico at the end of January 1940.

  The weather turned foul and after four days with no contact, Gable’s press man Otto Winkler was dispatched from Culver City with a cameraman to determine the Gables’ location. An aerial search from Tijuana to Ensenada, their last known whereabouts, revealed no station wagon and no Gables. “I know Gable can take care of his wife and himself,” said Wink after the day’s search, “so I’m not alarmed.” He vowed to keep looking until he found them.

  Gables Are Missing Somewhere in Mexico read headlines that for once a publicity man didn’t need to dream up. In fact, MGM would have preferred that its $2 million investment (he had just signed a new seven-year contract) not go out of the country or abandon civilization.

  Less than a day later, the Gables reappeared muddy but unbowed, having gotten the station wagon stuck in, and removed from, mud from recent rains in northern Mexico. It was with relief that MGM issued a statement and headlines announced, Gables Reported Safe. “They’re supposed to be at the La Brea Gun Club today,” said MGM’s Ralph Wheelright (because Gable spokesman Winkler was still in the middle of nowhere looking for the lost Gables), “and we’re sure that’s where they’ll be.” Except MG
M wasn’t sure of their whereabouts at all.

  Clark had become something of a loose cannon, and Carole didn’t help. Their groupthink became antagonistic to any studio that tried to rein them in.

  “Those people are on my nerves,” he would growl.

  “Yah, yah, I get you,” she would respond, and off they would go, to Oregon, to Canada, to Mexico, with or without the usual hunting crowd but always in the trusty station wagon.

  But 1940 was still a lousy year, with—for Lombard—two more certified bombs. Both pictures she made that year at RKO, the dramas Vigil in the Night and They Knew What They Wanted, went spectacularly belly up. The former was a story of British nurses and co-starred stuffed-shirt Brian Aherne; the latter paired her for a second time with Charles Laughton, then coming off his big success in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and God, how she loathed that man. It didn’t help that Gable despised him after the experience of Mutiny on the Bounty back in ’35. Carole’s reaction to Laughton, fed by the antipathy of Gable, earned the prickly Brit a place on her shit list, from which there was no return, and the story got all over town.

  Young Orson Welles worked on the RKO lot during the making of They Knew What They Wanted and told of Laughton’s visits. “He would come to my office, and sit down across the desk from me, and put his head on the desk and cry,” Welles recalled in the 1980s. He quoted Laughton as saying, “I can’t go on the way they’re making fun of me on the set.” Welles claimed he approached director Garson Kanin and Lombard, and said of Laughton, “You know, he is a great actor. Take it easy with him. You’re gonna ruin your own picture.”

  But Lombard ruled the roost and had the clout not to stand for Laughton’s self-aggrandizement. Garson Kanin had just scored a big screwball success directing My Favorite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, a Lombard kind of a role that Dunne had landed instead even though she was miscast and the part had been perfect for Carole. Kanin was all of 27 and just a kid, but a brilliant kid and just four years younger than was Lombard, so they got along well.