Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her parents were Frederick C. Peters and Elizabeth Knight. Lombard's paternal grandfather, John Claus Peters, was the son of German immigrants, Claus Peters and Caroline Catherine Eberlin. Lombard's mother's family originates in England; her ancestors John and Martha Cheney emigrated to the North America in 1634.

Rise to fame

Lombard made her film debut at the age of twelve after she was seen playing baseball in the street by director Allan Dwan, who cast her as a tom-boy in A Perfect Crime (1921). In the 1920s she worked in several low-budget productions credited as Jane Peters, and then later as Carol Lombard. In 1925 she was signed as a contract player with 20th Century Fox and she also worked for Mack Sennett and Pathé Pictures. She became a well known actress and made a smooth transition to sound films, starting with High Voltage (1929). In 1930 she began working for Paramount Pictures.

In October 1930 she met William Powell and the couple were married on June 26, 1931. Lombard commented to fan magazines that she did not believe their sixteen-year age difference would present a problem, but friends felt they were ill-suited as Lombard had an extroverted personality while Powell was more reserved. They divorced in 1933 but remained friends and worked together without acrimony.

Lombard became one of Hollywood's top comedy actresses in the 1930s. In comedies like Twentieth Century (1934) directed by Howard Hawks, My Man Godfrey (1936) directed by Gregory La Cava, for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, and Nothing Sacred (1937) directed by William A. Wellman, she received praise from critics and was described as one of the key exponents of screwball comedy. Despite her glamorous looks Lombard was a natural comedienne, and was not afraid to look silly for the sake of being funny. Offscreen, she was much loved for her down-to-earth personality and sense of humor. She also loved playing pranks during filming. About her husband Clark Gable, she once joked, "If his pee-pee was one inch shorter they'd be calling him the Queen of Hollywood."

Clark Gable

In the mid-1930s Lombard started an affair with Clark Gable. Their relationship was kept quiet due to the fact that Gable was still married to his second wife, Ria. Gable was finally divorced from Ria on March 7, 1939, and on March 29, 1939, Gable and Lombard were married. They bought a ranch, previously owned by director Raoul Walsh in San Fernando Valley, California. They called each other "Ma" and "Pa," and lived a happy, unpretentious life. Although he remarried twice after Lombard's death, to all who knew Gable, she was the love of his life.

"Carol Lombard" (as she was then known), in the 1920s.

Tragedy

When at the end of 1941 the US entered World War II, Lombard travelled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally. At four o'clock in the morning of Friday, January 16, 1942, Lombard and her mother boarded a plane to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, the plane took off on a clear night, and twenty-three minutes later crashed into a mountainside 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas. All of the 23 passengers aboard were killed.

Just before boarding the plane in Indiana, Carole had addressed her fans, saying, "Before I say goodbye to you all, come on and join me in a big cheer! V for Victory!" President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who admired her patriotism, declared her the first woman killed in the line of duty during the war and posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Shortly after her death at the age of thirty-three, Gable (who was inconsolable and devastated by her loss) joined the United States Army Air Forces, serving as a gunner on a bomber on combat missions over Europe. The Liberty ship SS Lombard was named for her, and Gable attended its launch on January 15, 1944.

Her final film, To Be or Not to Be, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jack Benny ― a satire about the Nazism and the World War II ― was in post-production at the time of her death. The film's producers decided to cut the part of the film in which her character asks, "What can happen in a plane?" as they felt it was in poor taste, given the circumstances of Lombard's death. A similar editing instance happened when the 1940 Warner Brother cartoon, A Wild Hare was reissued, Lombard's name was originally mentioned in a game of Guess Who, but all reissue prints have the name dubbed over with Barbara Stanwyck.

She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. The name on her headstone is "Carole Lombard Gable". Although Gable remarried, he was buried next to her when he died in 1960.

Trivia

Lombard was a second generation Bahá'í who formally declared her membership in 1938.¹She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6930 Hollywood Blvd.

Filmography

A Perfect Crime (1921)
Gold Heels (1924)
Dick Turpin (1925)
Marriage in Transit (1925)
Gold and the Girl (1925)
Hearts and Spurs (1925)
Durand of the Badlands (1925)
The Plastic Age (1925)
The Road to Glory (1926)
The Johnstown Flood (1926)
The Fighting Eagle (1927) (unconfirmed role)
Smith's Pony (1927) (short subject)
Gold Digger of Weepah (1927) (short subject)
My Best Girl (1927)
The Girl from Everywhere (1927) (short subject)
The Beach Club (1928) (short subject)
Run, Girl, Run (1928) (short subject)
Smith's Army Life (1928) (short subject)
The Best Man (1928) (short subject)
The Swim Princess (1928) (short subject)
The Bicycle Flirt (1928) (short subject)
Smith's Restaurant (1928) (short subject)
The Divine Sinner (1928)
The Girl from Nowhere (1928) (short subject)
His Unlucky Night (1928) (short subject)
Power (1928)
The Campus Vamp (1928) (short subject)
Motorboat Mamas (1928)(short subject)
Me, Gangster (1928)
Show Folks (1928)
Hubby's Weekend Trip (1928) (short subject)
The Campus Carmen (1928) (short subject)
Ned McCobb's Daughter (1928)
Matchmaking Mamas (1929) (short subject)
Don't Get Jealous (1929) (short subject)
High Voltage (1929)
Big News (1929)
The Racketeer (1929)
Dynamite (1929) (unconfirmed role)
The Arizona Kid (1930)
Safety in Numbers (1930)
Fast and Loose (1930)
It Pays to Advertise (1931)
Man of the World (1931)
Ladies' Man (1931)
Up Pops the Devil (1931)
I Take This Woman (1931)
No One Man (1932)
Sinners in the Sun (1932)
Virtue (1932)
No More Orchids (1932)
No Man of Her Own (1932)
Hollywood on Parade No. 11 (1933) (short subject)
From Hell to Heaven (1933)
Supernatural (1933)
The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)
Brief Moment (1933)
White Woman (1933]])
Bolero (1934)
We're Not Dressing (1934]])
Twentieth Century (1934)
Now and Forever (1934)
Lady by Choice (1934)
The Gay Bride (1934)
The Fashion Side of Hollywood (1935) (short subject)
Rumba (1935)
Hands Across the Table (1935)
Love Before Breakfast (1936)
The Princess Comes Across (1936)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Swing High, Swing Low (1937)
Nothing Sacred (1937)
True Confession (1937)
Fools for Scandal (1938)
Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject)
Screen Snapshots: Stars on Horseback (1939) (short subject)
Made for Each Other (1939)
In Name Only (1939)
Vigil in the Night (1940)
They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
Picture People: Hollywood at Home (1942) (short subject)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)

References

# The Bahá'í World 1940-1944 pp.635. Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette

External links

* Carole Lombard at Classic Actresses
* Carole LOMBARD : Biographie, filmographie, galerie etc.

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