OBSERVER: Whatever Happened To … Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was one of the highest paid film stars in Hollywood during the 1930s. I wonder how many people still remember her.
Carole died before I was born but I love watching her old films – she was beautiful and very good in her comedy roles.
Jane Alice Peters was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1908. When Jane was six, her parents separated and her mother took the children to Los Angeles.
At the age of 12, she was spotted by a Hollywood director as she played baseball in the street. She had a small role in the silent film A Perfect Crime. Her first lead role came in 1925 when she starred in Hearts and Spurs using the stage name of Carol Lombard.
Carol was in a car accident in 1925 which resulted in a scar on her left cheek which was noticeable throughout her life.
She made a series of short films with comedy director Max Sennett. When the ‘talkies’ arrived Carol made the transition with great success.
She signed a contract with Paramount Studios and when they spelt her name incorrectly in a film credit she liked the change and from that point was known as Carole Lombard.
In 1931 Carole co-starred with William Powell in Man of the World and they and married in the same year.
Powell was 18 years older than Carole and the marriage lasted only two years but they remained friends over the years and still co-starred together in comedy films. In 1934 she was cast opposite Bing Crosby in We’re Not Dressing and the film was a box office smash.
Carole was madly in love with the singer Russ Columbo until his untimely death as the result of an accidental gunshot.
Carole had a reputation for straight talking and was not afraid to stand up for her rights.
In 1936 she was nominated for an Academy Award. Carole worked with Hollywood’s leading men and her films included My Man Godfrey, In Name Only, Nothing Sacred, They Knew What They Wanted and Mr and Mrs Smith. Carole and Clark Gable had worked together in silent films as extras but became romantically linked in 1936. They married in 1939 and lived on a 20-acre ranch at Encino, California, where they enjoyed the outdoors together.
Her final film was To Be or Not to Be with Jack Benny which satirised the Nazi takeover of Poland.
In the early hours of January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother and her publicist boarded a plane in Indiana, where Carole had been participating in a war bond rally.
The plane crashed into a mountain in the Las Vegas area and the22 people on board were killed instantly.
Clark Gable was inconsolable but flew to the site of the crash to identify the bodies. He was present at the launch of the SS Carole Lombard in 1944 which was named in her honour to mark her extraordinary work to raise money for the war effort.
As her death was only a few weeks after America entered the war Carole was posthumously awarded The Medal of Freedom by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the first woman killed in the line of duty in WWII.
When Gable died in 1960 he was buried beside Carole in accordance with his wishes.
The platinum blonde actress from the golden days of Hollywood lives on in her films and we can still enjoy her great talent.
Kevin Trask
Kevin can be heard on 3AW –
The Time Tunnel – Remember When – Sundays at 10.10pm with Simon Owens and Andrew McLaren.
And on 96.5 FM
That’s Entertainment – Sundays
at 12 Noon. www.innerfm.org.au