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.

The Hollywood movie idol, Clark Gable, and his wife, Carole Lombard, investigate the abduction of an actress. A mystery with a heavy dose of farce and insider movie gossip.

"A clever plot, witty innuendo, and plenty of the Hollywood greats for company." - Library Journal As Gone With the Wind approaches release, all the stars but Clark Gable prepare to head for Atlanta for the big premiere. Clark and his wife, Carole Lombard, are too distressed to celebrate the opening of the biggest movie of his career because Lydia Austin, a young actress and a protege of Carole's, is missing. In fact, kidnapping paranoia is sweeping through Hollywood, and even with body-building bodyguards like the two Clark has hired to protect Carole, no one feels safe. But Carole is not a dame to take such threats lying down. Convinced that they can help, she and Clark set themselves up as amateur sleuths. Of course, there are plenty of other celebrities in the mix: W.C. Fields alternates between anxiety over the kidnappings and trying to convince David O. Selznick that he should play Rhett Butler, and Groucho Marx also gets serious (just barely) long enough to worry about the missing girl, who is his current paramour.

Carole Lombard was the very opposite of the typical 1930s starlet. A no-nonsense woman, she worked hard, took no prisoners and had a great passion for life. As a result, she became Hollywood's highest-paid star. From the outside, Carole's life was one of great glamour and fun, yet privately she endured much heartache. As a child, her mother moved Carole and her brothers across the country away from their beloved father. Carole then began a film career, only to have it cut short after a devastating car accident. Picking herself back up, she was rocked by the accidental shooting of her lover; a failed marriage to actor William Powell; and the sorrow of infertility during her marriage to Hollywood's King, Clark Gable. Lombard marched forward, promising to be positive. Sadly her life was cut short in a plane crash so catastrophic that pieces of the aircraft are still buried in the mountain today. In Carole Lombard, bestselling author Michelle Morgan accesses previously unseen documents to tell the story of a woman whose remarkable life and controversial death continues to enthral.

Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy and Legacy is a historical critique of the development and reception of Carole Lombard's stardom from the classical Hollywood period to present day. Based on original archival research, Olympia Kiriakou combines theoretically informed textual analyses of Lombard's performances and star image across different media (biographies, publicity materials, photography and film) with a critical engagement of the cultural, economic, social and industrial conditions that shaped her stardom. Sitting at the intersection of feminist film theory, star studies and comedy theory, this work presents Lombard as a case study to challenge the screwball canon and existent academic discourse about female physical comedy and the alleged “delicate” female body. In doing so, it formulates a new historical approach to understanding gender, femininity, and identity in Hollywood comedies of the 1930s. Moreover, this is the first research of its kind to offer a comprehensive understanding of Lombard's stardom beyond her associations with the screwball comedy genre.

Between 1917 and 1941, Hollywood studios, gossip columnists and novelists featured an unprecedented number of homosexuals, cross-dressers, and adulterers in their depictions of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. Actress Greta Garbo defined herself as the ultimate serial bachelorette. Screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta engaged in numerous lesbian relationships with the Hollywood elite. And countless homosexual designers brazenly picked up men in the hottest Hollywood nightclubs. Hollywood's image grew as a place of sexual abandon. This book demonstrates how studios and the media used images of these sexually adventurous characters to promote the industry and appeal to the prurient interests of their audiences.