Gable's first screen test was made by director Mervyn LeRoy for Warner Bros. When studio head Jack L. Warner and production chief Darryl F. Zanuck saw the test they were furious at LeRoy for wasting their money on that big "ape" with those "huge floppy taxi-cab ears". Years later when Gable made it big, LeRoy used to tease Warner and say, "How would you like to have him and those huge floppy ears now?".
Gable's first two wives - Josephine Dillon and Maria Franklin Gable (aka Ria Langham) - were 14 and 17 years older than he was, respectively.
Gave his Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934) to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.
Grandfather of Kayley Gable.
Grandfather of Clark James Gable, who's the first child of his son John Clark Gable and his ex-wife Tracy Yarro. Clark James was born on September 10, 1988 at a hefty 10 lbs.
Had a fear of flying, and made all long journeys across America by train.
Had to have almost all of his teeth extracted in 1933 due to pyorrhea. The infection would have killed him had he not been rushed to a private hospital for treatment.
He disliked Greta Garbo, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.
He disliked his most famous film Gone with the Wind (1939), which he regarded as "a woman's picture.".
He is the second cousin of film producer Thomas R. Bond II, President of American Mutoscope & Biograph, a motion picture and entertainment company.
He liked westerns, and once expressed his regret that he didn't make more of them.
He separated from wife Maria ('Ria') in October, 1935.
He served as a pallbearer and usher at Jean Harlow's funeral in 1937.
He was a conservative Republican, although his third wife Carole Lombard, a liberal Democrat, encouraged him to support President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms. In February 1952 Gable addressed a televised rally at Madison Square Gardens in New York in support of the Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, and a few days before his death he voted by post for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.
He was an early member of the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.
He was baptized as a Catholic, but raised as a Protestant. However, he did not practice any religion as an adult.
He was highly patriotic, a staunch anti-communist and a firm believer in military intervention. Among the political leaders he admired were President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Sir Winston Churchill and King George VI. Until John Wayne's stardom eclipsed Gable's in the late 1940s, many Americans thought of Gable as THE American star.
He was seriously considered to play Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), but he was deemed an unknown and Johnny Weissmuller was chosen instead.
He was so disappointed by the critical and commercial failure of Adventure (1945) that he did not agree to make another film until more than a year had passed. Fortunately, The Hucksters (1947) proved to be a success and his performance was acclaimed.
He was voted the 21st Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.