April 20, 2011

Muse of the Month



Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s.

Lombard had an affair with Clark Gable. Both were married at the time. Lomard to William Powell and Gable to oil heiress Rhea Langham.

MGM head Louis B. Mayer gave Gable enough money to settle a divorce agreement with Langham and marry Lombard.

Gable proposed to Lombard in a telephone booth at the Brown Derby and pretty much eloped in Arizona a year later. The only person in attendance was Gable's press agent.

When the US entered WWII at the end of 1941, Lombard traveled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally with her mother, Bess Peters, and Clark Gable's press agent Otto Winkler. After raising over $2 million in defense bonds, Lombard addressed her fans, saying: "Before I say goodbye to you all, come on and join me in a big cheer! V for Victory!" On January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother, and Winkler boarded an airplane to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, the plane took off and 23 minutes later, crashed into "Double Up Peak" near Mount Potosi. All 22 aboard, including 15 army servicemen, were killed instantly.

Shortly after her death at the age of 33, Gable (who was inconsolable and devastated by her loss) joined the US Army Air Forces. After officers training, Gable headed a six-man motion picture unit attached to a B-17 bomb groupin England to film aerial gunners in combat, flying five missions himself. Gable attended the launch of the Liberty ship SS Carole Lombard, named in her honor, on January 15, 1944.

In addition to all this information. She looks identical to my mother but with blonde hair. And I mean IDENTICAL!

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