Awakenings: Hollywood Legend Remembered

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Hollywood Legend Remembered


Carole Lombard en 1936. Source: en.fr.wikipedia.org

This Day in History: January 16, 1942

A TWA skyliner crashed suddenly against an icy Nevada mountain killing 22 persons, including Carole Lombard, her mother and 15 Army men. The incident happened during the return flight from a World War II War Bond tour. The disaster was so devastating it destroyed every ship's paper that would be of aid in solving the puzzle of the crash.

Awards: Academy Award Nomination for Best Actress for her performance in My Man Godfrey; #23 of 50 Greatest American Female Screen Legends (American Film Institute, 1999); she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6930 Hollywood Boulevard.

The Carole Lombard Photo Archives

Tall, blonde, fiery-eyed Carole Lombard was an American actress particularly noted for her roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s. She was married to the dashing Hollywood actor Clark Gable who was readily recognized for his broad shoulders and devil's grin. Their relationship was called the “romance of the century” and they were dubbed “the greatest couple ever paired.” They delighted in pulling gags on one another and calling each other “Ma” and “Pa” for laughs.

"They had an ineffable quality in romance, the ability to have fun together," says actress Esther Williams, an MGM contract player like Gable. "They were soulmates who thought life was delicious, and they made everyone's life delicious around them."

The love Clark Gable and Carole Lombard shared for six years was that Hollywood rarity: the real thing.

On Carole Lombard...

“She gets up too early, plays tennis too hard, wastes time and feeling on trifles and drinks Coca-Colas the way Samuel Johnson used to drink tea. She is a scribbler on telephone pads, inhibited nail-nibbler, toe-puller, pillow-grabber, head-and-elbow scratcher, and chain cigarette smoker. When Carole Lombard talks, her conversation, often brilliant, is punctuated by screeches, laughs, growls, gesticulations and the expletives of a sailor’s parrot.”

~Life Magazine, 1937

Carole Lombard on The Battle of the Sexes:

A woman has just as much right in this world as a man and can get along in it just as well if she puts her mind to it.

Take business-that’s supposed to be a man’s province. Yet I can name you the most outstanding success in the business life of the movies and that person is a woman: Mary Pickford. You can’t match her. She’s supreme in every department.

As a matter of fact, women have an advantage in business. Men are so secure in their belief that they are supreme in business that they are often caught napping by alert women. Man thinks he’s dealing with an inferior brain when it comes to woman, and that makes him a sucker. Furthermore, women have a highly developed sense of intuition that’s just as valuable as hardheaded logic.