Earlier this week, I wrote about how the recent Golden Globes Awards show highlighted a Hollywood "Disconnect From Reality." (Not that you needed any reminders of such a thing.) One of the highlights — or lowlights — of the event was, well, a guy frolicking around on the red carpet in a dress, heels, and full makeup. (You'll have to click that link if you want to see it; I'm not going to give it any more attention than I already have.)
"John Wayne was still alive the last time I watched an awards show," one of our dear readers commented on that article. While John Wayne died before I was born, it made me long for those days, if one can do such a thing. I wondered what it would be like to witness a Hollywood in which men could be men without someone screaming about patriarchies and toxic masculinity or women could be feminine and dress up without some dude overshadowing them.
While I didn't get to live it, I do have a soft spot for Old Hollywood, and one of my favorite actors from the good ol' days is Clark Gable. Of course, that stems from the fact that "Gone with the Wind" is my favorite movie, but as I've gotten older, I've explored Gable's (and Vivien Leigh's) work beyond that classic, and he was an incredibly talented man. But what has impressed me even more about him is that he stepped away from it all to serve his country for several years.
I'd known for a while that Gable served in the military, but I thought he did it as a much younger man, long before he graced the studio lots of Hollywood. As it turns out, he didn't sign up for the United States Army until 1942, eight years after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in "It Happened One Night." By then, he'd already starred in "Gone with the Wind" and other classic films like "Mutiny on the Bounty."
Despite protests from executives at MGM and President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself, the so-called "King Of Hollywood" stepped away from his fame and fortune to serve his country. Can you imagine most of the men in Hollywood today actually going to war for the United States? It seems like the best most of them can do is an awkward "White Dudes for Kamala" Zoom call.
According to the USO, two major factors played a role in Gable's decision to join the military at the ripe old age of 41 years old. First, there was the death of his beloved wife Carole Lombard. The actress was in a plane crash, upon returning from a war bond tour. The other was the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The combination of the events left Gable "consumed with grief" and mad as hell.
World War II was in full swing when Gable joined the Army Air Force in August of 1942. The military offered him a high rank initially, but he insisted on joining as a private and working his way up like all the other members. According to Clark Gable Enterprises, he gave up a salary that would be the equivalent of $25,000 per week in modern times.
He attended officer candidate school and graduated as a second lieutenant before moving on to aerial gunnery school where he learned to shoot down enemy planes during bombing runs. He was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group at Polebrook, England where he was assigned to create a film to educate up and coming gunners on what they were to expect in combat. Although neither ordered nor expected to do so, Gable flew perilous operational missions over Europe in B-17s to obtain combat film footage. He participated in several extremely dangerous bombing raids over Nazi Germany, each of which is fully documented. According to others in Polebrook, Gable spent many of his leisure days writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers.
It was during his fourth mission that Gable came closest to death. While behind the top turret gunner, the most dangerous place on the aircraft, Gable was almost hit with a 20mm shell that had come up through the flight deck. The shell took off the heel of his boot and passed by his head without exploding. A fellow soldier on the same plane was killed. On another mission, his plane returned riddled with bullet holes.
Rumor has it that Hitler was a big fan of Gable's movies and even offered a reward to anyone who could capture and bring the movie star to him alive. Thankfully, that never happened, though he reportedly faced several close calls with death. The actor was discharged from active duty in 1944 and joined the Reserves but resigned in 1947. He reportedly felt that he was too old to continue and wanted to focus on his acting career again.
When asked where he found the courage to face battle when he didn't have to, he said:
The things a man has to have are hope and confidence in himself against odds, and sometimes he needs somebody, his pal or his mother or his wife or God, to give him that confidence. He's got to have some inner standards worth fighting for, or there won't be any way to bring him into conflict. And he must be ready to choose death before dishonor without making too much song and dance about it. That's all there is to it.
Say what you will about him, but Gable wasn't just an actor. He was a patriot and a true American hero.
