1st February: Frankly I Don't Give A Damn Day (Clark Gable's birthday)

Frankly I don't give a damn was Clark Gable's final line in Gone With the Wind. Here are 10 things you might not know:

1. Clark Gable's full name was William Clark Gable, but he was always called Clark, even as a child.
2. He was mistakenly listed as female on his birth certificate.
3. Before becoming a full time actor, Gable worked as a horse manager, logger and tie salesman.
4. He married five times. His first wife was his acting coach, Josephine Dillon, who was 17 years older than him. She paid for his dental work and hair styling and spent much time training him in body posture and speech. When he first moved to Hollywood, she was his manager as well.
5. His first film roles were as extras in silent films. The woman who would become his third wife, Carole Lombard, appeared in one of these films as an extra, too, but they weren't in any of the same scenes.
6. His first role in a sound picture was as the villain in a low-budget William Boyd western called The Painted Desert in 1931. He got a lot of fan mail after that, but the studio executives weren't always so keen. "His ears are too big and he looks like an ape", was Darryl F. Zanuck's assessment of him after a screen test that same year.
7. Gable wasn't particularly keen to take on his most famous role as Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. Carole Lombard thought he should go for it and bought him the book, but her refused to even read it. The studio weren't keen either, as they wanted Gary Cooper for the part. "Gone With the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it'll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me," Cooper said, turning down the role.
8. Gable almost didn't go to the première of Gone With the Wind. He had become great friends with African-American actress Hattie McDaniel on set; she was not allowed to go to the première because she was black and so Gable decided to boycott the event. He did go in the end, because Hattie McDaniel insisted that he should.
9. When his third wife was killed in a plane crash, she had been on her way home from a tour publicising the sale of war bonds. She was declared to be the first US female casualty of the war and Gable received a personal message of condolence from President Roosevelt.
10. He served in the second world war, as a gunner on a bomber, although the first task he was given after training was making a recruitment film. After that, he flew on five combat missions, but after he narrowly escaped being killed, MGM studios insisted that he be assigned to less dangerous duties. While on the subject of World War 2, it's said that Adolf Hitler was a big Clark Gable fan and would have paid a handsome reward to anyone who could capture Gable and bring him to Hitler, alive and unscathed.

My novel, Death and Faxes is available: why not treat yourself?

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon RRP £8 but sometimes Amazon offer it for less!

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free! And it's less than £2 to buy for your Kindle!

Don't want to risk it without reading a review? Visit Comfy Chair.

AND/OR:

Like my Writer Facebook Page

Read my thoughts on writing, short stories and book excerpts on My writing blog

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieHowlin