THE KING

by Charles Samuels ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 19, 1961

This is the third biography to pay homage to Clark Gable since his death (his wife's and his secretary's precede it) but the first to question,- on occasion fault, and to dispose of a lot of the nonsense in the folklore. He was just an ""ordinary joe"" but his great magnetism abides, along with his modesty, decency, right and often generous instincts, in spite of his lightness with money. The great lover was rough on the women who loved him, but they remained loyal, as did he to the image of his stepmother which accounted for his attraction to older women who helped to shape him. In the long years of hard work which preceded stardom the uneducated, untrained boy needed a lot of grooming; from Franz Dorfler, the sweetest, through his early period in a stock company, Miss Dillon, who taught him to speak and took him to Hollywood, where he married her; Ria Langham, his second wife, who introduced him to gracious living. But with Carole Lombard, with whom he fell in love really for the first time, he had everything, and the years following her death -- in spite of the serenity with Kay Gable just before he died are declining ones for the great idol as well as the medium.... Samuels' biography is appropriate to the man, it has a blunt, energetic drive along with the tremendous copy value of its subject and much of the material turned up for the first time.

Pub Date: Feb. 19, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION