Clark Gable

Clark Gable

Cadiz-born, Hopedale-raised film star who won the 1934 Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night and played Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.

Born February 1, 1901, Cadiz (upstairs apartment of a two-family house on Charleston Street)
Died November 16, 1960, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Los Angeles

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: February 1, 1901, Cadiz (upstairs apartment of a two-family house on Charleston Street) (Harrison County) source
Died: November 16, 1960, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Los Angeles source
Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale (Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Trust, beside Carole Lombard) source
Also known as: Clark Gable, The King of Hollywood
Known as: Entertainment
Organizations: MGM

Life story

William Clark Gable was born in Cadiz in 1901. His mother died when he was ten months old, and his father later moved the family to Oklahoma, where Gable worked in the oil fields.

After seeing a play at 17 he went into acting. Josephine Dillon coached him, and they married in 1924.

He signed with MGM in 1930. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for It Happened One Night (1934) and was nominated for Gone with the Wind (1939) as Rhett Butler.

He flew as a bomber crewman in World War II and won the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. His third wife, Carole Lombard, died in a plane crash in 1942. His last film, The Misfits, came out in 1961 after his 1960 death.

Ohio ties

Cadiz (1900-1901)
birthplace; his parents lived on Charleston Street near the Bricker oil field where his father worked Harrison County · source
Dennison (1901)
baptized at a Roman Catholic church at six months old Tuscarawas County · source
Hopedale (1903-1917)
boyhood home on Mill Street; Hopedale school, town band and Methodist church Harrison County · source
Palmyra Township (1917-1920)
family's 74-acre farm; began his junior year at Edinburg Centralized School in September 1917 Portage County · source
Hopedale (1917-1918)
returned to live with his stepmother's Dunlap relatives and worked for the Harmon Coal Company Harrison County · source
Akron (about 1918-1920)
worked at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and as an unpaid call boy for a local stock company Summit County · source

Timeline

1901 Born at 5:30 a.m. on 1 February in the upstairs apartment of a two-family house on Charleston Street, Cadiz. source
1901 His mother, Adeline Hershelman Gable, died on 14 November, and the infant was placed with her parents in Pennsylvania. source
1903 His father married Jennie Dunlap of Hopedale and brought two-year-old Clark back to Ohio. source
1910 The family moved into the six-room house his father built on Mill Street lots in Hopedale bought in 1907. source
1914 At 13 became the youngest member of the Hopedale Men's town band. source
1915 Made his acting debut in his eighth-grade class play in Hopedale. source
1917 After his father lost money in an oil venture, the family sold the Hopedale house and bought a 74-acre farm in Palmyra Township, Portage County. source
1918 Took a job at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, where seeing the play Bird of Paradise turned him toward acting. source
1920 His stepmother Jennie died on 11 January and was buried in Palmyra Cemetery; his father sold the farm and moved to Oklahoma, and Clark followed. source
1934 Won the Academy Award for Best Actor for It Happened One Night, made on loan to Columbia. source
1939 Played Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. source
1942 Enlisted in the Army Air Forces on 12 August and was commissioned a second lieutenant on 28 October. source
1943 Flew five combat missions as an observer-gunner with the 351st Bomb Group from RAF Polebrook, England, while filming Combat America. source
1944 Promoted to major in May and discharged in June; his separation papers were signed by Capt. Ronald Reagan. source
1960 Died on 16 November at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center after a heart attack. The same year the Cadiz house where he was born was torn down. source
1985 Cadiz held its first Clark Gable birthday celebration on 1 February. source
1986 An 8-foot granite monument was dedicated at the Charleston Street birth site on 1 February. source
1998 His son John Clark Gable dedicated the Clark Gable Reconstructed Birthhome in Cadiz on 31 January. source
2005 The National Archives opened his military personnel file in June 2005, among 150 files of 'persons of exceptional prominence' at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. source
2025 Named a Great Ohioan by the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board at the Ohio Statehouse. source

What Clark is known for

Best Actor Academy Award for It Happened One Night (1934 film; honored at the 1935 ceremony)
Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The Misfits (1961)

Stories

Rebuilding a house that was gone

The two-family house on Charleston Street where Gable was born had become an eyesore, and in 1960, the year he died, its owner, a judge, tore it down to make room for a barnyard. For about 25 years Cadiz did little to remember him while Harrison County's coal economy collapsed and unemployment reached 24 percent. In the mid-1980s a disc jockey phoned the Cadiz post office to ask what the town was doing for Gable's birthday, and a local committee held the first celebration on 1 February 1985. The Clark Gable Foundation put up an 8-foot granite monument on the birth site in 1986, bought the land in 1994, and hired Newark architect Jack Harden, a former Cadiz resident, to recreate the house from old photographs. Building codes forced the new house 10 feet north of the original spot and required an elevator. Gable's son John Clark Gable dedicated it on 31 January 1998.

Source

From Hopedale's band to an Akron stage door

Gable's stepmother Jennie gave him piano lessons, and by 13 he was the youngest player in the Hopedale Men's town band. A Hopedale schoolmate, Lucille Kyle Taggart, recalled that her class had only seven students. When his father's drilling business failed in 1917, the family moved 85 miles north to a farm in Palmyra Township, Portage County. Gable started his junior year at Edinburg Centralized School, caught for the baseball team and quit after a dispute with the principal, who was also the coach. He went back to Hopedale, worked for the Harmon Coal Company, and then took a job at Firestone in Akron. There a stock-company production of Bird of Paradise so caught him that he worked backstage as an unpaid call boy while keeping his factory job.

Source

Reagan's signature on the separation papers

Gable enlisted in the Army Air Forces on 12 August 1942 and was commissioned a second lieutenant that October. In 1943 he flew five combat missions over Europe as an observer-gunner with the 351st Bomb Group out of RAF Polebrook, England, while shooting the recruiting film Combat America, and he earned the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was promoted to major in 1944 and discharged on 12 June 1944. His separation papers were signed by his personnel officer, Capt. Ronald Reagan. He resigned his commission in September 1947.

Source

Honors and things named for them

Academy Award, Best Actor, It Happened One Night
Distinguished Flying Cross; Air Medal

Family

wife: Josephine Dillon
wife: Carole Lombard
wife: Kay Spreckels

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

Clark Gable Birthplace and Museum (Clark Gable Reconstructed Birthhome)
138 Charleston Street, Cadiz Harrison County · source
Clark Gable birth-site monument (1986 granite marker on the spot of the original house)
Charleston Street, Cadiz Harrison County · source
1 Ohio Historical Marker 2-34: Historic Hopedale / Clark Gable, The King of Hollywood
Mill Street (OH 151) at Lahm Drive, just south of US 22, Hopedale Harrison County · source
Gable boyhood home (private)
Mill Street, Hopedale (about a quarter mile south of the marker) Harrison County · source
Gable family farm (74 acres bought from Mary and Wesley Ensinger) (unknown)
Palmyra Township Portage County · source
Edinburg Centralized School (unknown)
Edinburg Township Portage County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Clark Gable Birthplace Museum (museum)
138 Charleston St, Cadiz, Harrison County ZIP 43907 · Cadiz · Harrison County · official page

Ohio places

Where Clark Gable was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Cadiz, Harrison County (Clark Gable Birthplace Museum, 138 Charleston St (reconstruction on the site of the demolished original)) ZIP 43907 · Cadiz · Harrison County
Lived: Hopedale, Harrison County ZIP 43976 · Hopedale · Harrison County
Lived: Akron (Palmyra Township area; Firestone job), Summit County ZIP 44308 · Akron · Summit County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Clark Gable, and what the record shows.

Often said The Clark Gable Birthplace in Cadiz is the house he was born in.

The record The original two-family house on Charleston Street was torn down in 1960 (Clio says the early 1960s). The museum is a reconstruction built in 1997-98 from period photographs, set 10 feet north of the original spot because of building codes. The 1986 granite monument stands where the old house stood. source

Often said Gable grew up in Cadiz.

The record He left Cadiz as a baby. After his mother died in November 1901 he lived with her family in Pennsylvania, and from 1903 to 1917 he was raised in Hopedale, seven miles northeast of Cadiz. The state marker and the Hopedale boyhood home mark his childhood, not the Cadiz museum. source

Often said Meadville, Pennsylvania, is Gable's hometown as much as Cadiz.

The record Find a Grave's biography says two towns claim him as a native son, Cadiz and Meadville. He was born in Cadiz. He spent part of his infancy with his mother's parents near Meadville before his father brought him back to Ohio in 1903. source

Early-life route (Oklahoma vs Hopedale/Akron) differs between sources.

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Clark Gable's Report of Separation, signed by Capt. Ronald Reagan (lists him as 'Motion Picture Actor' and 'Motion Picture Photo-Gunner') 1944, National Archives, National Personnel Records Center (St. Louis)
Dan Van Neste, 'Clark Gable Reconstructed Birthhome: Fit For A King', Classic Images, April 1999 (archived copy) 1999, Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Publicity photo of Clark Gable
Public domain
Studio publicity photo of Clark Gable.
Public domain
814, Ranch home of clark gable and carole lombard
Public domain
814, Residence of Clark Gable
Public domain
Clark Gable and William Collier Sr. in the American film Cain and Mabel (1936) - trailer (cropped screenshot).
Public domain
Courtyard of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles Clark Gable
Public domain
American actor Clark Gable on the cover of New York Sunday News in Coloroto photo. The magazine was published ...
Public domain
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night (1934) publicity still.
Public domain
Clark Gable and Helen Hayes in The White Sister
Public domain
Clark Gable and Helen Hayes in The White Sister
Public domain
Format: Photograph Notes: Find more detailed information about this photograph: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDe...
No known restrictions
Clark Gable in 1930s
Public domain