Carole Lombardi’s life ended tragically at the age of 33.
Carole Lombard, real name Jane Alice Peters, made her career take off during the golden age of Hollywood in the middle of wartime. She was known both as a bright star of comedy films and for her marriages to megastars such as William Powell and Clark Gable.
Unfortunately, his brilliance was tragically extinguished at the age of 33 when he became Hollywood’s first casualty of World War II.
Carole Lombard arrived in Hollywood when motion pictures were in their infancy in 1914. At the age of 12, she caught the attention of director Allan Dwan while playing baseball, and Dwan cast her in his debut film role A Perfect Crime (1921).
The film inspired the young girl and her mother to look for more film work, but initially without success. At the age of 15, she chose a new first name for herself: Carole.
At the age of 16, Lombard signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation, dropped out of school and devoted himself fully to a film career. His early roles were small appearances in cheap Western films, but Lombard enjoyed spending time in the studio and various photo shoots in connection with the films. The film company didn’t like his last name, so it was changed to Lombardi, according to a family friend.
Lombardi’s career was close to the end already at the age of 18, when a car crash left a scar on his face that made it difficult to get roles. However, the woman’s career took off with Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty -short films from 1927–1929.
Next, he moved on to feature films, and with his success he also signed a contract with Paramount Pictures.
The production company quickly began offering Lombardi leading roles, mostly in drama films. Man of the World and Ladies Man -films she met her future husband William Powell.
Lombard and Powell co-starred in the film PDO
The two fell head over heels in love with each other, even though they were very different. Lombard was a 22-year-old carefree and notoriously foul-mouthed woman, while Powell was a 38-year-old man considered intelligent and cultured. In front of the media, they emphasized the enriching effect of their separation, and married in June 1931.
However, the couple’s love did not last long, and they divorced in 1933. Despite their separation, they remained good friends until the end of Lombardi’s life.
– We were just two completely incompatible people, Lombard stated in an interview he gave in 1936.
Lombard and Powell divorced in 1933. PDO
Director Howard Hawks bumped into a drunken Lombardi at a party in 1933 and found him to be “funny and liberated”. According to Hawks, the woman was exactly what he needed for the screwball comedy he was directing In the Twentieth Century. The woman accepted the role and it eventually made Lombardi a star.
Lombard met her next future husband, actor Clark Gable No Man of Her Own -film in 1932. At that time, 31-year-old Gable was still married to a Houston socialite by Maria Langham with, and there was no romance between the two, even with the intense sex scenes depicted in the film.
Lombard and Gable did not fall in love when they first met. PDO
Four years later, they met again at the Mayfair Ball, an event for Hollywood’s elite. There, they casually flirted throughout the evening and eventually drove to the hotel together, even though Lombard had brought along Cesar Romaron and Gable was technically still married.
However, Lombard didn’t want to end up in bed talk with Gable at that time, and when Gable proposed obscenities to her, he said:
– Who do you think you are, Clark Gable?
Gable drove her back to the party, but the two quickly reconciled their differences. They began their romance soon after that and kept it a secret until Gable’s divorce was made official. They married in March 1939, just thirteen days after Gable’s divorce from Langham was finalized.
After marrying Gable, Lombard began to turn down even attractive film roles if they didn’t fit in with her and Gable’s schedules. The couple spent most of their time away from Hollywood social life at their large estate, where they enjoyed hunting and enjoying the outdoors.
Lombardi’s last film role was directed by Ernst Lubitsch To Be or Not to Be (1942), which also became the most successful film of his entire career. After his death, it has been estimated that the role performances in that film would have opened up significant further possibilities for him.
The couple spent a lot of time on the farm they owned. PDO
Death
When the United States entered World War II, Lombard traveled to his home state of Indiana for an event to raise funds to cover war-related debts and war expenses. He traveled with his mother Elizabeth Peters and Clark Gable’s press secretary Otto Winkler with. Lombard collected more than 2 million dollars (approx. 1.68 million euros) in defense loans in one evening.
He was originally supposed to return to Los Angeles by train, but according to the story, an argument broke out between him and Gable, so Lombard wanted to get home sooner. Lombard allegedly wanted to rush home to prevent a potential romance between Gable and a young Lana Turner that was brewing while they were shooting a movie together. So the trio decided to fly, even though Lombardi’s mother and Winkler were afraid of flying and insisted on following the original plan.
In the early morning of January 16, 1942, Lombard, Peters, Winkler and the rest of the crew boarded the plane, which first stopped in New Mexico. There, four passengers disembarked to accommodate 15 air force pilots and soldiers. The next stop of the flight was in Las Vegas.
Moments after takeoff, the plane crashed into the high peak of Mount Potosi in Nevada. The wreckage of the accident spread several kilometers away and the snowy, steep mountain landscape made it difficult for rescuers to reach the scene. The bodies of the 22 victims were almost unrecognizable due to the strong impact. Gable, who was waiting for his wife at the airport, immediately headed to the crash site after hearing about the tragedy.
Gable pictured leaving the hotel after learning of the tragedy in 1942. PDO
The cause of the accident was estimated to be the flight crew’s inability to navigate properly over the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. The night-flying safety system had been turned off, leaving the plane’s crew and captain without visual warnings on its mountainous flight path.
The system was deliberately disabled so that any Japanese bombers that might have entered US airspace from the Pacific would not be able to detect the plane.
– He died for his country, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. stated after Lombardi’s death.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time also paid tribute to the late star:
– Mrs. Roosevelt and I are deeply shocked. Carole was our friend and visitor. He brought great joy to all who knew him and to millions who knew him only as a great artist. He sacrificed himself serving the government in times of peace and war. He loved his country. He is and always will be a star that we will never forget or cease to appreciate, Roosevelt stated.
Lombardi’s funeral was held on January 21, 1942. He and his mother were buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale. Spencer Tracy, Zeppo Marx, Myrna Loy, Fred MacMurray, William Powell, Louis B. Mayer, Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst were present at the funeral.
Gable is said to have been “pale and sad” at the funeral. After his death, Gable was buried next to Lombardi, although he later married twice more before his death in 1960.
Carole Lombardi’s death shocked all of Hollywood. PDO
