Gable, William Clark, born 01-02-1902 in Cadiz, Ohio,
to William Henry “Will” Gable (1870–1948), an oil-well driller, and his wife Adeline, born Hershelman. His father was a Protestant and his mother a Catholic. He was mistakenly listed as a female on his birth certificate. His original last name was Goebel, but this was considered too German during World War I because of anti-German sentiment. Birth registrations, school records and other documents contradict one another. “William” would have been in honor of his father. “Clark” was the maiden name of his maternal grandmother. In childhood he was almost always called “Clark”; some friends called him “Clarkie,” “Billy,” or “Gabe”. His mother died when he was ten months old, probably of an aggressive brain tumor. Gable was a tall shy child with a loud voice and at thirteen, he was the only boy in the men’s town band. His acting coach and first wife, was a theater manager in Portland, Oregon, Josephine Dillon


















He was certainly a womaniser, a serial seducer and philanderer, and he ruthlessly used his attractivenness to women, particularly older women who held powerful positions in Broadway and Hollywood, to make his way to the top. He was a toyboy before the name had been coined. By the end of the decade his marriage to Josephine Dillon was crumbling. He had become famous on Broadway but not in Hollywood and he needed help with his Hollywood ambitions. Again he found an older, rich woman to provide it. In 1930 he divorced Josephine and married Texas socialite Ria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham.
He explained to Josephine quite candidly that he wished to marry Ria Langham because she could do more for him financially. “He is hard to live with because his career and ambition always came first,” said Josephine wistfully. Clark and Ria divorced on 07-03-1939. Clark Gable and his next girlfriend Carole Lombard were married during a production break on the movie, Gone with the Wind.
Tragically, the woman Clark considered the love of his life would be killed in a plane crash less than three years later, in January 1942. In December 1949, Clark married Sylvia Ashley,
a British model and actress who was the widow of actor Douglas Fairbanks.
The couple divorced in April 1952, after less than three years of marriage. In 1955, Clark married his fifth and final wife, Kay Spreckels
a three-times-married former fashion model and Hollywood starlet. With two young children of her own, Kay was able to give Clark the family he had long wanted. Then in 1960, Kay became pregnant with Clark’s child.
Sadly Clark Gable would pass away just four months before his first and only son, John Clark Gable,
was born, 20-03-1961.








Death and burial ground of Gable, William Clark.






