The King.
One of Hollywood's most popular leading men of the 1930s and '40s, Clark Gable was nominated for three Best Actor Oscars over the course of his career and even became the first actor ever to win an Academy Award for a comedy performance when he won for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934).  But he earned his royal nickname when he won a popularity poll in 1936 and The New York Daily News crowned him King of Hollywood. (Incidentally, Myrna Loy was crowned queen at the same mock ceremony.)

Gable with Jean Harlow in MGM's RED DUST (1932), a steamy romance set on an Indochina rubber plantation.

With Claudette Colbert in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Frank Capra's screwball, romantic comedy and the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1934.  In it, Gable plays ruffian newspaper reporter Peter Warne opposite Claudette Colbert's runaway heiress Ellie Andrews.

A poster from IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), the film for which Gable took home the only Best Actor statuette of his career and was the first movie in cinema history to win the "Big Five" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), Best Director (Frank Capra) and Best Screenplay (Robert Riskin).

Memorable Quotations:

• "Good morning. Remember me? I'm the man you slept on last night." --as Peter Warne in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT.
• "From now on they'll spell mutiny with my name." --as Fletcher Christian in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY. (a .WAV file)

Music Clip:

"Main Title" (clip) by Herbert Stothart (a .MP3 file courtesy Rhino Records).

(For help opening the multimedia files, visit the plug-ins page.) 

Go to the next page.
Page 1 | Page 2