Gable's Women

Wayne's biography evokes Gable as a magnetic, virile, outgoing man with many close male friends and many female pursuers. Tracing the actor's life from his birth in 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to his death at age 59, the author (Robert Taylor, etc.t describes the women he attracted: his first wife, drama coach Josephine Diller who helped start him in his movie career; later wives and lovers, who included Joan Crawford, (possibly) Loretta Young, Grace Kelly et al. Gable, according to Wayne, dominated women as he dominated the screen in such classics as It Happened One Night and Gone with the Wind, but Carole Lombard, his third wife, was his equal. When she died in a 1941 plane crash, Gable courted suicide as an Air Force officer during World War II. He succumbed to a heart attack in 1960, after costarring with another legend, Marilyn Monroe, in The Misfits. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to the Star; Nostalgia Book Club and Movie/Entertainment Book Club selections. (July 1)