Gable and Lombard

by Warren G. Harris

He was the all-time all-American virility symbol, perhaps the most successful male actor of his time, the acknowledged "King" of Hollywood in the hungry 1930s; she was the great all-American sex symbol, a tough-talking, beautiful blonde at the height of stardom, "America's Madcap Playgirl #1." He was separated from his wife; she had divorced William Powell ("The son of a bitch is acting even when he takes his pajamas off!") and was recovering from the death of her friend Russ Columbo, accidentally shot in one of Hollywood's more bizarre and notorious scandals. They fell in love in 1936 (a leap year) at the full-dress White Mayfair Hollywood society ball. Until then, she had thought him stuffy; he had objected to her profane language and boisterous public behavior. The next day she had a pair of doves sneaked into his hotel room while he slept, and before long they were obviously, publicly, happily in love, to the pleasure of several million fans and the rage of Louis B.^ Mayer, Gable's