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"We called her the Profane Angel..."
By Carole M. Sampeck
"...because she looked like an angel but she swore like a sailor," said film director Mitchell Leisen. "She was the only woman I ever knew who could tell a dirty story without losing her femininity."
A legendary beauty, but with a prominent facial scar; a tireless publicity hound, who carefully guarded her privacy; a savvy actress who successfully negotiated her own contracts among the tightly knit male Hollywood power structure, but was willing to give it all up to stay home and have babies with the man she loved - Carole Lombard was a study in contrasts.
Crawford, Dietrich, Bette Davis - all were superstars of their time, only to have their reputations later decimated by "tell-all" biographies. Yet the Lombard legend endures. It seems that everyone who knew her, who worked with her, has affectionate recollections.
Perhaps Desi Arnaz said it best: "Carole had a quality which is rare. You can count the women who have had it on the fingers of one hand. Carole, while doing the wild antics of a clown...could make you laugh, and yet at the same time make you want to go to bed with her." Sexy and funny, outgoing yet very private, practical but sentimental, Lombard was a multidimensional woman.
To categorize her merely as a comedienne, even as Queen of the Screwballs, which many current film historians have, is to do her a massive injustice. After spending years as Paramount's most dependable clotheshorse, leading lady to their entire stable of male stars, Lombard's big break came in comedy -- and the thirties audiences clamored to see her perform in comedy films from that point on. Lombard could be very effective in drama, however, and her eye for a good script was practically infallible -- but it was in wacky scenarios that she truly shone.
Lombard's breakthrough comedy role came when she was cast opposite legendary John Barrymore in the film adaptation of the Charles MacArthur/Ben Hecht stage play, Twentieth Century (1934), directed by Howard Hawks. Her talent as a comedienne was largely untested at that time, but she was Hawks' first choice for the part. Although he thought she was "the worst actress in the world," she was also a "marvelous gal, crazy as a bedbug...if she could just be herself, she'd be great for the part." He wanted an actress who was a strong enough personality to register against Barrymore's florid, overblown characterization of theater impresario Oscar Jaffe.
Hawks later recollected:
"She was one of the most attractive girls you could find, and she acted like a schoolgirl...stiff. We were rehearsing the first day and Barrymore began to hold his nose. Obviously nothing was happening with this girl. I could see him getting very worried over her stiffness. So I took Lombard for a walk, and said, 'You've been working very hard on the script.' She said, ‘I'm glad it shows.’ I said, 'Yes you know every word of it. How much do you get paid for the picture?' She told me.
I said, 'That's pretty good. What do you get paid for?' 'Well, acting,' she said. So I said, 'What if I told you that you earned all your money, you don't owe a nickel and you don't have to act anymore?' She just stared at me. I said, 'What would you do if a man said such-and-such a thing to you?' She replied that she'd kick him right in the balls. So I told her, 'Barrymore said that to you, why didn't you kick him?' She went Whnnnnnaah-snarled, with one of those Lombard gestures. I said, 'Now we're going back in and make this scene, and you kick him, and do any damn thing that comes into your mind that's natural, and quit acting. If you don't quit, I’m going to fire you this afternoon.' " Barrymore was astounded at the change, and later gave her a large photograph of the two of them taken on the set, on which he had written, "To Carol[e] Lombard, a grand actress and a grand person, with the affectionate good wishes of John Barrymore." Carole treasured the photo, and her friendship with Barrymore, even requesting that he be cast in her films when his career was in a tailspin due to his alcoholism.
Critical response to Twentieth Century was overwhelming although the film was somewhat disappointing in box-office receipts. Carole's future as a comedy player was assured, nevertheless. She went on to leading roles in such films as Hands Across the Table (1935), The Princess Comes Across (1936), David Selznick's production of Nothing Sacred (1937) -- Carole's only appearance in Technicolor -- and her triumph as the ditsy Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey (1936). Originally she was not slated for Godfrey, but her former husband William Powell, already cast as the title character, insisted that he would not do the film unless Carole got the female lead. He knew her outgoing fun-loving personality would mesh with the role perfectly -- and he was right. My Man Godfrey brought Lombard her only Academy Award nomination. (She lost.) She never got to see her glorious Maria Tura of To Be or Not to Be (1942).
Outstanding examples of her departure from comedy into the dramatic realm can be seen in Made For Each Other (1939), In Name Only (1939), Vigil in the Night (1940), and her finest dramatic performance, in Garson Kanin's They Knew What They Wanted (1940).
Her reputation as a great beauty was a notion she dismissed.
"You ought to see the map for my face in the Makeup Department, " she told one young hopeful. "It looks like a landscape of the moon." Perhaps she realized how fleeting physical beauty could be, recalling her own brush with disaster. In the fall of 1926, just as her film career was getting underway, a shattered windshield slashed her face practically from nose to ear. Lombard exhibited unusual inner fortitude after the accident, realizing that her chosen career depended largely on her appearance. She endured the subsequent plastic surgery without anesthetic, which would have relaxed the facial muscles and distorted her appearance. Following the surgery, she spent months strapped down to a hospital bed, barely moving to assure proper healing. During her seemingly endless recuperation, she focused energy on learning her craft -- not just what went on in front of the camera, but behind the scenes as well. Lighting, makeup, photography... by the time Carole Lombard returned to her film career, she had a working knowledge of every aspect of filmmaking.
The thing one noticed about Lombard, after her arresting beauty, was her delicious sense of fun. Jean Garceau, who was Carole's friend before the entry into films, and a close associate throughout her adult life, said "Lombard" always meant "laughter." On or off the set, Carole was a tireless practical joker. She'd throw a wrap party for cast and crew, and see to it that the ice-cream cones were filled with cold cream; she had her house completely redecorated, and announced a party to show off the result. Her arriving guests found a living room strewn with bales of hay, several chickens clucking about, and Carole in overalls, a straw in her teeth.
"So, whaddya think?" she asked, straight faced.
She wasn't Hollywood's first cussing woman, contrary to legend. But when, as a teenager, she decided upon profanity as her protective shield, she had her two older brothers, Fritz and Stuart, methodically teach her every term used for every act, body part, and function (sexual or scatological). Coming up with new linguistic possibilities became a challenging game, and usually all three would end up doubled over with laughter. In every endeavor, Carole wanted to be the best -- this was no exception. She mastered the concept, and made it her own. Lombard's rough language was always used for effect, to divert an unwanted male advance or get a laugh. She was careful to be decorous around folks who would be truly offended. In the company of her mother, Elizabeth Peters, her mother's friends, and especially children, Carole avoided using her more colorful patois. But among her buddies, heaven help the faint of heart!
"With her, it was like music, it was completely natural, " Clark Gable once said.
Lombard was never one to let a good promotional opportunity slip by. In 1938, David Selznick's public relations whiz, Russell Birdwell, came up with the idea of putting Lombard to work in the Selznick publicity department for one week. First she installed a fire bell from the prop department ("To call the secretaries, " she laughed), acquired a .45 caliber pistol (to take potshots at the ceiling), and a siren. Why the siren? To make sure Selznick knew she was there, she replied, pointing out that The Boss' office was a mere four hundred yards away. At the end of the whirlwind week, Carole spent one day as Honorary Mayor of Culver City. Her first official duty was to declare the day a holiday, and tell all the studio employees they could go home! This didn't go over too well with David Selznick -- but it got great press.
Although a firm believer in lots of publicity, Lombard was surprisingly discreet about her personal life. The men she became involved with were never the kiss-and-tell type. She was linked, at one time or another, with such notables as Howard Hughes (though not as his teenaged bedmate, despite allegations made in a recent Hughes biography); George Raft; screenwriter Robert Riskin; "The Thin Man" star William Powell, whom she married and amicably divorced; and crooner Russ Columbo. She and Columbo were rumored to be engaged at the time of his tragic accidental death in 1934, and she later referred to him as "the great love of my life." His death affected her deeply, and she rarely spoke about their intense involvement. Her discretion and integrity were as legendary as the lighter side of her character.
Lombard had a strong sentimental streak, evidenced by the childhood mementos she kept with her. In her dressing room she kept a baby doll, dressed in clothing actually worn by young Miss Peters as an infant. Her mother had also kept toddler dresses from Carole's childhood, which Lombard carefully preserved. Carole and her mother had an extremely close and friendly relationship, as she also had with her two brothers. Her nature was to be warm and generous, disdainful of thanks.
Electrician Pat Drew had worked on a Lombard picture prior to being seriously injured in an airplane accident. Upon learning that the craftsman had been fired by the studio after the accident cost him a leg, Lombard made sure that he was reinstated and assigned to all her films. Tennis great Alice Marble was also the beneficiary of her generosity. Marble had been misdiagnosed with tuberculosis, and was languishing in a medical institution. Lombard learned of her situation from her own tennis coach, Eleanor Tennant, and anonymously sent Marble a letter of encouragement. They struck up a friendship, and Carole became a staunch ally as Alice recovered first her health, then her tennis career. Whenever Marble tried to express her gratitude to Lombard, the response was the same given to Pat Drew (and countless others) - "Aw, shit, forget about it."
Carole didn't fight for the underdog because it was politically correct, or because she wanted others indebted to her -- she did it because it felt good, it felt right. Thanks weren't necessary. She rarely did anything simply because it was expected of her - in fact, the moment she felt used, the giving stopped. It seems that up to the time of her death in a plane crash outside Las Vegas, following a record-setting sale of over two million dollars in War Bonds at the first War Rally in the nation, she was a borderline workaholic, an overachieving dynamo. She genuinely loved doing for others, and her patriotism was loudly broadcast. Once she even said she was glad the government took most of her earnings in taxes, since it enabled her to live in the most wonderful country on the face of the earth, and her tax dollars helped make it so.
After her runaway elopement with Clark Gable in March 1939, Lombard guarded her privacy even more zealously. Members of the press were surprised that she hadn't pulled some outrageous gag or stunt at the long-awaited wedding to Gable, but she knew that no words could express how seriously she regarded the exchange of this particular set of matrimonial vows. It simply was not a joking matter. Even Carole's active social schedule was rescaled for "Pa," who was an intensely private person. Friends knew that dropping in unannounced wasn't a good idea, and that Sundays at the House of Two Gables were reserved for making babies.
She certainly always kept her sense of humor intact about life with the King of Hollywood. Once asked by a reporter to reveal something the public didn't yet know about Gable, she chortled, "Well, Clark's not circumcised. Betcha didn't know that!" She was always careful to needle "Pa" in areas where his ego was over-inflated, but never where the jabs might actually hurt. Much has been made of her remarks to the effect that "...you know how much 1 love Clark, but I can't say he's a helluva good lay." Of all the jibing Carole did during her relationship with Gable, for some reason this particular statement is taken as gospel. As self-appointed protector of her husband's image, the very last thing she would do would be to denigrate him at so personal a level. What better elbow-in-the-ribs could there be than to joke that Gable the Man couldn't live up to Gable the Screen Star's he-man image?
Lombard was a fiercely independent woman, who once said that marriage needed to be redefined. She promoted women's rights before the phrase had even been coined. "I think marriage is dangerous," she once stated. "The idea of two people trying to possess each other is wrong. I don't think the flare of love lasts. Your mind rather than your emotions must answer for the success of matrimony. It must be friendship -- a calm companionship which can last through the years. "
Yet practically overnight, when her relationship with Clark Gable was progressing fast and furious, she redefined herself to fit into his life. Carole, who just loved gossiping at the manicurist's and dancing all night at the Coconut Grove, learned to rough it in a swamp before dawn in hopes of bagging a few ducks. Never mind the manicure and makeup. Shortly after marrying, Clark and Carole moved into their just-purchased home in Encino, California. The twenty-acre estate had formerly belonged to director Raoul Walsh, and the house had been extensively remodeled to Carole's specifications. She wanted this to be a true home for Clark, and she supervised the refurbishing with that in mind. Chairs were larger than normal, glasses were larger than ordinary -- everything was scaled to suit Clark.
This subservience was in contrast to the savvy businesswoman who was among the first to negotiate herself a percentage of the profits off the top, a practice which is standard for superstars today, and who was in 1936 the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. At one point in her career, she felt that her agent, Myron Selznick (brother of David), was making scant efforts to find her good film offers. Carole reasoned that she could do just as well negotiating contracts as Selznick, and went about it with her usual gusto. The result was her revolutionary percentage deal. She even managed to have the notorious morals clause excluded from her studio contracts, which was practically unheard-of at the time.
Lombard was a strong woman who had her priorities straight -- she wanted to be a top-ranked movie actress, yet she wanted to make a success of being Mrs. Clark Gable more.
"Pa comes first, " she'd say.
She completely submerged her own needs to make sure that Clark's were taken care of first. Even her film contracts were managed to ensure that her motion picture work was scheduled in conjunction with "Pa’s" -- she made every effort to see that their time off between pictures would coincide. Carole felt strongly that conflicting work schedules had contributed to the breakdown of her first marriage to "The Thin Man" star William Powell, and she was determined not to let it happen again. Perhaps the most enduring of the Lombard legends is that of the Gable/Lombard marriage being the happiest in Hollywood history - a match made in heaven. Even here, Lombard is a study in contrasts. She was thoroughly devoted to her husband, dedicated to making the relationship work, yet thoroughly aware of Clark's penchant for other women. Very few females got within range of Gable without being pursued and pollinated. But Carole was so intent on preserving the marriage that she looked the other way.
"She'd scream at him every six, eight weeks, and Clark would behave for a while, " said friends of the couple. Lombard knew that his infidelities were only a physical response, and realized that it meant no lessening of his love for her. Only when his attention turned to beautiful blonde costars did Carole seriously put her foot down and tell Gable what she thought, with both barrels. But by the time of her death in January 1942, the great romance had worn itself out, according to many of her confidants. Would the marriage have endured had she lived? Many think so -- not because Gable put a great deal of effort into sustaining and nurturing the relationship, but because Lombard made up in energy what he lacked.
The only task which Carole set for herself that she didn't accomplish was that of motherhood. It was her most fervent desire, and the fact that it remained unfulfilled was a source of great emotional pain for her. This frustration, coupled with Gable's wandering eye, had quenched the intense flame of their early years. It seems fitting that her earlier expressed views on marriage had been fulfilled, even though it was cut tragically short by her death. Ultimately, her mind rather than her heart ensured the continuation of her marriage to Gable. It had become indeed a friendship encompassing love, laughter, and tears -- the elements legends are made of.
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