Clark Gable: Tormented Star
Clark Gable was the archetypal Hollywood supermensch, the kind of man red-blooded women lusted after, and whom their envious husbands yearned to be. Yet, as David Bret reveals, Gable was also bisexual, a facet of his complex persona that was airbrushed out of the picture in an age when such men were invariably mocked as effete and lily-livered.
Bret recounts Gable's two failed marriages to women who turned a blind eye towards his affairs with men, including actors Earl Larimore, Johnny Mack Brown, William Haines and Rod LaRoque - men whom Gable outed to the press to prevent himself from being outed. Bret also reveals exclusively that Gable's wartime "heroics", which saw him promoted through the ranks from private to major in less than a year, were no more than an elaborate publicity stunt which subsequenty embarrassed the US government. Like an earlier paternity suit, also revealed here in full detail, it was an exercise dreamed up by studio chief Lous B. Mayer to prove that Gable was a "regular guy" in an age when many thought that gay or bisexual men were physically incapable of fathering children or fighting in a war.
In the perfect companion to Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr, Bret draws on a wealth of unpublished material to examine every aspect of Clark Gable's career and personal life, telling his story as it has never been told before - wholly uncensored, with accuracy and passion.
