Happy Anniversary, Carole Lombard!

Happy Anniversary, Carole Lombard! (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 - January 18, 1942)

Carole Lombard counted among her lovers in the early Paramount days a young scriptwriter named Preston Sturges, who had done the screenplay for one of her pictures "Fast and Loose" (1930). The highly intelligent, well-to-do, 10-years-older Sturges fit Lombard's bill, as did fading publishing mogul Horace Liveright with whom she had a short liaison before Paramount dismissed him.

Sparks flew between Carole Lombard and William Powell from the first rehearsals of "Man of the World" (1931) and a healthy infatuation catapulted them to the nearest bedroom. He was almost 40; she was 22 playing the field by night and determined not to marry. Lombard also acquired another business partner, Myron Selznick, because he represented William Powell. The first thing Selznick did was to solidify Lombard's deal at Paramount.

Lombard portrayed a hooker in a risqué Pre-Code drama at the Columbia Studios on nearby Gower Street, "Virtue" (1932), which co-starred Mayo Methot who would meet and marry Humphrey Bogart a few years later.

Back within the walls of Paramount, Lombard portrayed a librarian in a romance called "No Man of Her Own" (1932) opposite MGM's 31-year-old sensation Clark Gable. Gable's vibe at this early point was enacting a growling tough guy. It was his first picture after making MGM's sensational "Red Dust" with Jean Harlow, the blonde bombshell who had stolen Howard Hughes from Lombard. -"Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3" (2013) by Robert Matzen

"Her story is a simple one and must be simply told. For the truth is that she was a very simple woman for all her success and her love affairs and her final great love and marriage. They were extraneous. Her true life was within. She was a lusty, faulty, rowdy, two-fisted, terrific dame, who knew all there was to know about life and love and temptation, and that is why it is important to understand her laughter. The philosophy of her life was laughter. You see, that was her secret, the thing she seldom talked about. She believed that laughter bubbled up from the heart that was filled with faith. She had known black despair and heartbreak. She believed that you had to win through them and believe that good would triumph, that right made might, and thus that laughter was an outward sign of an inward grace." - Adela Rogers St. Johns on Carole Lombard

“We called her The Profane Angel because she looked like an angel but she swore like a sailor. She was the only woman I ever knew who could tell a dirty story without losing her femininity.” -Mitchell Leisen on Carole Lombard

“She was so alive, modern, frank, and natural that she stands out like a beacon on a lightship in this odd place called Hollywood.” -Barbara Stanwyck on Carole Lombard

"You can trust that little screwball with your life or your hopes or your weaknesses, and she wouldn’t even know how to think about letting you down.” -Clark Gable on Carole Lombard

"She brought great joy to all who knew her and to millions who knew her only as a great artist… She is and always will be a star, one we shall never forget, nor cease to be grateful to.” -President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Carole Lombard

"There were many things about Carole that were oh-boy-out-of-this-world wonderful. She was class. She was a good actress, and she always looked great. More important, she had a lot of heart. No wonder Clark Gable adored her so. When I’m weighing a particularly difficult decision, sometimes I ask myself what Carole would have said, and it helps." - Lucille Ball on Carole Lombard

“I’ll work a few more years, and then I want a family. I’ll let Pa be the star, and I’ll stay home, darn the socks and look after the kids.” - Carole Lombard

"I love everything I do. I’m immensely interested in and enthusiastic in everything I do, everything. No matter what it is I’m doing, no matter how trivial, it isn’t trivial to me. I give it all I got and love it. I love living. I love life. Eating, sleeping, waking up again, skeet-shooting, sitting around an old barn doing nothing, my work, taking a bath, talking my ears off, the little things, the big things, the simplest things, the most complicated things—I get a kick out of everything I do while I’m doing it. If I don’t love what I’m doing I don’t do it. But if I have to do something I’m not nuts about now and then, as who doesn’t, I do it and get it over with. I never anticipate trouble. I never worry, never fret. I can’t duck issues. Ducking issues causes more grief than the issues themselves ever do. I never sit around and clutch my head and moan, ‘I have to do so-and-so, alas Lo, the poor Lombard!’—I just say, ‘Let’s do it’ or ‘Okay, let’s go!’—and it’s done and there’s nothing to it” — Carole Lombard, 1938

"Cynicism, at best, is only mental and spiritual indigestion. I made up my mind to avoid it by cultivating an inner happiness." — Carole Lombard.

"A realization knocked Carole over and she couldn't resist it. Gable was a big kid, a lot like she was a big gee-whiz kid herself. He liked toys, the simplest guy things. Gable's hard life, and his struggles, had led to appreciation. Gable had never seen anyone like her - a dame this naturally energetic, naturally up." "She laughed all the time," said director Delmer Daves, and soon Gable was laughing right along with her. Lombard was damaged goods, and so was Gable, but together they made one spectacular package and after the 1936 Mayfair Ball they became an item." -Robert Matzen

Elaine Barrymore (wife of John) perhaps said it best, “Clark adored her. She was the light in his eyes. He admitted to me that he had always loved the company of ladies and he knew he had a reputation of being a ladies man, but with her it was different. He really was in love. To have her taken from him was like someone ripped out his soul. I saw him periodically for years afterward. The light in his eyes was gone. Even when he smiled. That light never returned.” Source: dearmrgable.com