Carole Lombard - Personal Life

Personal Life

In October 1930, Lombard met William Powell. They had worked together in the films Man of the World and Ladies' Man. Unlike many of Lombard's other suitors at the time, Powell was urbane and sophisticated. He also appreciated her blunt personality and bawdy sense of humor. They married on June 26, 1931. Lombard commented to fan magazines that she did not believe their sixteen-year age difference would present a problem, but friends felt they were ill-suited. They divorced in 1933, but remained good friends and worked together without acrimony, notably in My Man Godfrey.

In 1934, following her divorce from Powell, Lombard moved into a house on Hollywood Boulevard. She lived with a friend from the days of Mack Sennett, Madalynne Fields, who became Lombard's personal secretary. Lombard became known for her parties with unconventional themes.

During this time she carried on relationships with actors Gary Cooper and George Raft, as well as the screenwriter Robert Riskin. Lombard met and began a serious affair with crooner Russ Columbo. Columbo reportedly proposed marriage, but was killed in a shooting accident at the age of 26.

Lombard's most famous relationship came in 1936 when she became involved with Clark Gable. They had worked together previously in 1932's No Man of Her Own, but at the time, Lombard was still happily married to Powell. Unbeknownst to each other they had worked as extras on a silent film, Fox's 1926 epic The Johnstown Flood. When Gable and Lombard reunited at the Mayfair Ball, of which Lombard was hostess, their romance began to take off. Gable was married at the time to oil heiress Ria Langham, and the affair was kept quiet. The situation proved a major obstacle in Gable accepting the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, as MGM head Louis B. Mayer sweetened the deal for a reluctant Gable by giving him money to settle a divorce agreement with Langham and marry Lombard. Gable divorced Langham on March 7, 1939 and proposed to Lombard at the Brown Derby.

On March 29, 1939, during a break in production on Gone with the Wind, Gable and Lombard drove out to Kingman, Arizona and were married in a ceremony with only Gable's press agent, Otto Winkler, in attendance. They bought a ranch previously owned by director Raoul Walsh in Encino, California.