Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters on October 6, 1908, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, into a comfortable upper-middle-class home. Her mother, Bessie, was the daughter of a prominent banker, and her father, Frederick, worked for a local washing machine manufacturer thanks to his father-in-law’s connections. She was the third child and only daughter, raised alongside two older brothers, and grew up a tomboy who preferred running and playing to sitting quietly. The only thing that could make her sit still was a movie, and unlike most little girls who favored fairy tales, she loved action films.

Her mother, who had once dreamed of acting herself, encouraged this interest and regularly took her to the theater on Friday evenings, indifferent to the local view that movies were low-class entertainment. In 1913, a major flood struck Fort Wayne. The Peters home sat on a hill above the St. Mary’s River and escaped the waters, becoming a makeshift hub for volunteers and flood relief coordination because it had one of the few telephones in the area.

Young Carole watched her mother manage the relief efforts, and the experience left a lasting impression of generosity and duty toward others. The following year, the family was hit by a more personal tragedy. Frederick, already injured in an industrial accident before his marriage, suffered a serious injury that left him with a permanent limp and a traumatic brain injury causing severe mood swings and headaches. The strain tore the marriage apart.

In 1914, Bessie took the children to California on what she called an extended vacation. They never returned. Bessie later described it as a Victorian divorce, where the couple remained married but lived separately. Frederick continued to support them financially, but the family could not maintain their Indiana lifestyle, and Bessie found that her maiden name carried no status in Los Angeles.

She was just another ex-wife. Critics and biographers have suggested this early hardship gave Carole’s acting, even her comedy, a tragic depth that made her performances compelling. Carole’s discovery as an actress came by accident when she was twelve, playing baseball with her brothers and their friends on a quiet Los Angeles street. Director Allan Dwan was casting for the 1921 film A Perfect Crime and spotted her, recalling that she was out there knocking the hell out of the other kids, playing better baseball than they were, and he needed someone of her type.

A talent scout approached her and her mother, and Carole auditioned for the role of the little sister. After two days of filming, she returned to school, but the acting bug had bitten her. She continued auditioning, and in the spring of 1924, while crowned May Queen at her high school carnival, a talent scout for Charlie Chaplin saw her and arranged a screen test for The Gold Rush. The test went poorly, and she did not get the part, but a representative from another film company saw potential and advised her that her name was too plain for an actress.

She chose Carol, inspired by a middle school tennis friend, becoming Carol Peters. In October 1924, she signed a contract with Fox. The studio liked Carol but not Peters, so she suggested Lombard, once more inspired by a family friend. Fox agreed, and Carole Lombard was born.

Her early roles were minor parts in B-grade westerns, but her big break came in the spring of 1925 with her first leading role opposite Edmund Lowe in Marriage in Transit, which earned critical praise. Despite this, Fox decided not to renew her one-year contract. The reason was brutal. She had been in an automobile accident that left a deep scar on her left cheek.

Though the cut healed, the scar remained, and Fox let her go. Carole and her mother sued the man she had been dating, settling for three thousand dollars. Teenage plastic surgery was rare in 1925, but Carole tracked down Hollywood’s best surgeon, who repaired the scar well enough that she could cover it with makeup and lighting, and she never let it hold her back, making frequent self-deprecating jokes about her face. For the next year, she struggled to find work.

She auditioned for Max Sennett, Hollywood’s King of Comedy, who gave her the nickname Carol of the Curves, cleverly shifting attention from her scar to her figure. Between September 1927 and March 1929, she appeared in fifteen short films for Sennett, discovering she had a knack for slapstick comedy. She later called this period the turning part of her acting career. Her full-length film roles followed, including High Voltage and Big News, and by 1930 Fox reconsidered and cast her in The Arizona Kid with their big star Warner Baxter.

She earned praise, but Fox still did not offer a contract, a choice they would soon regret. Paramount stepped in, signing her for three hundred fifty dollars a week. It was during this period that the E was added to her name. Paramount credited her as Carole in Fast and Loose, and though the studio assured her it would be corrected, she liked the look and kept it.

From then on, she was credited as Carole Lombard. Rumors circulated that she added the E for numerology reasons, which she dismissed as a lot of bunk. But her mother had become devoted to Bahai philosophy and numerology in the California esoteric scene of the 1920s, and she believed the addition of the E was numerologically beneficial. This connection would resurface tragically years later.

In 1931, Carole made five films, including two opposite Paramount’s leading man, William Powell: Man of the World and Ladies Man. They had great chemistry both on and off screen. By the end of the year, they had fallen in love and married. Carole, twenty-two, was sixteen years younger than Powell.

She was known for her wild behavior and blunt language, while he was quiet and intellectual. She described their relationship as a perfect seesaw love, saying they were two completely incompatible people. The marriage did not last, but they remained close friends, and she would be at his side years later when he lost his wife, Jean Harlow. Returning to single life, Carole dove back into her social scene and met singer Russ Columbo.

They instantly fell in love. They were the same age and had similar lifestyles, and many thought they would marry. In September 1934, Columbo visited a friend to take publicity photos. While they were looking at the friend’s firearm collection, an antique dueling pistol accidentally discharged.

The ball hit a table, ricocheted, and struck Columbo in the left eye, the same side where Carole had been injured in her car accident. After six hours of surgery, he died. He was twenty-six. At his funeral, Carole made sure everyone wore his favorite flowers, white gardenias.

His mother, who had suffered a heart attack days before, was never told of his death. Carole visited her weekly, reading letters she had written as if they were from Russ. For the remaining ten years of her life, Columbo’s mother never learned the truth. Carole threw herself into her work to cope with her grief.

1934 became her busiest and most successful year. Her second cousin, director Howard Hawks, saw her at a party where she was, she admitted, rather inebriated. Her hilarious and uninhibited behavior was perfect for his new film, Twentieth Century, and the role finally gave her the stardom she had been chasing. She played Diva Lily Garland opposite John Barrymore, and the film was a major hit with Depression-era audiences desperate for comedy.

One critic wrote that when you see her, you’ll see a star blaze out of the scene. Another added that she vibrates with life and passion. The success of Twentieth Century helped Carole realize her true strength was in comedy. Director Mitchell Leisen recalled, We called her the profane angel because she looked like an angel but swore like a sailor.

She was the only woman I ever knew who could tell a dirty story without losing her femininity. In 1936, she reunited with her ex-husband William Powell in My Man Godfrey. Universal wanted Powell, but he insisted she be cast as his co-star. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, and Carole earned her first and only Best Actress nomination.

Many critics still consider it her best performance, and it elevated her to the status of a true Hollywood headliner. In 1936, she also rekindled a connection with a former co-star. Four years after their film No Man of Her Own, she and Clark Gable met again at a ball, and this time sparks flew. Gable boldly invited her to his hotel room, to which she famously replied, Who do you think you are, Clark Gable?

The attraction was instant and mutual. Gable set about getting a divorce from his wife, Ria Langham, who had refused for some time. When she realized he would not return, she agreed in exchange for a settlement of five hundred thousand dollars. The divorce was finalized in March 1939, and Gable and Carole married on March 29 in Kingman, Arizona, during a short break while Gable was filming Gone with the Wind.

In 1937, Carole starred in what many consider her funniest film, True Confession. The film received rave reviews and drew large audiences, and its success led her agent to negotiate a new contract with Paramount boosting her salary to four hundred fifty thousand dollars per year, more than four times President Franklin Roosevelt’s annual earnings. When questioned about the high salary, she pointed out that eighty percent went to taxes and said she was happy to pay, stating, Every cent anybody pays in tax is spent to benefit him. There’s no better place to spend it.

I enjoy this country, and I really think I get my money’s worth. Her remarks impressed Roosevelt, who sent her a personal thank-you note. Carole and Gable never had children, which was emotionally difficult. She deeply wished for a child with Gable, but after two miscarriages and numerous fertility treatments, they remained childless.

They bought a twenty-acre ranch in Encino, California, which became their sanctuary. They hosted gatherings, went hunting, and kept barnyard animals. Carole preferred a down-to-earth approach and famously said, I want to live, not pose. After the United States entered World War II, Carole quickly became involved in war bond rallies.

In early January 1942, just weeks after the Pearl Harbor attacks, she flew with her mother to Indiana for a war bond rally, raising a record-breaking two million dollars in bond sales in a single evening. After the rally, Clark Gable’s press agent, Otto Winkler, who had accompanied them, arranged for the party to return to California by train. But Carole, eager to get back to Gable and start filming, suggested they fly home instead. Winkler and her mother were both afraid of flying, and her mother had had a startling premonition.

A psychic had warned them to keep out of planes in 1942, saying there is danger in them for you. Carole’s mother was also unsettled by the number three: the flight number, the plane model, and Carole’s age of thirty-three. She was convinced it was a bad idea, but Carole insisted. They flipped a coin to decide.

Carole won. The three boarded TWA Flight 3 at 4:00 a. m. on January 16.

Before boarding, Carole smiled and waved at fans who had followed her to the runway, asking them to join her in a cheer for V for Victory. The flight proceeded smoothly westward. During a refueling stop in Albuquerque, Carole and her party were almost bumped to make room for servicemen, but Carole insisted they stay on due to their work at the war bond rallies, and other civilian passengers were removed instead. The flight landed and refueled in Las Vegas that evening and took off again at 7:07 p.

m. Pacific time. Twenty minutes later, the plane struck a high snowdrift on Potosi Mountain and crashed, killing everyone on board. Upon hearing the news, Gable flew to Las Vegas and joined the searchers at the crash site.

He was nearby when Carole’s mangled body was found. She was thirty-three years old. Gable honored her wishes as stated in her will: a private funeral, clothed in white, placed in a modestly priced crypt in Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Eulogies poured in from across the nation within hours of her passing.

Gable plunged into deep depression, rapidly losing twenty pounds. Actress Esther Williams noted that Gable was never the same after Carole’s death. He confided to friends that he lost both his wife and his best friend that day. The Civil Aeronautics Board launched a full investigation and concluded that pilot error and the absence of beacon lights, which had been turned off to prevent Japanese attacks, were to blame.

But some found these explanations insufficient. Other theories arose. Director Orson Welles later shared that a security official told him Axis forces operating within the United States had shot down Carole’s plane, with the government covering it up to protect Americans of German descent. Others believed Carole had rushed home because she feared Gable was unfaithful while filming with Lana Turner.

Gable and Turner always denied any romantic connection. Carole’s final film, To Be or Not to Be, a satire of the Nazis, had just finished production. Director Ernst Lubitsch completed and released it with a few minor adjustments, notably removing Carole’s line, What can happen on a plane? The film did not perform well at the box office, but critics praised Carole’s performance, deeming it a fitting end to her brilliant, sadly all too brief career.

Her final days had highlighted her serious commitment to her country, raising money for the war effort, and she was laid to rest with a simple stone inscribed with the name Carole Lombard Gable.