Clark Gable was the archetypal Hollywood gentleman, the kind of man red-blooded women lusted after, and who 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 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, such as the actors Earl Larimore, Johnny Mack Brown, William Haines, and Rod LaRocque - 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 subsequently embarrassed the U.S. government. Like an earlier paternity suit, also revealed here in full detail, it was an excercise dreamed up by studio chief Louis B. Mayer to prove that Gable was a "regular guy," in an age when many thought gay or bisexual men were physically incapable of fathering children or fighting in a war.
3 Reasons To buy this book
Did you know that Gable was bisexual?
Gable was a star unlike any before him
It is a detailed look at the old Hollywood machine
Buck, how can you point out such glaring mistakes and still accept David Bret's claims about Gable's bisexuality? Even I, a wise, old homosexual, find it difficult to trust Bret when he cannot get the simplest facts straight. How can we take his word that Gable was guilty of the "sin that made Jesus puke?"
Clark Gable Revealed
Buck wrote on 12/25/2007:
This was an interesting read. However, the author, David Bret, did get some things wrong, viz., he claims Marilyn Monroe did not attend Gable's funeral. However, a documentary on Monroe's life which I saw recently clearly showed her dressed in black (including hat and sunglasses) entering his services. Bret also wrongly states on page 196 that Ronald Colman beat out Gable for the Oscar with 1939's "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" when in fact the actor in that film who won was Robert Donat. He also insults one of this country's finest actors, Burt Lancaster, by referring to him as a "Hollywood beefcake star" which is a ridiculous way to refer to an actor of such a broad range who held his own costarring with some of the best actors in the business--Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Shirley Booth, Anna Mangani, ad absurdum. Then at page 237 Bret drops the ball again when he claims Carol Baker, the star of "Baby Doll" had starred in "Lolita" when that, in fact, was Sue Lyon. Forgiving all those errors, the behind the scenes dish on Gable's affairs with men and dish on Elvis Presley's gay romps with actor Nick Adams (page 235) was well worth the price of this book.
