Clark Gable: The King of Hollywood, Four Divorces, and a Secret Daughter Hidden for Decades
The King of Hollywood married five times, lost the love of his life in a plane crash, and hid a daughter for 31 years
Key Facts
What Happened
Clark Gable was the undisputed 'King of Hollywood' — the biggest male movie star of the 1930s and 1940s, winner of the Academy Award for 'It Happened One Night' (1934), and the star of 'Gone with the Wind' (1939). He was also married five times, and his romantic life was a tangle of ambition, tragedy, scandal, and one extraordinary secret that was not revealed for three decades.
His first wife, Josephine Dillon, was his acting coach — 17 years his senior — who married him in 1924 and groomed his career. When he outgrew her professionally, he divorced her in 1930 for Ria Langham, a wealthy Houston socialite who gave him the social polish and connections he needed to advance in Hollywood. He prolonged the expensive divorce from Langham until his salary from 'Gone with the Wind' enabled him to reach a settlement in 1939. Days later, he married Carole Lombard — the true love of his life.
The Gable-Lombard marriage was Hollywood's greatest love story. They were equals — both irreverent, funny, and unimpressed by Hollywood pretension. But the marriage lasted only three years. On January 16, 1942, Lombard's plane crashed into Mount Potosi near Las Vegas while she was returning from a war bond tour. She was 33 years old. Gable was devastated beyond consolation. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps and flew five combat missions over Germany, behavior many interpreted as a death wish. He never fully recovered.
But Gable's deepest secret predated Lombard. In 1935, while filming 'The Call of the Wild,' the married Gable had an affair with actress Loretta Young. Young became pregnant, hid her pregnancy by retreating from public life, and gave birth to a daughter, Judy Lewis, on November 6, 1935. Young concealed Judy's existence, later publicly claiming she had 'adopted' the child. Judy did not learn the truth until 1966, when Young finally told her. Gable never publicly acknowledged Judy as his daughter. The secret was not confirmed publicly until Young's authorized biography was published after her death in 2000. Gable married twice more — Lady Sylvia Ashley (1949-1952) and Kay Williams (1955) — before dying of a heart attack on November 16, 1960, at age 59. His son John Clark Gable was born four months later.
Legal Breakdown: Celebrity Divorce
Strategic Timing of Divorce Settlements
Gable deliberately prolonged his divorce from Ria Langham until he had the financial resources from 'Gone with the Wind' to afford the settlement. This is a common strategy in high-income divorces: timing the filing or settlement to align with income events. However, courts are increasingly sophisticated about detecting income manipulation. Conversely, delaying divorce can also increase the marital estate — and therefore the amount subject to division. The decision of when to divorce has enormous financial implications.
Paternity and Secret Children
Gable's unacknowledged daughter Judy Lewis represents one of Hollywood's most painful paternity secrets. Under modern law, paternity can be established through DNA testing, and children have legal rights to inheritance from biological parents regardless of whether the parent acknowledged them. In Gable's era, no such testing existed, and paternity was essentially a matter of acknowledgment. Today, a secret child can make inheritance claims against an estate, complicating divorce and estate proceedings significantly.
Grief, Trauma, and Subsequent Marriages
Gable's marriages after Lombard's death — to Sylvia Ashley and Kay Williams — were widely seen as attempts to fill an unfillable void. Marrying while still grieving a previous spouse is a recognized risk factor for divorce. Grief counselors and family law attorneys alike recommend that individuals wait at least one to two years after a significant loss before making major relationship decisions. Gable's post-Lombard marriages demonstrate that unresolved grief does not disappear when you say 'I do' — it simply takes up residence in the new marriage.
What This Means for Your Divorce
- →The timing of a divorce filing or settlement has significant financial implications. Consult with a financial advisor as well as a divorce attorney.
- →Under modern law, biological children have inheritance rights regardless of whether they were publicly acknowledged. Secret children can disrupt estate plans decades later.
- →Do not marry while still grieving a previous partner's death or a previous divorce. Unresolved grief will undermine the new relationship.
- →First marriages built on professional ambition (like Gable's with Dillon and Langham) often end when the professional goals are achieved. Build relationships on genuine connection, not convenience.
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This article is based on publicly available court records, news reports, and legal analysis. It is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this content.
Divorce laws vary by jurisdiction. Always consult a licensed attorney in your area before making legal decisions.