{"id":2533,"date":"2023-11-24T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/der-bussard.de\/en\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2023-11-24T16:25:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T15:25:01","slug":"clark-gable-the-definition-of-american-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/der-bussard.de\/en\/2023\/11\/24\/clark-gable-the-definition-of-american-masculinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Clark Gable: The definition of American masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
He was once called the “King of Hollywood”: Clark Gable is without question one of the most famous stars of 20th century cinema. It is said that his first screen test at MGM Studios did not necessarily convince the producers \u2013 it was believed that Clark Gable’s ears were “too big” to become a movie star.\u00a0 Clark Gable started acting in his early twenties: The actress Josephine Dillon (1884 \u2013 1971) took the young Clark Gable under her wing, trained the young Gable in the various disciplines of acting and paid for his treatment by an orthodontist. Dillon became Clark Gable’s first wife a good two decades later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clark Gable’s mother died when he was just ten months old \u2013 his stepmother is said to have later played a major role in inspiring the young Gable for the arts. Gable also had a great fascination for car mechanics \u2013 it was not uncommon for him to repair cars together with his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Repairing cars was by no means Clark Gable’s only interest.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Beginnings as an actor<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
But repairing cars was by no means Clark Gable’s only interest: If one follows Chrystopher J. Spicer’s biography of Clark Gable, he is also believed to have harbored a fascination for Shakespeare at a young age and recited some of his sonnets in familiar surroundings.\u00a0 How did it happen that an actor who came from the country and was the prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of a veteran actress became the definition of American masculinity later in life? Clark Gable shaped the cinema of the time like no other \u2013 if a young actor was thinking of establishing himself as a leading man, he had to compete with Clark Gable at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without question, Josephine Dillon set herself the goal of turning Clark Gable into a sought-after actor: The two married in 1924 \u2013 it was a marriage against the conventions of the time, as Gable was 17 years younger than Dillon. Nevertheless, it was an important step for Clark Gable on his way to the top: he scored his first success as an actor in 1928 when he took on a leading role in the Broadway play Machinal<\/em>. Before that, he had already played smaller roles in the silent films Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ<\/em> (1925) and The Merry Widow <\/em>(1925). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ideal of “American masculinity”<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Many actors’ careers at the time began on Broadway: Broadway theaters were regularly visited by impresarios looking for new talent for the movies. Although Clark Gable had already appeared in several silent films, MGM producers were unsure whether Clark Gable would be the right actor to carry MGM films as the male lead in the future: However, his role in the low-budgeted western The Painted Desert<\/em> (1931) \u2013 also his sound film debut \u2013 proved MGM executives wrong: They recognized potential in the young Clark Gable, especially as a new generation of actors entered the field with the advent of the talkies. Many veteran silent film actors found it difficult to adapt to the sound film genre and disappeared into insignificance in droves \u2013 this meant that there were numerous new opportunities for young actors like Clark Gable. From then on, it became Clark Gable’s specialty to portray relatively aggressive types of men on the screen and thus present the audience with an ideal of “American masculinity”. Clark Gable himself was probably not the kind of man he usually portrayed on screen \u2013 at some point, Hollywood studios also realized that Clark Gable could not be portrayed as an unapproachable, deeply “masculine” stereotype forever… <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/picture><\/div>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/der-bussard.de\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/11\/NL-HaNA_2.24.01.03_0_905-9792-groot-1004x1024.jpg\")