Carole Lombard was a celebrated film star of the 1930s and 1940s, most noted for her comedic performances in the beloved “screwball comedies†of the day. Born Jane Alice Peters to a wealthy family in Indiana, Carole effortlessly broke into show business after being spotted by a Hollywood film director when she was just a teenager. This led to an early success in a movie called “Marriage in Transit“, with Edmund Lowe, followed by a stint as one of Mack Sennett’s “Bathing Beauties.” After being signed by Paramount, she was paired with the dapper “Thin Man†of the screen, William Powell, to whom she was married for a couple of years. Generally regarded as fun-loving and egalitarian, Carole Lombard was also the highest paid Hollywood star in the late 1930s. She embarked upon a relationship with the “King of Hollywoodâ€, Clark Gable, in 1936 and they married in 1939 after he was able to obtain a very expensive divorce from his second wife. This was generally acknowledged to be the happiest period of Carole Lombard’s short life. In early 1942, having completed a successful war bond tour, her plane crashed and she died along with 21 other passengers, including her mother. It is most telling that Clark Gable, who married twice more after her death, was interred next to Carole Lombard when he died.
