Clark Gable
Style and reception

In a photo essay of Hollywood film stars, Life magazine called Gable, "All man... and then some."

Doris Day summed up Gable's unique personality: "He was as masculine as any man I've ever known, and as much a little boy as a grown man could be —it was this combination that had such a devastating effect on women."

An eight-time co-star, long-time friend and on-again, off-again romance, Joan Crawford concurred, stating on David Frost 's TV show in January 1970 that, "He was a king wherever he went. He earned the title. He walked like one, he behaved like one, and he was the most masculine man that I have ever met in my life. Gable had balls."

Robert Taylor said Gable "was a great, great guy, and certainly one of the great stars of all times, if not the greatest. I think that I sincerely doubt that there will ever be another like Clark Gable; he was one of a kind."

In his memoir Bring on the Empty Horses, David Niven states that Gable, a close friend, was extremely supportive after the sudden, accidental death of Niven's first wife, Primula (Primmie), in 1946. Primmie had supported Gable emotionally after Carole Lombard 's death four years earlier: Niven recounts Gable kneeling at Primmie's feet and sobbing while she held and consoled him. Niven also states that Arthur Miller, the author of The Misfits, had described Gable as "the man who did not know how to hate."

Gable has been criticized for altering aspects of a script he felt were in conflict with his image. Screenwriter Larry Gelbart, as quoted in James Garner 's biography stated that Gable, "... refused to go down with the submarine, because Gable doesn't sink." (In reference to Gable's film Run Silent, Run Deep). The novel's author, Capt. Beach, noted changes should be made among the crew to get a Hollywood audience and where a subsequent battle sequence was altered when he should have had script approval, feeling his book was bought by United Artists for its title.

Eli Wallach recalls in his 2006 autobiography The Good, The Bad and Me, that what he felt was one of his best dramatic scenes in The Misfits was cut from the script. Wallach's character is emotionally crushed when he visits Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe), and instead runs into Gable's character and realizes any hope with Roslyn is dashed. Gable asked (within his contractual rights) that the scene be removed, and when Wallach spoke to him, Gable explained he felt that "his character would never steal a woman from a friend."
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