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Marriages and children

Gable married five times and was linked romantically to many other women. His first engagement was to actress Franz Dorfler when he was about 21. Dorfler introduced Gable to Josephine Dillon, who would become his acting coach, manager, and then his wife. When Gable and Dillon married on December 13, 1924 in California, Gable was 23 and Dillon was 40; the couple divorced in 1930. His second wife was Texas socialite Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham Gable (nicknamed "Ria"). The couple married on June 19, 1931 in California and divorced on March 7, 1939. Thirteen days after his divorce from Maria, Gable married actress Carole Lombard during a production break on Gone with the Wind.

Carole Lombard

Gable's relationship with and marriage in 1939 to his third wife, actress Carole Lombard (1908–1942), was one of the happiest periods of his personal life. They met while filming 1932's No Man of Her Own, when Lombard was still married to actor William Powell. A Gable and Lombard romance did not take off until 1936, after becoming reacquainted at a party. They were soon inseparable, with fan magazines and tabloids citing them as an official couple.

Gable thrived being around Lombard's youthful, charming, and frank personality, once stating:

You can trust that little screwball with your life or your hopes or your weaknesses, and she wouldn't even know how to think about letting you down.

Gable was still legally married, having prolonged an expensive divorce from his second wife, Ria Langham, until his salary from Gone with the Wind enabled him to reach a divorce settlement with her on March 7, 1939. On March 29, during a production break on Gone with the Wind, Gable and Lombard were married in Kingman, Arizona, and honeymooned in room 1201 of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. They purchased a ranch previously owned by director Raoul Walsh in Encino, California, for $50,000 making it their home. The couple, who lovingly referred to each other as "Ma and Pa", owned a menagerie of animals and raised chickens and horses there.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor many Hollywood stars joined the war effort, some such as James Stewart signing up for active duty. Carole Lombard sent a telegram to President Roosevelt on behalf of Gable expressing his interest in doing so, but F.D.R. thought the 41-year-old actor could best serve by increased patriotic roles in movies and bond drives, which Lombard tirelessly began.

On January 16, 1942, Lombard was a passenger on Transcontinental and Western Air Flight 3 with her mother and press agent Otto Winkler. She had just finished her 57th movie, To Be or Not to Be, and was on her way home from a successful war bond selling tour when the flight's Douglas DC-3 airliner crashed into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all 22 passengers aboard, including 15 servicemen en route to training in California. Gable flew to the crash site to claim the bodies of his wife, mother-in-law, and Winkler, who had been the best man at Gable and Lombard's wedding. Lombard was declared to be the first war-related American female casualty of World War II, and Gable received a personal note of condolence from President Roosevelt. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation into the crash concluded that pilot error was its cause.

Gable returned to their Encino ranch and carried out her funeral wishes as she had requested in her will. A month later, he returned to the studio to work with Lana Turner in their second movie together, Somewhere I'll Find You. Having lost 20 pounds since the tragedy, Gable evidently was emotionally and physically devastated, but Turner stated that Gable remained a "consummate professional" for the duration of filming. He acted in 27 more films, and remarried twice more. "But he was never the same", according to Esther Williams. "He had been devastated by Carole's death."

Sylvia Ashley

In 1949, Gable married Sylvia Ashley, an English model and actress who was the widow of Douglas Fairbanks; the couple divorced in 1952.

Kay Spreckels

In 1955, Gable married Kay Spreckels (née Kathleen Williams), a thrice-married former fashion model and actress who had previously been married to sugar-refining heir Adolph B. Spreckels Jr.

Four months after his 1960 death, Kay Gable gave birth to his only biological son, John Clark Gable. John Clark raced cars and trucks most notably in the Baja 500 and 1000, turning down Hollywood offers to act until Bad Jim (1990), a straight-to-video film. By 1999, his work with the Clark Gable Foundation helped restore the house in which his father was born in Cadiz, Ohio, and open it as a museum. John Clark had two children: Kayley Gable (born 1986) and Clark James Gable (1988–2019). Kayley is an actress, while Clark James was the host of two seasons of the nationally syndicated reality show Cheaters. Clark James died of a drug overdose at age 30 on February 22, 2019.

Relationship with Loretta Young

During the filming of The Call of the Wild in early 1935, the film's lead actress, Loretta Young, became pregnant with Gable's child. Clark Gable had allegedly slept with Young while on an overnight train from a studio location to Hollywood. Their daughter, Judy Lewis, was born on November 6, 1935, in Venice, California. Young hid her pregnancy in an elaborate scheme. Nineteen months after the birth, she claimed to have adopted the baby. Most in Hollywood (and some in the general public) believed Gable was Lewis' father because of their strong resemblance and the timing of her birth. In 1950, Gable came to her mother's house to visit her briefly. Gable asked Lewis about her life and then, upon leaving, kissed her on her forehead. It was the only time that Lewis ever spoke to Gable and, at the time, she had no idea that he was her father.

As an adult, Lewis spoke of the confusion, isolation and alienation she felt within her own family while growing up. Five years after Gable's death, when confronted by Judy Lewis, Loretta Young said that she was Lewis' biological mother and that Gable was her father by an affair. Young died on August 12, 2000; her autobiography, published posthumously, confirmed that Gable was indeed Lewis' father. Judy Lewis died of cancer at age 76 on November 25, 2011. In 2015, Young's daughter-in-law alleged that Young had said in 1998 that Judy Lewis was conceived by date rape. Young had previously admitted to an affair with Gable, which was a known secret in Hollywood at the time. Young's family had chosen to remain silent about the information until both Young and Lewis were deceased; they went public with the information four years after Lewis' death.