1 Gable, Clark: Image; Self-Image; Star

Gable had erotic menace in his villainous role in A Free Soul.  This was the perf that made him a star.

Unlike Wayne, Gable rarely did have male mates or male friends of the Hawks or Ford type; his friends were women.

Gable gave the public what the studio thought the public wanted.

He did not rebel; he helped propagate the myth himself.

Gable told Adela Rogers St. Johns what he thought the public wanted:

“They see me broke, in trouble, scared of things that go bumb in the night but coming out fighting..

They see life with a high price tag on it, but they get an idea that no proce is  too high if it’s life…

I’m not going to make any motion pictures that dont keep rigt on telling them that about a man. Lets get that understood. The thng a man has to have are hope and confidence in himselfst against odds, and so etimes he needs somebody, his pal or his mother or his wife r God, to give him that confidence. He’s got to have some inner standardsworth fighting for or there won’t be any way to being him into conflict. And he must be reasy to choose death before dishoor without making too much song and dance about it (Lynn)