What a great story she had, a tremendous shame she died at just 33 years old. Like so many stars of that era, her parents divorced when she was 8. Her mom moved the family out to Los Angeles. A tomboy, she was spotted at age 12 playing baseball in the street with a group of boys by a movie director! Made one movie, went back to regular life until in her late teens.
Became a mega-star in the ’30s. Married Clark Gable (the ‘king of Hollywood’). When WW II (the big one) started, she immediately dropped everything to become the #1 war bond sales lady. Was taking a return flight back to LA from Vegas, a night flight, when they crashed into the side of a mountain. Her mom who also died on the flight, had had a premonition about the crash. They’d tossed a coin to see if they’d go on the flight and Carole won.
What’s sad is I couldn’t tell you a movie that she made. I couldn’t have told you what she looked like. It was only a ‘this day in history’ (January 16) post that brought her to mind. Being a boomer I’d heard her name, but that’s about it. One thing I’ll say about the photos below is that classic Hollywood of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, knew how to photograph women. Maybe a lot of that is just me in that I really like B&W. I notice at the State Fair photo exhibit most people skim over the B&W’s to peruse the color photos.
What’s interesting about classic beauties like Carole, is that if you could take her out of those photos, and plop her into today she’d look just as great. Her hair, makeup, clothes, everything about her is timeless beauty. Just 20 years before these photos she was the 12 yr old playing baseball in the street.
Iowa life 
She was quite a woman!
The 1936 movie “My Man Godfrey” with William Powell is her best-known movie. It’s a comedy and a good movie. I agree that she was very beautiful and very photogenic. A true star and an American patriot. Yes, her death was very tragic and a great loss. Clark Gable was devastated. Oatman is a living ghost town in Arizona. She and Gable got married in Kingman, Arizona and honeymooned in Oatman. The room where they stayed has been preserved. Oatman was a gold mining town, and Gable used to go there on the old Route 66 to gamble, hunt, and whatever else he did.
Thanks Dawn, great info. I’ve seen bits of My Man Godfrey, I’ll have to pay attention next time. It did seem good. WW II had so many amazing stories. Like Glenn Miller dying on a plane trip while entertaining soldiers. On IMDB they said the mountain Carole’s plane crashed into normally had navigation lights on it, but they had turned them off fearing a Jap attack. My Grandma’s town of Weldon, Iowa (population 125) put plane spotters on top of the lumberyard with binoculars to watch out for Japanese Zeroes. The picture in my mind is 12 yr old Carole playing baseball in the street with the boys. Her face was injured in an auto accident. The plastic surgeons said at the time there would be less scaring if she didn’t use anesthesia. She went under surgery awake.
Wow! People were definitely stronger and had more guts back then!