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40 Insights into the Lives of Famous War Veterans

Khalid Elhassan July 13, 2019 26 min

11. Clark Gable quit Hollywood and helped bomb Germany

Clark Gable with Vivien Leigh in ‘Gone With the Wind’. Wikimedia

Clark Gable, once known as “The King of Hollywood”, quit school at age 16 to work in a tire factory, then tired of that and decided to become an actor after seeing a play. He starred in over 60 movies, and is perhaps best known for his role as Rhett Butler in the blockbuster Gone With the Wind. He also he won a Best Actor Oscar for his lead in It Happened One Night. When America entered WWII, Gable was Hollywood’s biggest star, as well as it biggest box office draw. That didn’t stop him from taking a break from acting, to fight the Axis.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.