Carole Lombard ─ Twentieth-Century Star

Carole Lombard was the very opposite of the typical 1930s starlet—she worked hard, took no prisoners and had a great passion for life. As a result, she became Hollywood’s highest-paid star. From the outside, Carole’s life was one of great glamour and fun, yet privately she endured heartache and despair. As a child, her mother moved Carole and her brothers across the country, away from their beloved father. Carole then began a film career, only to have it cut short after a devastating car accident. Picking herself back up, she was rocked by the accidental shooting of her lover; a failed marriage to actor William Powell; and then the heartache of infertility during her marriage to Clark Gable. Lombard put on a brave face and marched forward. Sadly her life was cut short in a plane crash so catastrophic that, to this day, pieces of the plane are still buried in the mountain where it happened, 75 years ago. This biography tells the story of a woman whose remarkable life and controversial death continue to enthrall.

Michelle Morgan is the author of The Ice Cream Blonde, The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals, and Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential.