Thursday, Jan. 10, 2002 | 8:18 a.m.
During the 1930s Carole Lombard, the glamorous queen of screwball-comedy movies, was one of the highest-paid actresses of her time.
The outspoken and clever blonde first carved her comedic niche in the Mack Sennett-directed comedies, then went on to appear in more than 50 movies, starring opposite such leading men as Jimmy Stewart, William Powell and John Barrymore.
Offscreen, she was a sharp-witted practical joker who was down to earth and enjoyed hanging out with the guys. There are critics today who say her onscreen talent for mixing comedy and drama have yet to be rivaled.
But 60 years almost to the day the anniversary is Wednesday after the 33-year-old actress was killed in a commercial airliner crash on Mount Potosi, southwest of Las Vegas, her name is largely forgotten. Some say that if it wasn't for her highly publicized affair and marriage to Clark Gable, the name Lombard wouldn't register at all.
"There are too many generations that have come and gone who didn't know anything about her," said local aviation archaeologist Robb Hill, who has researched and written several articles on the Lombard crash.
Had she survived, Hill said, Lombard would have been hugely popular.
Lombard's final movie, "To Be Or Not To Be," was released the month following her death on Jan. 16, 1942. The film was considered by critics to be her best performance.
Similar to Gable, Lombard was patriotic and had eagerly stepped forward to use her celebrity status to promote the war effort.
"She would have been 37 when the war was over," Hill said. "She would have gotten a lot of publicity during the war. This would have been a springboard to go back into acting."
But that never happened.
On that fateful day, Lombard had finished a successful war-bonds drive in her home state of Indiana. She was heading back to Los Angeles on TWA Flight 3 when the plane crashed around 7:30 p.m., killing everyone on board, including 15 military servicemen, Lombard's mother Elizabeth, and Otto Winkler, a representative from MGM, the studio with which Lombard worked.
"All you could see was orange in the sky," said local attorney Rex Bell Jr., who was 8 years old at the time and living 65 miles away from the crash site at Walking Box Ranch near Searchlight with his actor-parents, Rex Bell and Clara Bow.
"A group of people from Las Vegas went up there immediately," Bell said.
But rescuers would have to wait until morning to make their way up the steep, rocky terrain to assess the damage and carry down the bodies.
Meanwhile Gable had flown to Las Vegas to await news of the crash. During the rescue efforts, he remained at the base of the mountain.
Pilot error
The crash shocked a nation still stunned by the Pearl Harbor attack the month prior. Because it involved members of the military and a notable actress on a war-bonds drive, many, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, were suspicious of sabotage. An intensive investigation ensued.
Joseph Szigeti, a Hungarian violinist who had given up his seat on the plane for a military member, was a suspect. But several months later it was determined that pilot error caused the crash.
The flight had been scheduled to stop and refuel in Boulder City that evening. But because it was running behind schedule, and the Boulder City location was pitch black at night, the two pilots decided to land instead at at the Western Air Terminal at the Las Vegas Army Airfield, now Nellis Air Force Base.
The DC-3 was refueled, then departed for California.
The pilots, however, failed to change the departure and altitude settings that had been set when the plane was expected to leave from Boulder City, said Doug Scroggins, a local aviation archaeologist who has collected artifacts from the site for museum purposes. Scroggins is working to put together a memorial marker to recognize those who died on Flight 3.
"If it was in Boulder City, the mountain would have been way off to the right, by about 15 to 20 miles," Scroggins said.
Instead the plane slammed into the mountain, crumpled, then slid down.
It took several days to bring the bodies down. Gable reportedly came to Las Vegas with friend Spencer Tracy. Gable mourned at a hotel and a Goodsprings saloon while waiting for the bodies and belongings to be retrieved from the mountain.
Because of the gruesome scene on Mount Potosi, friends and authorities refused to let Gable go up the mountain.
Shortly after the crash, it was reported that Lombard was recognized by president Franklin D. Roosevelt as a national hero, and the country was grieving with Gable.
The Hollywood connection
Though the story of the crash long ago lost its luster and place of importance in Southern Nevada history, Guy Rocha, Nevada state archivist in Carson City, said it represents a tragic chapter of Las Vegas' link to Hollywood.
The 1939 divorce between Gable and his wife, Ria Langham, a wealthy socialite, had already drawn national attention to Las Vegas, making the city a viable competitor to Reno for divorces, Rocha said. Langham had lived in Las Vegas six weeks prior to the divorce to establish residency. She befriended the locals and dealt cards at casinos.
"Celebrities were finding Las Vegas in the 1930s," Rocha said. "What Vegas was trying to do at that time was promote itself and the Hollywood connection. The public relations machine was running. Gable was part of that. Lombard was part of that, too."
By the time Langham and Gable were divorced, Gable and Lombard had already become one of Hollywood's hottest couples. They met while filming the 1932 movie "No Man of Her Own." Four years later they met again at a party and began a love affair that filled the tabloids.
After Gable's divorce, Gable and Lombard were married in Kingman, Ariz., and settled into a 20-acre ranch in Encino, Calif. Though Gable was married twice before and twice after Lombard, the actress was considered the love of his life.
"I can't think about too many couples that brought (as much) attention to themselves as Gable and Lombard," Rocha said. "When the tragedy happened, it was a dark ending for something (Las Vegas) had been tracking for years."
When Gable died in 1960 at age 59, he was buried beside Lombard at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif.
At the time of Lombard's death, Rocha said, many shared Gable's heartache.
"Their silver-screen hero was wounded. Carole was the love of his life. He mourned her loss all the rest of his life," he said.
Those who remember
At the Lowden Veterans Center and Museum in Las Vegas, a display features items that archeologist Hill recovered from the crash.
Hair barrettes, belt buckles, garter belt fasteners, molten pieces of aluminum, a pilot's control column from the DC-3 and spark plugs are displayed, along with a Jan. 17, 1942, edition Boston Evening Globe newspaper article on the crash.
At his home, Hill keeps items from the wreckage, including a piece of a TWA drinking cup, a section of a wind vent from above a seat and a framed photo of Lombard, along with a copy of a photo and receipt autographed by Lombard that was given to each person who filed an order for a war bond.
Hill said that last year he brought Gable's son, John Clark Gable, to the crash site. Though much of the wreckage has been removed, there are still two engines, landing-gear parts, pieces of aluminum and personal effects on Mount Potosi.
However, Hill said, "If you don't know where it is, you could search Mount Potosi for years and never find it. It's just like a sacred, secret place."
For many who remember the story of Gable and Lombard, a stop at the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings is good enough.
The stamped-tin saloon, built in 1913, is where Gable is reported to have waited for the bodies and any personal belongings to be brought down from the mountain.
"We get people from all over the world," Vicki Boyung, bartender at the saloon, said. "People come from Australia, China, all over Europe."
Tourists asking about Lombard and Gable is a standard conversation starter, she said. "That's one of the first things they ask about."
In fact, saloon owner Don Hedrick said a tour bus scheduled to arrive at the saloon in March will be filled with tourists from California who are interested in the place's Gable and Lombard connection.
Inside the saloon, a copy of the Fort Wayne Indiana Journal Gazette reporting the crash is hung on the wall near a list of the military officers who died in the tragedy, and a Gable and Lombard wedding picture.
A melted piece of fuselage from the plane has become a permanent fixture on the bar's stove, and according to local lore the cigar burns on the end of the wooden bar were from Gable.
Boyung said she doesn't foresee a day when patrons will no longer ask about Lombard.
"It's been 60 years and it's still happening," she said.
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