Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado (Indiana Biography Series) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Nobody did it better. She did not invent the type, the scatterbrained blond who spoke faster than she thought, but Carole Lombard made it her own. When I think of her my mind wanders first to My Man Godfrey (1936), a film that without Lombard would be forgotten today. Except for a few fine character performances, and a couple patches of nice writing, it is not really that good of a film. But her breathless charm, her inability to finish a sentence without gasping for air or mouth a sentence that seems to contain a period, carries the entire production. Five minutes into the film the viewer is hooked. How could William Powell, or anyone else, resist her? I cannot imagine another actress in the role without wincing, nor can I picture anyone but Lombard being able to carry Ernst Lubitsch's brilliant, sardonic, and poignant To Be or Not To Be (1942). The two films illuminate another vital aspect of Lombard: She brought out the best in her leading men. William Powell and, particularly, Jack Benny were never better. Although Lombard lacked the range of Barbara Stanwyck, she is like Stanwyck in the respect that their finest films are ageless, as fresh today as they were in the 1930s and 1940s.

Wes D. Gehring's Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado is a brief, valuable examination of Lombard's life and films. Part of the recently inaugurated Indiana Biography Series, it reminds us that she was born Jane Alice Peters on October 6, 1908, in Fort Wayne, though Indiana only played the part of bookends in her life. Her mother relocated the family--sans husband--to California when the future star was still a young girl, and, of course, Lombard was returning from Indianapolis to Los Angeles after a war bond drive appearance when the plane she was in crashed west of Las Vegas. She died on January 17, 1942, three months after her thirty-third birthday. What was most important about her life, the films she dominated as an actress in the years between 1934 and 1942, had almost nothing to do with Indiana.

Gehring, a professor of film, does not take a fashionable academic approach to Lombard's career. Today, more than ever before, writing about movies is divided between two poles: the theoretically oriented and the biographically inclined. Gehring largely goes the biographical route. He traces Lombard's early career, her automobile accident that scarred her face (never very noticeable) and changed her conception of herself, her marriages to William Powell and Clark Gable, and her salty language and fine sense of humor. But most of his biography is devoted to her films, her relationships with cast members and directors. What emerges is the portrait of an actress caught between worlds. We use the word "Hollywood" with exquisite imprecision. Is it a place, an industry, a product, or a state of mind? It is all these things--and more. It is worlds inside worlds--worlds of agents and producers, directors and stars, the Cocoanut Grove circle and the Ronald Colman clique. Lombard maneuvered through these various worlds, attempting to define herself when everyone else (mostly powerful men) wanted to control her. It all makes for an interesting story--a Hollywood story about Hollywood.

So this is the first book in a long time to be devoted solely to Lombard. In fact, it's been over 30 years since there has been any great interest in her. In the early and mid-70s there were a rash of books: Frederick Ott published 'The Films of Carole Lombard', Warren Harris published 'Gable and Lombard' - a poor film adaptation was made with Jill Clayburgh and James Brolin. Joe Morella published, 'Gable & Lombard & Powell & Harlow' and Leonard Maltin published 'Carole Lombard'. Then Larry Swindell published 'Screwball' - the only true biography of Lombard, which was also published during a time when so many of her peers were still around to be interviewed. Lyn Tornabene's bio of Clark Gable, 'Long Live the King' was published during this time and contains perhaps the best descriptions of Carole Lombard ever - sort of a bio within a bio. Several years ago, there was a glimmer of hope when Robert Matzen published a bio-bibliography of Carole Lombard. It was a rather dry read and suffered from odd print - but it was afterall, a bio-bibliography and so it was good in that respect. So, Gehring's book is really the first of its kind since Swindell's 'Screwball.'

I agree that Carole Lombard deserves so much more - and she should be able to stand alone (not just as the star-crossed, glamorous appendage of Clark Gable). I haven't given up hope yet! Although this book is not the best read, having it out there is very important and fans must keep in mind that the author was probably limited to the publishing house's resources. If you enjoy Lombard's movies and don't know much about her, this book is a good starting point.