Chrystopher J. Spicer – författare

"Clark Gable is a man de-classed. You can't guess in any way where he came from or what he was." Frank Taylor, producer of Gable's last film, The Misfits (1961), said this of the man who, to many people, will forever be Southern gentleman Rhett Butler of Gone with the Wind. This work tells Gable's life story, from his birth in 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to his death in 1960 in Hollywood. It chronicles his stage career, and of course gives information on every one of his films. His family background, his development as a person, the many romances including five marriages, and his relationships with friends and co-workers are all explored in detail. The sources used and the bibliography are fully annotated.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed horse trainer and show rider Martha Crawford Cantarini was among the busiest of Hollywood's elite corps of female stunt riders. She was the regular stunt double for such actresses as Eleanor Parker, Anne Baxter

Pioneer aviatrix Jessie "Chubbie" Miller made a significant contribution to aviation history. The first woman to fly from England to her native Australia (as co-pilot with her close friend Captain Bill Lancaster), she was also the first woman to fly more than 8000 miles, to cross the equator in the air and to traverse the Australian continent north to south.Moving to America, Miller was a popular member of a group of female aviators that included Amelia Earhart, Bobby Trout, Pancho Barnes and Louise Thaden. As a competitor in international air races and a charter member of the first organization for women flyers, the Ninety-Nines, she quickly became famous. Her career was interrupted by her involvement in Lancaster's sensational Miami trial for the murder of her lover, Haden Clarke, and by Lancaster's disappearance a few years later while flying across the Sahara desert.

From the very beginning of Clark Gable's screen career, the life of the glamorous film star came under the scrutiny of the camera. While audiences are familiar with the public Gable as seen through the studio lens, the private Gable as seen in photos taken by members of the public, friends, and family is much less known.This collection of candid photographs, many of them published here for the first time, has been compiled by biographer Chrystopher J. Spicer from his archives and from sources around the world. As with Spicer's acclaimed centenary biography Clark Gable (McFarland, 2002), this volume provides rare insight into the life of the man behind the star.