Clark Gable arrived in Hollywood after a rough-and-tumble youth, and his breezy, big-boned, everyman persona quickly made him the town's king. He was a gambler among gamblers, a heavy drinker in the days when everyone drank seemingly all the time, and a lover to legions of the most attractive women in the most glamorous business in the world, including the great love of his life, Carole Lombard.

In this well-researched and revealing biography, Warren G. Harris gives an exceptionally acute portrait of one of the most memorable actors in the history of motion pictures--whose intimates...