Carole Lombard came to Hollywood from the Midwest at the age of 7 and was making Westerns at Fox by age 9.
The legendary star of such classics as “My Man Godfrey” and “Twentieth Century” would rise to become a high-paid performer in the middle of the Depression. Lombard was known for her tomboy style, for throwing great parties, for her marriages to megastars William Powell and Clark Gable. She was also destined to be Hollywood’s first casualty of World War II. She was only 33 and at the peak of her career.
“Carole Lombard gave her life in the service of America,” Will Hays, president of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, told Variety in January 1942 as the shock of Lombard’s death in a plane crash outside Las Vegas spread through the industry.
