200@200 : January - Iconic Fort Wayne
Date:
c. 1930s
Title:
Carole Lombard
Description:
The Hoosier Tornado: Carole Lombard (1908-1944)

Film Actress Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters on October 6, 1908 in a house on Rockhill Street in downtown Fort Wayne. At the age of eight she moved to California with her mother and brothers where she landed her first film role at the age of twelve. By the 1930s she had solidified her place as Hollywood royalty and was the epitome of glamour and sophistication. Lombard married another leading film star, Clark Gable, best known for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, in 1939.

A true patriot, Lombard raised a record $2 million for WWII assisting with selling war bonds. It was on a return flight from a war bond promotional tour in Indiana that she was tragically killed in a plane crash on January 16, 1942. Her mother and twenty others, including service men, were also killed. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Franklin D. Roosevelt declaring her the first woman killed in the line of duty during WWII. A Liberty Ship, the S.S. Carole Lombard, was named after her. These photographs depict Lombard in full Hollywood glamour as well as in her everyday life, horseback riding, skeet shooting and posing with Clark Gable the day after their wedding.
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Carole Lombard Stage Photograph, c. 1930sCarole Lombard Stage Photograph, c. 1930s
84.114.98 - Carole Lombard, c. 1930s84.114.98 - Carole Lombard, c. 1930s
84.114.104 - Carole Lombard Skeet Shooting, c. 193784.114.104 - Carole Lombard Skeet Shooting, c. 1937
84.114.107 - Carole Lombard Horseback Riding, 193784.114.107 - Carole Lombard Horseback Riding, 1937
84.114.108 - Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, March 30, 193984.114.108 - Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, March 30, 1939