This day in history: Clark Gable was born on this day [February 1] in 1901. Gable often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. Gable died of a heart attack at the age of 59; his final on-screen appearance was as an aging cowboy in The Misfits, released posthumously in 1961. Despite his reluctance to play the role, Gable is best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in the Academy Award-winning best picture Gone with the Wind (1939).
Clark Gable was also one of many Republicans that dominated early Hollywood. Gable however kept quiet about his political views, and he even married a liberal Democratic activist, Carole Lombard, who cajoled him into supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. "While it may seem as though Hollywood has always been liberal, it hasn’t. Very few people today realize that at one point in the development of American cinema, conservatives ruled the movie-making industry. Even today, conservative celebrities make successful movies for their millions of fans. Santa Monica College Professor Larry Ceplair, co-author of 'The Inquisition in Hollywood,' wrote that during the ‘20s and ‘30s, most studio heads were conservative Republicans who spent millions of dollars to block union and guild organizing. Likewise, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Moving Picture Machine Operators, and the Screen Actors Guild were all headed by conservatives, as well." Source
Other movie stars that were Republicans were: Ginger Rogers, James Cagney, Fred Astaire, Loretta Young, Jane Russell, James Stewart, Lou Costello, Charlton Heston, William Holden, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Pat Boone, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra (he endorsed Ronald Reagan), Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley Temple, Hedda Hopper, Ronald Reagan (of course), Walter Brennan, Gloria Swanson, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Doris Day, Eva Gabor, Steve McQueen, Jerry Lewis, Jane Wyman, Claudette Colbert, Betty Grable, Mickey Rooney, Rosalind Russell, Red Skelton, Robert Mitchum, Cesar Romero, Joan Crawford, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Merman, Walter Pidgeon, William Powell, Agnes Moorehead, Glenn Ford, Buster Keaton, Fred MacMurray, Dean Martin, Lillian Gish, Yvonne De Carlo, Fay Wray, Maureen O'Hara and Lionel Barrymore to name but a few.
There are many Libertarian celebrities as well, such as Clint Eastwood, Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Kurt Russell, Penn & Teller, Raquel Welch, Denis Leary, John Malkovich, Christina Ricci, Keanu Reeves, Drew Carey, Frank Zappa, Vince Vaughn, Kelly Clarkson, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Gary Oldman, Dwight Yoakam etc.
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