And then the first star was born Liked by men, loved by women, Clark Gable was the macho actor who went on to be the 'King of Hollywood'. On his centenary, Alison Kerr recalls the original screen pin-up

In just about every quote about him, Gable, whose centenary week this is, is described in terms of his sexual magnetism. Joan Crawford, his one-time lover and frequent co-star, said: ''He was the most masculine male I have ever met in my life.'' Men were also impressed by Gable. Samuel Marx, the story editor on Gone With the Wind (1939), has talked about his ''marvellous sense of power and authority'' and the fact that ''everything about him was manly''.

In her autobiography, Doris Day, who starred with him, late in his life, in Teacher's Pet (1958), said: ''He had very big hands, and a thick, large-boned physique that gave him a great dimension. There was something very affirmative about him, and a directness that suggested great inner strength.''

Clearly, it was this combination of his down-to-earth nature, rugged good looks, imposing physique, and sexual magnetism which made Gable a hit both on-screen and off. The fact that he was a fine actor was just a bonus - not that Gable ever appreciated his own talent.

William Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, on February 1, 1901. He was raised

mostly by his father and stepmother, as his

mother died when he was just seven months old. After a stint with his father as an oil-driller in Oklahoma, he joined a theatrical group in 1922. Two years later he met and married the actress and stage director, Josephine Dillon. The first of many mother figures to succeed his beloved stepmother, Dillon, who was 39 when they

married, did more than anyone else to mould Gable into star material. She helped him to develop as an actor, taught him how to carry himself, persuaded him to take the name Clark, and paid for dental work so that he could smile without feeling self-conscious, revealing his trademark dimples in the process.

Although he had a couple of bit parts in movies in the 1920s, Gable was happiest on the stage. In 1928, he met Ria Langham, a wealthy Texan divorcee who was 17 years his senior. She continued what the Svengali-like Dillon had started, and was also indirectly responsible for his landing his first proper film role, in the

western The Painted Desert, in 1931 - by which time she had become the second Mrs Gable.

Gable joined MGM later that year, and

quickly came to be regarded as the king of Hollywood. From 1932 until 1943 he was always in the top 10 of box-office draws, and women went gaga for his rough-and-ready screen persona and authoritative, but cheeky, manner. His first big success was in the sexually- charged, pre-censorship, Red Dust (1932), opposite blonde bombshell Jean Harlow.

However, the film which made him Hollywood's hottest property was not made at MGM. As punishment for refusing an assignment, Gable was packed off to Columbia to star in Frank Capra's screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934). He won an Oscar for his performance as Peter Warne, the cocky newshound who travels cross-country with runaway heiress Claudette Colbert.

Warne was the definitive Gable character: petulant, pig-headed, arrogant, mischievous - and immensely likeable. His dealings with the opposite sex set the tone for Gable's future films: women perplexed him and he handled them as if they were naughty children. His behaviour could border on the threatening, and was occasionally violent, but by feigning contempt or indifference towards them, he seemed to make himself even more irresistible. He played the kind of guy who likes to take charge, but because most of his leading ladies were strong personalities themselves, they usually got the better of him. Witness It Happened One Night's celebrated hitch-hiking scene in which Claudette Colbert proved that a shapely ''limb is mightier than the thumb'' when it comes to stopping traffic.

Of course, Gable's best-known character is Gone With the Wind's Rhett Butler, but it was a part he was reluctant to accept, despite the fact that movie fans all over the States demanded that he play it. He later said: ''That's the only picture I ever did in which the girl wasn't sure she wanted me the moment she saw me.'' Always more at ease in adventure pictures, Gable was terrified of anything that might dent his macho image. He was deeply insecure about revealing a gentler side.

Myrna Loy wrote in her autobiography: ''He loved poetry, and read beautifully, with great sensitivity, but he wouldn't let anybody else know it. He was afraid people would think him weak or effeminate.'' She believed that he was ''cursed by the macho thing'', and that ultimately it killed him because he refused to let anyone stand in for him when he was playing the ageing horse wrangler in The Misfits, which was filmed in the sweltering Nevada desert. He suffered a massive heart attack and died on November 16, 1960, just weeks before the birth of his only son.

By that time, Gable had finally found some happiness - with his fifth wife - having been, as Loy put it, ''beyond consolation'' when the love of his life, the radiant comedienne Carole Lombard, died in a plane crash in 1942. His premature death meant that rather than sliding into supporting roles or into the kind of

paternal roles that were the fate of many of his contemporaries, Gable will always be remembered as the virile, attractive man who was still making women swoon three decades into his movie career.

Hush-ups, seductions, and 'a fine set of masculine teeth'

During the filming of Call of the Wild (1935), Gable fathered Loretta Young's child, but the whole thing was hushed up. Young disappeared from Hollywood and returned two years later with a toddler whom she claimed to have adopted. Judy Lewis wrote a book about her parentage in 1994, but Young continued to deny that Gable was the father. In Young's official autobiography, which was published last year, three months after her death, she finally admitted that it was true.

Gable sang and danced Puttin' On the Ritz in the 1939 film Idiot's Delight.

He tried to seduce most of his leading ladies. Among the actresses who claimed to have turned him down are Myrna Loy, Helen Hayes, Maureen O'Sullivan. Those who didn't include Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, and Loretta Young.

Carole Lombard, Gable's third

wife, died in a plane crash

while returning from a war

bond-selling tour, in 1942. As soon as he could, Gable joined the Air Force, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for ''exceptionally meritorious achievement while participating in five separate bomber combat missions'' over Germany. By the time he came home, he was a major.

Legend has it that Hitler offered a substantial reward to anyone who could capture and return Gable unscathed to him.

In 1956, Gable was awarded the Associated Dentists' Award for the ''finest set of masculine teeth''.

When he told his colleagues, he added, with a grin: ''I wonder how they'd like it if I took them out and snapped them at 'em.'' He wore false teeth, porcelain ones which cost $10,000 a set.

Marilyn Monroe, his co-star in

The Misfits, held his son at his christening for so long it unnerved the other guests.

Newspapers across the world announced Gable's death with a

four-word headline (the same later used for Elvis) - The King Is Dead.

In 1996, Steven Spielberg paid $550,000 for Gable's Oscar and donated it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

His most frequent co-stars were: Myrna Loy - eight films;

Joan Crawford - eight films; Jean Harlow - six films; Lana Turner - four films; Marion Davies - three films; Loretta Young - two films;

Helen Hayes - two films.