While I was preparing for my garage sale, one of the association board members dropped off my summer maintenance fees and mistook a picture on the cover of a book about Bette Davis as that of Carole Lombard. “She and Clark Gable spent their honeymoon at Lake Barbee at the hotel there near Warsaw you know.”
I was hot, tired and not in the mood to argue local urban legends so I took my bill and excused myself to go off in search of iced tea.
I had heard this story before, many times. Even the Barbee Hotel website boasts of the Hollywood star’s honeymoon there. There are countless references regarding this Indiana link to Lombard on the internet and quite a few which recall various visits she made to her hometown of Fort Wayne; One even suggests that the location of what is now Chappell’s Coral Grill was once a pharmacy owned by a Lombard relative and that she frequently visited the site when she returned home and is supposed to haunt the building now. Her childhood home on Rockhill in West Central is a Bed & Breakfast now and source after source recounts tales of Lombard attending the unveiling of the historical plaque on the front of the house.
Nice star stories – The problem is … they’re all untrue. Lombard only returned to Indiana twice after her mother whisked her to California in 1914: Once in 1930 on her way to New York and then again to Indianapolis in 1942. She was barely a starlet when she spent June 17-18, 1930 in Fort Wayne. Her visit was covered by the Journal Gazette in detail even though big screen stardom was still a few years away for her.
When she eloped with Clark Gable in 1939 during a break in the filming of Gone With The Wind, they returned from Arizona to Hollywood, spent a few days at a ranch Gable had fallen in love with and bought and then he was back on the set. With every Hollywood reporter watching their every move, a long journey back to Lake Barbee would not have gone unnoticed. As for the dedication of the plaque on the house where she was born and spent her childhood, there is no record, locally or in her detailed itineraries, that she was anywhere else but Hollywood on January 1, 1938.
Her 1942 trip to Indianapolis was to sell WWII war bonds. There was no stop in Fort Wayne. She was killed flying back to Hollywood when her plane crashed near Las Vegas.
As bright a star as Lombard would become, she is truly one of Fort Wayne’s native legends … but her so called “return visits” and her honeymoon with Gable on an Indiana lake are simply urban legends.
I can still remember when I used to gaze out this window
Wondering who I was and what I would become
And it just took a little while for me to get my head together
Growing up’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done
- Tags: Carole Lombard, Fort Wayne, Indiana, movies
4 Responses to “Carole Lombard didn’t sleep here”
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David
June 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
That’s a really nice photo of her. I’ve never seen that one, but then again, I think the only ones I would really know are the Hurrell photos that I’ve seen.
createdestiny
June 7th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Interesting post. Thank you for setting the record straight.
vp
June 29th, 2008 at 1:36 am
I’m glad you clarified this…
…after moving to California in her youth, Lombard indeed only visited Fort Wayne once, in the summer of 1930; I believe she was on her way to the Paramount studios in Astoria, Queens, N.Y. to film “Fast And Loose,” her second film for Paramount and first since signing a seven-year contract earlier in the spring.
I have an LJ community dedicated to Lombard and classic Hollywood called “Carole & Co.”, and since its inception little over a year ago, we’ve done a few entries on the Rockhill Street house and Carole’s ties to her hometown. I cordially invite everyone to pay us a visit, especially since this is the centennial year of her birth. Find us at http://community.livejournal.com/carole_and_co/
Debbie
July 30th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
While on a recent visit to my cousin and her husband in Colorado, I met some Indiana friends of her husband’s, also visiting the area. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned my interest in classic films and film stars. The wife mentioned the Barbee Hotel in Warsaw, IN as the place where Clark Gable spent his honeymoon with one of his wives. I immediately told her that was not true. I was not aware of him honeymooning there with any of his five wives, and did she know who it was supposed to have been. She did not, but she was positive that he had honeymooned there. It seemed pretty incredible to me, but maybe I had missed something. Still, I’ve done a fair amount of reading about Gable and also Carole Lombard, and a honeymoon in Indiana during the filming of GWTW just didn’t add up. For that matter, a honeymoon there with any of his wives made no sense. While googling for information today, I was quite happy to stumble on your blog! I am overjoyed to know that what I thought was correct IS correct and Gable didn’t honeymoon at the Barbee Hotel with Carole Lombard or anyone else. What a ding dong I’ve been letting this confuse me. Thank you for restoring me to reason!