Fred MacMurray & Carole Lombard Skeet Shooting Between Takes

More Deadly Than The Male!

Carole Lombard, blonde screen star, killed two kinds of birds with one gun in this skeet shooting match against Fred MacMurray and writer Claude Binyou while on location with Paramount’s “True Confession” company at Lake Arrowhead. Not only did Carole blast the clay pigeons with unerring accuracy. She also bagged two masculine egos, thoroughly puncturing the pretensions of MacMurray (waiting to shoot) and Binyou (operating the trap) to superior marksmanship. photo: Tom Evans for Paramount 1937

Among the many things that drew Clark Gable to Carole Lombard was that she was one of the guys. Lombard was also a favorite among studio stagehands and technicians.

In Gable & Lombard & Powell & Harlow, 1975 (Dell) by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein the following story illustrates the sort of loyalty that made Lombard so appealing.

Carole always insisted that Pat Drew an electrician who had lost a leg in a plane accident be employed on her pictures. But she refused all publicity about such gestures, and once warned a gathering group of reporters who wanted to write about her helping Drew, “I’ll break your heads if you use one word about this.”

This photograph of Lombard shooting skeet is not a put-on. Lombard genuinely enjoyed spending time shooting.This greatly attracted Gable who was an avid hunter and outdoorsman.

During the filming of True Confession Carole Lombard was having an affair with Clark Gable. Gable’s wife Maria (Rhea) Langham, had private detectives follow Gable up to Lake Arrowhead when he was visiting Lombard for a weekend.

March 7, 1939 Clark and Rhea divorced. Rhea would receive $286,000 after taxes. Three weeks later, March 29, 1939 Gable married Lombard. They remained married until Lombard’s death in a plane crash January 16, 1942 during a war bond drive.