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Carole Lombard—Iconic Actress, Humanitarian, Baha’i

Vargha Mazlum | Feb 1, 2017

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Vargha Mazlum | Feb 1, 2017

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

You may know Carole Lombard as an icon of cinema, one of the greatest actresses of all time—but do you know anything about her spiritual life?

The American Film Institute named her one of the greatest American female screen legends. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress before her stellar career was tragically cut short at 33 in an airline crash. Today you can find hundreds of videos, websites, books and blogs that celebrate not only Carole’s famed career, but also her devoted marriage to Clark Gable, her indomitable spirit and admirable character. While many people know Carole Lombard for her artistic skill, her integrity and her legendary kindness, few people know that Carole Lombard was a Baha’i.

Documentary-CoverThat will change now, because a just-released documentary about her remarkable life—called “Carole Lombard”—reveals new discoveries about the great actress’s inmost reality.

Carole Lombard’s star shone brightest during some of the darkest days in world history. In the 1930s, while millions of people around the globe struggled to survive under the crushing weight of the Great Depression and the rise of dictatorships, movies became a favorite escape from life’s trials and tribulations. At the top of the public’s must-see list: screwball comedies and Carole Lombard, the queen of the comedic genre.

During the Great Depression, issues of money and class rose to the forefront of the world’s consciousness. Screwball comedies addressed those issues by playing with class differences—elevating the poor, satirizing the rich and letting them mix in ways they rarely did in real life. Elegant but accessible, beautiful yet unpretentious, lovable and wacky, Lombard fostered a strong sense of identification with her audience. Her fans recognized in her the small-town girl who had made good despite the odds, and, by 1937, their embrace of her made Carole one of the world’s most popular actresses and the highest-paid star in Hollywood. The press widely reported on her unheard-of and heavily-taxed salary of $450,000 a year from Paramount. Carole said:

I get 13 cents on the dollar and I know it. So I don’t figure that I’ve earned a dollar, I figure that I’ve earned 13 cents. And that is all right with me, too. We still don’t starve in the picture business after we’ve divided with the government. Taxes go to build schools, to maintain the public utilities we all use, so why not?

Carole Lombard visiting Franklin Roosevelt in oval office.

Carole Lombard visiting Franklin Roosevelt in the oval office.

Carole’s comments earned her effusive praise, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent her a personal letter of commendation for her stand on the fairness of taxing the wealthy, which, he said, would serve as an example and inspiration for millions of taxpaying Americans.

Before now, though, many questions about Lombard’s life have remained unanswered. How did she hear about the new, emerging Baha’i Faith, and how did its progressive teachings influence her? Did she share her belief with others? How did she exemplify that belief in her roles and in her humanitarian work?

Now, thanks to the help of many archives—from the Baha’i World Centre in Israel to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Archives—a remarkable story has emerged of an actress who stands as a Hollywood icon, not only for her artistic achievements but for her integrity and her deep spiritual love for everyone who crossed her path.

Carole Lombard’s mother, Elizabeth Knight Peters (Bess), hailed from the affluent Knight family of Fort Wayne, Indiana, her grandfather one of the financiers of the first transatlantic cable. During the flood of 1913, Bess’ fortitude made a permanent impression on her 8-year-old daughter. Amid chaos, Bess emerged as a leader, masterminding the logistics of evacuating and hosting refugees. Carole and her two older brothers helped, and helping others became an integral part of Carole’s philosophy of life.

In 1916 Bess and her three children moved to a new home in Los Angeles. Their new neighbors, Orol and Arthur Platt, had recently accepted the emerging Baha’i Faith. Mrs. Platt had the honor of receiving four personal letters from Abdu’l-Baha. In April 1914 she wrote him about the gatherings she held in her home for studying the Baha’i Faith. He replied:

O thou seeker of the Kingdom of God! It is my hope that all of you will be united together, raise the melody of the Kingdom of God and become the means of the manifestation of the oneness of the world of humanity.

After they met Orol, Bess and Carole regularly attended the meetings in the Platt’s home and expressed keen interest in the Baha’i teachings. Carole loved the meetings and helped serve refreshments. In 1922, Carole’s mother Bess became a Baha’i. At a time when women had yet to gain the right to vote in much of the U.S., Bess also became a feminist in her own right, and so did her daughter. Bess encouraged Carole to believe that she could do anything a man could.

After being cast in her first film at 12 years old, Carole wrote to Abdu’l-Baha of her love for him, as well as her ambitions and her longing to become a successful actress. She said, “If only He approves, I shall not fail.” Abdu’l-Baha’s reply made Carole deliriously happy: he promised to pray for her to be an actress, and a successful one.

So Carole, determined to succeed, set out on her career. At 16, the Fox Film Corporation signed her to a contract; at 19 the “King of Comedy” Mack Sennett began featuring Carole in his popular movies, and by 1929, as the “talkies” displaced silent films, she began to get starring roles.

George Raft

George Raft

But Carole Lombard was no regular Hollywood star. Known for her warm hearted nature, she insisted that all her coworkers be treated fairly, and she wasn’t afraid to use her new stature to protect them from being bullied by directors and studio executives who misused their power. During her years of stardom, she never had a dressing room, preferring instead to spend her breaks and lunches with the film crew. One of her co-stars, the actor George Raft, said “I truly loved Carole Lombard. She was the greatest girl that ever lived and we were the best of pals. Completely honest and outspoken, she was liked by everyone.”

By 1938, now one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, she married Clark Gable. During that happy year, Carole Lombard officially became a Baha’i. A family friend said: “The Carole who longed to meet Abdu’l-Baha, the Carole who planned to see him, the Carole who spoke with the writer of the service she wanted to render, this Carole few people knew.”

Carole played her last film role in Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, a dark, controversial comedy that satirized the Nazis. Then, on a trip to raise funds for American war bonds to finance the war effort, Carole and her mother Bess died in plane crash in Nevada—exactly 75 years ago in 2017.

You can see the new documentary about Carole Lombard’s amazing life by purchasing a DVD here..

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Comments

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  • Tom Appleton
    Dec 19, 2019
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    My Ph.D. mentor, Holman Hamilton, born in Fort Wayne in 1910, was the first cousin of Carol Lombard (née Jane Peters). They were neighbors as children and remained extremely close. He and his wife were with Carol and her mother in a hotel suite, I believe in Indianapolis, while Carol was in town raising money for the war effort. The phone rang, and it was the War Department asking her to come to Washington for a meeting. She replied that she couldn’t because she had to hurry back to California. “Clark will be returning from ...location and I want to surprise him.” Soon Carol and her mother—who had never flown—boarded their ill-fated flight. My mentor wrote her funeral service, “a curious mixture of Bahá’í and high church Episcopalian.”
    Read more...
    • Vargha Mazlum
      Feb 6, 2020
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      Wow I!!! Tom such a historical and important information!!! Have you heard your mentor saying this? I guess he has passed away, right? Vargha
  • Vargha Mazlum
    Apr 9, 2017
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    Dear Anne, very glad that enjoyed the documentary. I forwarded your question to other researchers on Carole Lombard. It doesn't look like any of either Carole or Clark movies was shot in San Paula in the period 1935-1942. But not always all the locations of a movie are listed so this information could also be wrong. Possibly they stayed there during one of their many trips or when Carole was filming in a nearby location, 'Too Hot to Handle' (1938) - in Sherwood forest; Made for Each Other (1939) - Malibu lake; In Name Only (1939) - San Marino
    all ...the best
    Read more...
    • Anne Sadeghpour
      Apr 30, 2017
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      Thank you so much. I went into the Glen Tavern Inn and they don't know, either, since their guest books were "not kept" from the early period (or possibly got lost or damaged). The Gables could have been at the Inn for any reason. Other stars stayed there, too, on the third floor (probably room 307) as filming was done in the area.
    • Anne Sadeghpour
      Apr 30, 2017
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      Thank you! They could have been at the Glen Tavern Inn in Santa Paula for any reason...many stars stayed there and the area was used for filming. I went into the Inn and asked them, they don't know, either, since a lot of the guest books from the period "were not kept."
  • Anne Sadeghpour
    Apr 6, 2017
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    This documentary is so wonderful. I've watched it with several friends and family. Thank you SO much! I am also looking for information about Carole Lombard's stay in Santa Paula, California at the Glenn Tavern Inn, probably on the 3rd floor, and possibly in room 307. She and Clark Gable were together; it was in the late 1930's. I am trying to find which film she was doing, as Santa Paula was a film destination. Any info on this? Thanks again for a most uplifting and eye-opening documentary.
  • Feb 12, 2017
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    One of the buildings on the campus of the Green Acre Baha'i School is Schopflocher House, named for the benefactor Siegfried Schopflocher. One of the local Baha'is said that he had heard stories that Carole Lombard used to visit Schopflocher House. Apparently this was during the time when Lorol Schopflocher (Mrs. Schopflocher) lived there. He had no verification of this, until another of the Baha'is said that he was driving past Green Acre with a long-time local resident, a man in his 90s. The man pointed to Schopflocher House and said that he had attended a Baha'i meeting in that ...building given by Carole Lombard. He heard that when the two of them would visit, Clark Gable would go fishing and Carole would visit Green Acre.
    Read more...
    • Vargha Mazlum
      Feb 12, 2017
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      Lovely, yes I have a similar report from a friend who lived in Green Acre. Carole and Lorol were friends, they wrote to each other.
  • Feb 12, 2017
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    I believe it was Helen Bishop who told me that she was on the editorial team for the Baha'i World Volume #9 which covered from 1940-1944. The "In Memoriam" section included an article about Carole Lombard Gable. The editors would communicate with Shoghi Effendi, the Head of the Baha'i Faith during that period. A photograph of Carole was in the material - a publicity photo of a somewhat glamorous nature, showing her head reclining on a pillow. The editorial team felt that the photograph was inappropriate, removed it from the Memorial for her and sent all of the material ...back to Shoghi Effendi for final review. He told them to put the photo back in. This is the same photo: http://tinyurl.com/carole-lombard-photo
    Read more...
    • Vargha Mazlum
      Feb 12, 2017
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      Thank you Brent, didn't know about this detail, very interesting. There is mention of the 'In Memoriam' in the documentary. Thank you for sharing.
  • Vargha Mazlum
    Feb 4, 2017
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    Here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zYMcmXROqk
  • Vargha Mazlum
    Feb 4, 2017
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    Thank you all for the comments. I am glad that you are interested in Carole's story. Since I started to dig into her life, I found more amazing stories of what a great person she was. She shared her beliefs by action. Hope you will enjoy the DVD.
  • Saeed Sadrzadeh
    Feb 2, 2017
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    Saeed Sadrzadeh
    I didn't know about this famous actress and her belief in the Baha'i faith till my brother sent me the brief account of her short but meaningful life. God bless here and her dear mother souls in the realm above.
  • Virginia McCoy
    Feb 2, 2017
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    I knew Carole Lombard was a Baha'i but I never knew how she learned about the Faith until your mini-essay. Thank you! I've ordered the DVD & am looking forward to seeing & sharing with the other Baha'is & movie buffs here.
  • Feb 1, 2017
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    I really enjoyed learning more about this famous actress and her ties to the Baha'i Faith. I knew she was a Baha'i but had little information until this article about what it actually meant to her. Thank you.
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