An icon of Hollywood's Golden Age, Clark Gable was dubbed "The King," and so he remained, a symbol of commanding virility through dozens of indifferent films, three generations of leading ladies, and the eventual decline—but never the entire death—of his popularity. His own golden age was the 1930s, and his image—tough, confident, and handsome—reached its apogee and has spoken to all generations since in the guise of Rhett Butler, famously and frankly not giving a damn about loving and leaving the ravishing Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone with the Wind (1939).

The word macho, not yet in use in the 1930s, might have been coined for Clark Gable. The rough-hewn independence of his screen persona cannot have been unconnected to his own background. Born William Clark Gable in Ohio, the son of an itinerant oil-driller, he left school at fourteen...