By
the mid-1930s, Clark Gable (born William Clark Gable
in 1901) had become a Hollywood star, attracting national
attention and large paychecks. His success also attracted
criminals and emotionally unstable people who targeted
the dashing actor.
The
criminal attention of these people is captured in six
files, linked below in four sections, including five
extortion cases and a "nuisance communications"
investigation.
Each
of the six files is quite short. In them you will see
how FBI agents worked to track down the letter writers
and how FBI Laboratory experts employed handwriting
analysis to show that suspects were indeed guilty of
threatening Mr. Gable and to determine if he truly faced
a threat to his life.
The
first case (9-3178) began because of a letter dated
November 2, 1937. Clark Gable was the victim of an extortion
letter from Cleveland, Ohio, from a lady seeking a job.
Another
case (9-3482) began with a letter dated February 21,
1938, that Gable received from Fonda, Iowa; it demanded
that he send $1,000. Our investigation revealed that
the letter had been written by an Iowa farmhand, not
the woman whose name was signed to the note. The farmhand
had sent the note after the woman spurned him.
The
third case (9-4005) developed from a letter sent on
August 18, 1938, by a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, man
who demanded $5,000 from Gable and MGM Studio. He advised
that if he didn't receive all the money, he would do
bodily harm to Gable. The twist in this case was that
Gable never received the letter nor was it found at
the post office. The man had volunteered the information
when he had been arrested on vagrancy charges by a local
police department. Because extortion is a federal crime,
the FBI was brought in on the case.
The
fourth investigation (9-6434) was based on July 6, 1940
letter opened by an attorney at the MGM Studios. Addressed
to Gable, the letter demanded that he deposit a generous
amount of money in the American Trust, Jefferson Street
Branch, in San Francisco.
The
final extortion investigation (9-7006) sought the author
of a December 3, 1940 note warning Gable and his wife,
Carol Lombard, that a third party threatened to kidnap
them and hold them for ransom.
Also
in the files is an investigation into a "nuisance
communication" (95-2996). This investigation began
when Gable received a letter addressed to him dated
May 12, 1939. The letter, postmarked Columbus, Ohio,
stated: "Just who do you think you are that you
can hook me and keep my human respect and marry another
woman. Prophesy or noanyone that is small enough
to live with another wife when he is hooked, I don't
wish to ever see. I demand my freedom and I'll get it
or I'll know the reason why." Efforts to locate
the person who wrote the letter were not successful.