Lana Turner & Clark Gable

In a span of nearly 13 years, Clark Gable and Lana Turner appeared together in four theatrical feature-length movies (Honky Tonk, 1941; Somewhere I’ll Find You, 1942; Homecoming, 1948; Betrayed, 1954). In each outing, each was the other’s romantic interest, an interest that typically and invariably swings hot and cold, on again, off again. Besides the romance and the passion that their characters share, there’s much in the way of melodrama aptly conveyed in an inevitable scene common to all four movies: wherein an injured, dying, or gravely ill Lana is comforted by a very concerned Clark.

It’s worth noting that only in Betrayed is Lana not a blonde; it is also the only technicolor movie of the lot. It is also noteworthy that during production of Somewhere I’ll Find you, Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash—she was supposedly racing home to California from a War Bond drive in the midwest to assure that, by her presence at home, her husband, Mr. Gable, would not fall under the spell of that temptress, Ms. Turner.