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I was 11 years old when Clark Gable passed, and though we both lived in L.A. County, our paths never crossed. (He lived in Encino in the Valley, I lived in La Crescenta above Glendale. What you gonna do?) But from my extensive research:Hobbies: Clark was an avid outdoorsman. He hunted, he fished (going after big game fish off Catalina), he briefly played polo (but that phase didn’t last.)Careers: Clark had a high school education, and that’s as much higher learning (excluding Officer Candidate School during World War II) as he got. Early on, he worked as an oil wildcatter, then began working in regional theater.His first wife was a drama teacher who groomed him, giving him vocal exercises to lower his voice. He did the Broadway play “The Last Mile” in Los Angeles, performing the same role — Killer Mears — that Spencer Tracy did in New York. He had been an extra in silent films, but this stage work led to his first speaking part in a talkie: playing the villain in a William Boyd Western entitled “The Painted Desert”.“The Painted Desert” (1930)Warner Bros. passed on giving Gable a long-term contract (Production head Darryl Zanuck thought Clark’s ears were too big), but M-G-M signed him. He made lots of features for Metro in his early years and his fame rose rapidly. His most famous movies: “It Happened One Night”, “Mutiny On The Bounty”, and “Gone With the Wind”. He was thoroughly professional, knowing his lines and arriving on set promptly every shooting day. In later years, he had a clause in his contract that required that he stop work at five p.m., and he followed the five o’clock rule assiduously.“Mutiny On the Bounty” (1935)Army Air Corps: When his third wife Carole Lombard was killed in an air crash in 1942 (she was returning from a War Bond drive), Gable left M-G-M and joined the Army. He went to OCS in Miami Beach, graduated in the middle of his class, joined the Eighth Air Force in Britain where he made a documentary about waist gunners on B-17s. He flew five combat missions over Europe and was nearly killed during one of them when his plane flew through heavy flak. (The average life-span for bomber crews at the time was 4.5 missions.) Gable returned to Hollywood to edit his documentary and left active military duty in 1944. He ended up a Major.Clark Gable, USAAFClark G. resumed picture-making in 1945 with “Adventure”, and continued making films until the end of his life. His last film was “The Misfits” (1961), directed by John Huston and co-starring Marilyn Monroe.Personality: By most accounts, Gable was warm, humorous, relatively easy-going. He joked that his tombstone should have been inscribed: “He was lucky, and he knew it.” Comedian Don Rickles wrote in his autobiography when he was filming “Run Silent, Run Deep” the producer/star Burt Lancaster was adamant that Rickles should research his role and learn “everything there is to learn” about subs.Then the comedian asked Clark Gable (the other star) for his advice.“You know your lines, kid?”“Sure do, Mr. Gable.”“You able to hit your marks?”“Yes, sir.”“You’ll be fine.”Clark Gable was married five times, fathered two children (one illegitimately with Loretta Young), and was robustly promiscuous, which wasn’t hard to do since women threw themselves at him.Gable and Lombard (his third wife)Health: Gable had a strong constitution and good genes, but was able to overcome both with hard living. He didn’t take care of his teeth and nearly died from a raging gum infection while filming “Dancing Lady” with Joan Crawford in 1932. No antibiotics in those days, and doctors pulled out all his choppers to save his life. Thereafter, he wore a full set of dentures. (Those pearly whites flashed by Rhett Butler? Totally fake.)Enjoying a smoke (one of a series)Clark Gable was a heavy smoker and drinker from an early age, and the drinking increased after Carole Lombard’s death. He likely had a mild heart attack in the early 1950s and ignored it. In late 1960, shortly after completing “The Misfits”, he suffered multiple coronaries and died in a Los Angeles hospital, age 59.

Consider the first five or so Presidents of the USA.George Washington was a land surveyor from the age of 17, and commissioned as a major in the Virginia militia at the age of 21.James Madison was commissioned colonel of the orange county militia when he was 24 years old, having already graduated from Princeton. But Madison was a man of slight build, and health problems prevented him from assuming a combat role.James Monroe inherited his father’s wealth at 16, and dropped out of college at 18 to join the Continental Army obtaining an officer’s commission. While recuperating from an injury he was appointed lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia.Andrew Jackson’s father died before he was born. At age 13, he was injured by a British officer while acting as a courier during the Revolutionary War. He then was educated as a lawyer and became a politician, all the while maintaining his plantation. At age 34, he was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia, with the rank of colonel.What do these all have in common? These four men who would become president, all came from wealthy families and had an extensive, first-class education even before formal studies at the college level. This was enough to have them commissioned as officers at a very young age - simply by virtue of being wealthy and being able to read, write, and most importantly, read maps and calculate travel time. Now Jackson was not “young” when named colonel at age 34, he had no meaningful military experience, having been a lawyer, US Representative, US Senator and State Supreme Court Judge in those intervening years.This reflects the huge difference between the “classic” military, and how it is today. Even into the WW2 era, many countries like the UK had their officer corps drawn from society’s elite - men of means who were educated and provided their own weapons, transportation, and retinue, much like knights did in the middle ages. There was less to the “profession” of a soldier than now - in WW2 a Royal Air Force officer was more likely to have studied classics rather than engineering - and how understanding of ancient Greek and Latin was seen as more important than understanding thermodynamics and aerodynamics is beyond me. But that is how it was.Today, there is far too much to learn and even with the best general education, rank as a military officer is only earned through experience. As we are not likely to have any kind of long-lasting war (we would simply consume all troops and weapons too quickly because we are so much better at killing and destroying than we used to be), there won’t be a time when there’s a vacuum of power and people rise through the ranks quickly because of wartime experience or losses.

No.This is just another long lived conspiracy theory with almost no credible evidence to support it. Many of those manufacturing these rumors are anti-Communist Kennedy haters with a clear agenda. False accusations have resulted in at least one libel conviction and at least one resignation.During the 1960s, there were no widespread conspiracy theories about Monroe's death. The first allegations that she had been murdered originated in anti-communist activist Frank A. Capell's self-published pamphlet The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe (1964), in which he claimed that her death was part of a communist conspiracy. He claimed that Monroe and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had an affair, which she took too seriously and was threatening to cause a scandal; Kennedy therefore ordered her to be assassinated to protect his career. In addition to accusing Kennedy of being a communist sympathizer, Capell also claimed that many other people close to Monroe, such as her doctors and ex-husband Arthur Miller, were communists.Capell's credibility has been seriously questioned because his only source was columnist Walter Winchell, who in turn had received much of his information from him; Capell, therefore, was citing himself. His friend, LAPD Sergeant Jack Clemmons, aided him in developing his pamphlet; Clemmons became a central source for conspiracy theorists. He was the first police officer on the scene of Monroe's death and later made claims that he had not mentioned in the official 1962 investigation: when he arrived at Monroe's house, her housekeeper was washing her sheets, and he had "a sixth sense" that something was wrong.Capell and Clemmons made allegations that have been seen as linked to their political goals. Capell dedicated his life to revealing an "International Communist Conspiracy" and Clemmons was a member of The Police and Fire Research Organization (FiPo), which sought to expose "subversive activities which threaten our American way of life”. FiPo and similar organizations were known for their stance against the Kennedys and for sending the Federal Bureau of Investigation letters incriminating them; a 1964 FBI file that speculated on an affair between Monroe and Robert F. Kennedy is likely to have come from them. Furthermore, Capell, Clemmons, and a third person were indicted in 1965 by a California grand jury for "conspiracy to libel by obtaining and distributing a false affidavit" claiming that senator Thomas Kuchel had once been arrested for a homosexual act. They had done this because Kuchel had supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Capell pleaded guilty, and charges against Clemmons were dropped after he resigned from the LAPD.In the 1960s, Monroe's death was also discussed in Charles Hamblett's Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? (1966) and in James A. Hudson's The Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe (1968). Neither Capell's, Hamblett's, or Hudson's accounts were widely disseminated.The allegations of murder first became part of mainstream discussion with the publication of Norman Mailer's Marilyn: A Biography in 1973. Despite not having any evidence to prove it, Mailer repeated the claim that Monroe and Robert F. Kennedy had an affair and speculated that she was killed by either the FBI or CIA, who wished to use the murder as a "point of pressure ... against the Kennedys." The book was heavily criticized in reviews, and later that year Mailer recanted his allegations in an interview with Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes, stating that he had made them to ensure commercial success for his book, and that he believes Monroe's death was "ten to one" an "accidental suicide".Two years later, Robert F. Slatzer published The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe (1975), based on Capell's pamphlet. In addition to his assertion that Monroe was killed by Robert F. Kennedy, Slatzer also controversially claimed to have been married to Monroe in Mexico for three days in October 1952, and that they had remained close friends until her death. Although his account was not widely circulated at the time, it has remained central to conspiracy theories.In October 1975, rock journalist Anthony Scaduto published an article about Monroe's death in soft porn magazine Oui, and the following year expanded his account into book form as Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? (1976), published under the pen name Tony Sciacca. His only sources were Slatzer and his private investigator, Milo Speriglio. In addition to repeating Slatzer's claims, Scaduto alleged that Monroe had kept a red diary in which she had written confidential political information she had heard from the Kennedys, and that her house had been wiretapped by surveillance expert Bernard Spindel on the orders of union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who was hoping to obtain incriminating evidence he could use against the Kennedys.In 1982, Slatzer's private detective Milo Speriglio published Marilyn Monroe: Murder Cover-Up, in which he claimed that Monroe had been murdered by Jimmy Hoffa and mob boss Sam Giancana. Basing his account on Slatzer and Scaduto's books, Speriglio added statements made by Lionel Grandison, who worked at the Los Angeles County coroner's office at the time of Monroe's death. Grandison claimed that Monroe's body had been extensively bruised but this had been omitted from the autopsy report, and that he had seen the "red diary", but it had mysteriously disappeared.Speriglio and Slatzer demanded that the investigation into Monroe's death be re-opened by authorities, and the Los Angeles District Attorney agreed to review the case. The new investigation could not find any evidence to support the murder claims. Grandison was found to not be a reliable witness as he had been fired from the coroner's office for stealing from corpses. The allegations that Monroe's home was wiretapped by Bernard Spindel were also found to be false. Spindel's apartment had been raided by the Manhattan District Attorney's office in 1966, during which his tapes were seized. He later made a claim that he had wiretapped Monroe's house, but it was not supported by the contents of the tapes, which the investigators had listened to.The most prominent Monroe conspiracy theorist in the 1980s was British journalist Anthony Summers, whose book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe (1985) is one of the most commercially successful Monroe biographies. Prior to writing on Monroe, he had authored a book on a conspiracy theory of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His investigation on Monroe began as an assignment for the British tabloid the Sunday Express to cover the Los Angeles District Attorney's 1982 review.According to Summers, Monroe was psychotic and severely addicted to drugs and alcohol in the last months of her life and had affairs with Jack and Bobby Kennedy. When Robert F. Kennedy ended their affair, she threatened to reveal their association, which Kennedy and Peter Lawford attempted to prevent by enabling her addictions. Monroe was hysterical when she accidentally overdosed and died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Kennedy wanted to leave Los Angeles before Monroe's death became public, and her body was returned to her house and the overdose was staged as a suicide by Lawford, the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover.Summers based his account on interviews he had conducted with 650 people connected to Monroe, but his research has been criticized by biographers Donald Spoto and Sarah Churchwell. According to Spoto, Summers contradicts himself, presents false information as fact, and misrepresents what some of Monroe's friends said about her. Churchwell has stated that while Summers accumulated a large collection of anecdotal material, most of his allegations are speculation; many of the people he interviewed could provide only second- or third-hand accounts, and they "relate what they believe, not what they demonstrably know." Summers was also the first major biographer to find Slatzer a credible witness, and relies heavily on testimonies by other controversial witnesses, including Jack Clemmons and Jeanne Carmen, a woman whose claim to have been Monroe's close friend has been disputed by Spoto and Lois Banner.Summers' theory was discussed in BBC's documentary Marilyn: Say Goodbye to the President (1985), and in a 26-minute segment produced for ABC's 20/20. The 20/20 segment was never aired, as the channel's news executive Roone Arledge decided that the claims made in it required more evidence to back them up. In retaliation, Summers alleged that Arledge's decision was influenced by pressure from the Kennedys. Death of Marilyn Monroe - WikipediaThe Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe. 1964. Paper.: Frank A. Capell: Amazon.com: BooksWho Killed Marilyn Monroe? - Kindle edition by Liz Evans. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.The Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe: James A. Hudson: Amazon.com: Bookshttps://www.amazon.com/life-curious-death-Marilyn-Monroe/dp/B0006CETIQ/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=*The+Life+and+Curious+Death+of+Marilyn+Monroe*&qid=1552870974&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnullAmazon.com: Marilyn: A Biography eBook: Norman Mailer: Kindle StoreMarilyn Monroe: Murder Cover-Up: Milo Speriglio: 9780930990770: Amazon.com: BooksAmazon.com: Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe eBook: Anthony Summers: Kindle StoreWarning. This documentary is airing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.Say Goodby To the President. ABC refused to air it citing a lack of evidence supporting its many accusations. I am including it in my answer only because my source mentioned it.