Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado

For millions of movie fans during the 1930s, an actress from Fort Wayne, Indiana, personified the madcap adventures of their favorite form of screen comedy screwball. Nicknamed The Hoosier Tornado for her energetic personality, Carole Lombard did as much as anyone to define the genre, in such films as Twentieth Century and My Man Godfrey. She also captured America's attention through her romance and marriage with Clark Gable. Wes D. Gehring examines Lombard's legacy, focusing on the public and private figure from her early days as in Mack Sennett silent films, to her development as the leading motion-picture comedienne of her time, to her tragic death in a January 1942 plane crash following a successful war-bond rally in Indianapolis.