Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard (6 October 1908 – 16 January 1942), born Jane Alice Peters, was an American actress. She was known for her performances in screwball screen comedies. She died in a January 1942 plane crash, following a successful war-bond rally in Indianapolis.

If my work were to be taken away from me tomorrow I wouldn’t be stopped. I’d go on living, and still love it.

Quotes

You know the old thing, comedy and tragedy are akin? Like lots of old things, it’s the truth.

• At first thought , we might say, 'our job is to win a war'...but I am sure it would be closer to the hearts of all of us to say, 'We are fighting a war to assure a peace...our kind of peace.'
  • Speaking at an Indianapolis war-bond rally (15 January 1942)
  • Cited in Wes D. Gehring Carole Lombard, The Hoosier Tornado, p. 1

• I have no kicks at all [The] fact is I'm pretty happy about the whole thing...I enjoy this country. I like the parks and the highways and the good schools and everything that this Government does.
  • Endorsing Roosevelt's administration and income tax in general.
  • Cited in Wes D. Gehring Carole Lombard, The Hoosier Tornado, p. 3

Motion Picture magazine interview (1938)

Gladys Hall As quoted in Gladys Hall's "Lombard: As She Sees Herself", Motion Picture magazine (November 1938)

• They’re not really so different. You know the old thing, comedy and tragedy are akin? Like lots of old things, it's the truth. Back of all comedy, there is tragedy; back of every good belly-laugh there is a familiarity with things not funny at all. There must be. You laugh with tears in your eyes, don’t you?
  • Regarding the contemplation of playing drama roles

• I do walk off sets but not for the reasons you might suppose. I'm not temperamental about myself. I can take care of myself all right. But I do get temperamental when I hear some little would-be Napoleon of a director, some little killer-diller of a petty czar cursing out extras, grips, electricians. I've walked off sets when things like that happen. And will again, if and when they happen again. I've said to the pettifogging Nappies, ‘Why don't you bawl me out if that's the way you feel about it? You don't dare to bawl the stars out, do you? They could bark right back at you, couldn't they? So you have to light on the little fellows, the ones who can't talk back, don't you?’ It's an obsession with me.
  • About her temperament

• I love my work and I take it seriously. And I love everything I do and give everything I've got to whatever I'm doing. But I do not go about clutching my Career to an otherwise naked bosom. If my work were to be taken away from me tomorrow I wouldn't be stopped. I'd go on living, and still love it. There are a thousand things I could do, would do, would want to do. I'm like old Solomon. If he'd lost one of his wives he wouldn't exactly have been a widower. I couldn't be widowed by the loss of any one facet of my life. Because it's too rich, life is too abundant.
  • Regarding the future of her acting career

• Being poor didn't matter a bit. I didn't mind a bit. Wouldn't mind living in a ground-floor right now—you can get out the back door faster!
  • On her childhood

About Lombard

• Carole Lombard's tragic death means that something of gaiety and beauty have been taken from the world at a time they are needed most.
  • Errol Flynn, as cited in Wes D. Gehring Carole Lombard, The Hoosier Tornado, p. 17

• John always said he had three favorite women. Fanny Brice, Carole Lombard and me.
  • Ruth Nelson, as cited in Kendall Hailey The Day I Became an Autodidact : and the advice, adventures, and acrimonies that befell me thereafter (1989), p. 105