Coquette (1929)

Mary Pickford and swains.

America's Sweetheart should have quit while she was ahead.

Carole Lombard, circa 1940

At the Encino ranch she shared with Clark Gable.

Carole Lombard, 1937

Hollywood's highest paid star posing at home for a 1937 LIFE magazine cover story.

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, 1936

Gable sports the sideburns he grew for the lead in Parnell, a monumental historical flop everywhere but in China. Lombard pranked him by hiring a plane to litter MGM with fliers proclaiming "50 Million Chinamen Can't Be Wrong!."

Carole Lombard, 1937

Carole Lombard, 1934

Happy Birthday Carole Lombard

October 6, 1908 -- January 16, 1942