Carole Lombard – Photos and Quotes

“Actually, it’s pitiful that people take so little advantage of their chance for making themselves whatever they wish to be. There isn’t a man, woman or child who hasn’t the ability for being something really important, in one way or another. But being important doesn’t call for ice water running through your veins or for synthetic emotions, all neatly tabulated.” — Carole Lombard

Source: Helen Harrison (1935)
Photo: Otto Dyer (1935)

 

“On the Sennett lot, the ‘gag’ is what diamonds are at Kimberley. For a week we all carried water pistols and sprayed each other on sight. One day I opened a door and was drenched with a bucket of whitewash. At another time, I sat down regally on an expensive chair and learned I also had sat regally on a couple of thumb tacks. Life was real on the Sennett campus.” — Carole Lombard

 

“Anything that you represent on the screen is something that is a part of the motion picture. It doesn’t pay to take it to yourself. I’ve often said to young actresses whom I noticed were affected by the adulation – ‘Don’t let these people impress you; you know it doesn’t mean a thing when they make a fuss over you. They’ll forget you tomorrow.’” – Carole Lombard

Photo: 1926

 

Walking her Malamute dog in 1929.

 

“The only reason I can give for my success if I am successful, is that I have studied like the devil for the last three years. If I had studied half as hard when I was in school, I would have been an honor student. In my opinion, there is always something more that we can learn about in this business, not matter how long we have been in it. And whenever an actor gets to the point where he thinks he doesn’t have to study any longer, he’s sunk right there.” – Carole Lombard

Source: Dan Thomas (1930)
Photo: 1927.

 

“We dumb artists don’t know what will register on the microphone. But we’re in good company. None of those experts in there does, either.” – Carole Lombard in 1929, during the early days of talking pictures.

Source: Louise Williams

 

Photo circa 1930.

“I’m the most feminine woman in the world — ridiculously feminine in my attitude toward clothes, and things like that.” — Carole Lombard

Source: Mark Dowling (1936)

Photo: 1930

 

 

“I’ve lived by a man’s code designed to fit a man’s world, yet at the same time I never forget that a woman’s first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.” – Carole Lombard 

 

With her first husband William Powell.

 

“The same holds true in acting as in every other profession. You can’t become a good newspaper reporter by covering only one beat. You can’t become a good mechanic by working on only one machine. It is diversity of experience which broadens one and develops latent possibilities.” — Carole Lombard in 1930.

Photo: 1930

 

 

 

“When I was 13 years old, I thought I’d walk right in and be a star. Since then I’ve worked like a ditch digger and I’m still trying.” — Carole Lombard

 

“Much has been given me in this life, and much has been taken away. For that reason, I am more or less a fatalist.” – Carole Lombard 

Source: Hollywood Magazine, February 1935.

 

 

From Hell to Heaven (1933). With Carole Lombard, Jack Oakie, David Manners and Adrienne Ames.

 

“There is plenty of argument about who has the best figure in the film industry. For one thing, various standards are used, the most common being Venus de Milo. However, Venus’ figure would not meet present-day screen demands, which I am using for my standard.

“That’s why I am choosing Carole Lombard. There may be others who have attained a greater degree of perfection than Carole in some respects. But as a whole, I think she is the ideal girl. Her curves are sufficient for camera purposes, without being exaggerated in any place.” – Darryl Zanuck’s ultimate pick as the Hollywood Queen of 1933.

 

 

 

 

“One day I found out Carole wasn’t a natural blonde. We’re sitting and chatting in her dressing room, and as we’re talking she starts undressing. She had one of the sexiest, most sensational figures I’ve ever seen in my life.

“I didn’t know what the hell to do after she undressed. She’s talking away and mixing peroxide and some other liquid in a bowl. Still talking casually, with a piece of cotton she begins to apply the liquid to dye the hair around her honeypot.

“She glanced up, saw my amazed look, and smiled, ‘Relax, Georgie, I’m just making my collar and cuffs match.” — George Raft

 

“Gloria Swanson was my ideal when I was a girl. I so much admired her turned-up nose that I spent hours pushing my own inconsequential nose up, trying to make it look cute like Gloria‘s. I thought her smile was so charming that I made myself look like a gargoyle going around showing my teeth as Gloria does. Then I found out that instead of making myself look like Gloria, I was completely spoiling what little beauty I did possess. I began to think of Carole Lombard instead of Gloria Swanson.” — Carole Lombard in 1934.

Source: J. Eugene Chrisman

 

With Gloria Swanson and George Raft on the set of Bolero (1934)

 

 

“You could throw a bolt of material at Carole and whichever way it landed, she looked smart.” — Travis Banton, fashion designer

Source: 1942

Photo: 1934

 

Sharing the cover of Screen Pictorial with George Raft  in 1935.

 

 

Rumba (1935). With George Raft.

 

“You ought to see the map for my face in the Makeup Department. It looks like a landscape of the moon.” – Carole Lombard

 

“Any cameraman will tell you he can photograph a blonde better than a girl with dark hair. By proper lighting blonde hair can be made to look like a halo of gold on the screen.” — Carole Lombard (more likely a publicist)

Source: 1935

Photo: Hands Across the Table (1935)

 

“To sit back and wait for fate to take care of your affairs is, quite obviously, a defeatist sort of philosophy and will get you no place.” — Carole Lombard in 1935.

 

“Concentrate on clothes. You must first attract favorable attention before you can be popular. Learn to dress not for the effect of your friends, but on yourself. You don’t have to dress for men, or for other women. Just so you’re pleasing to the eye, men won’t care what you wear.” — Carole Lombard

Source: 1935

Photo: C.S. Bull

 

“It has been a busy year. I have made seven pictures. I started on one vacation and was called back after three days in New York. I really feel that I am entitled to a rest, and want to go to Europe. It will be my first visit there, and I want to see a lot of places, especially Italy and Budapest. Probably, I’ll just get as far as New York, and be called back again, but if possible I’m going to put an ocean between myself and Hollywood.” – Carole Lombard (in a 1935 interview)

 

 

“There are two kinds of charm. One is that attribute which causes people to like you in private life, and the other is the attractiveness that makes you a distinctive personality on the stage and screen. The one which endears you to your friends is based on genuine compassion and an instinctive desire to please, for no one can be consistently ingratiating without sincerity. The screen variety of charm, however, is principally a matter of acting and can be simulated by threatrical technique.” — Carole Lombard 

Source: Reine Davies (1935)

 

“I hear ‘stars’ talking about ‘their pictures,’ ‘their publics,’ ‘their this’ and ‘their that.’ Okay – but it’s fatal to forget that the author, the dialogue-writer, the director and the cutter are just as important to the finished picture as the star. Whenever a star forgets that and begins to believe his own fan mail, he’s on his way out! Why anyone goes ‘high-hat’ in this business is and always has been a mystery to me.” – Carole Lombard in 1936

 

 

 

“There are a few people here in Hollywood who will never be happy because being a star has become an obsession with them. Something in their emotional make-up demands adulation, the attention and the rah-rah that goes with being a star. I like it, but I know that I can be happy without it.” – Carole Lombard

Source: Jeanette Meehan (1937)

 

“She gets up too early, plays tennis too hard, wastes time and feeling on trifles and drinks Coca-Colas the way Samuel Johnson used to drink tea. She is a scribbler on telephone pads, inhibited nail-nibbler, toe-puller, pillow-grabber, head-and-elbow scratcher, and chain cigarette smoker. When Carole Lombard talks, her conversation, often brilliant, is punctuated by screeches, laughs, growls, gesticulations and the expletives of a sailor’s parrot.” — Life Magazine, c. 1937

 

“Carole Lombard was a wonderful girl. Swore like a man. Other women try, but she really did.” – Fred MacMurray, pictured, here, with her in a publicity still for True Confessions (1937).

 

“And I can guarantee this – when I do step out of pictures I shall never be idle. I will take up designing or interior decorating. I have a fair flair for writing and I like to travel. Oh, I’ll be busy, all right, after I leave the movies.” – Carole Lombard

Source: Jeanette Meehan (1937)

 

“There is a strong case to be made for the divinity of Carole Lombard. One is certain that at Olympian banquets, she’s right up there next to Zeus.”– David Shipman, film historian and author

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Carole Lombard‘s Cherry Tart:

Ingredients:
2 cups cherries
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup scalded milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tbsp fine dry bread crumbs

Line medium pie plate with pastry; brush bottom with melted butter, then sprinkle it
with bread crumbs. Put in cherries; sprinkle them with cinnamon and half of the
sugar. Mix remaining sugar with cornstarch and salt. Add lightly beaten egg and
hot milk. Mix well. Pour over cherries and bake in hot oven (450 degrees) until
edges begin to brown, then reduce to moderate heat (350 degrees). Bake about 30
minutes or until custard is firm.

To make pastry sift 1 1/2 cups flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cut in 1/2 cup
shortening with two knives until size of small peas. Add only enough ice-cold water
to hold mixture together. Roll 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured board. Line
pie-plate, folding over a narrow rim.