When did Clark Gable cease being the "King" of Hollywood?

[FedoraFan112390]

When did Gable (in his lifetime) cease being the "King" of Hollywood? What I mean is, around what year/what film did he cease being the most popular actor in Hollywood, a certain box office draw?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Gable was never the top box office draw in Hollywood according the annual "Top Ten Box Office Attractions" list issued by Quigley Publications, publishers of Motion Picture Herald, one of the industry's leading trade magazines. The highest he ever got was second, usually behind someone like Will Rogers or Shirley Temple or Mickey Rooney -- one year, he was second only to Abbott and Costello.

But he appeared on the list regularly from 1932 thru 1943, made a few appearances on the list in the late forties, and made his final appearance in 1955, when he came in tenth.

Realistically, then, Gable's era ended during the war, when he was in the service and away from the screen. When he got back, Hollywood gradually passed him by.

 

[scotrace]

At the end, he wanted to be taken more seriously as an actor, not just a leading man. Approaching the Arthur Miller script for The Misfits quite eagerly, he said he wanted to play Willy Loman in Miller's Death of a Salesman. He died before he could do it, of course, and his performance in The Misfits indicates that certain meatier roles were beyond his talent level. There's nothing wrong with being the top romantic lead in Hollywood for decades.

 

[Nobert]

He was still considered a Hollywood heavy-hitter in 1950, if this Coronet article from August of that year is to be believed.