Fireball

April 28, 2014
Carole Lombard’s successful and highly entertaining career was cut woefully short when her plane crashed in Nevada in 1942. Here, Matzen provides an intriguing mixture of biography and history as he relates not only the story of Lombard’s life, but those of the other passengers on Flight 3, as well as the curious elements of the plane crash. Narrator Gilbert delivers a skillful performance that will keep listeners engaged throughout. Her pacing, tone, and emphasis are all spot on, and she infuses suitable emotion into more touching sections of the book. A Paladin Communications hardcover.

November 15, 2013

Little more than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, actress Carole Lombard (1908-42), her mother, and 20 other passengers were killed when their plane crashed into a mountainside near Las Vegas, NV. Lombard was returning to Hollywood following a war bond rally in her native Indiana. This work alternates coverage of her film career; her much beloved image, which combined looks, style, and down-to-earth humor; her romances, culminating in her marriage to superstar Clark Gable; and her final flight, which led to an arduous recovery effort. Matzen, who has written titles about Gable, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland, depicts Gable as a "wounded narcissist" who truly loved Lombard--but that did not prevent him from having numerous affairs. Matzen shows how Lombard's bubbly personality and democratic nature provoked profound mourning in Hollywood and around the country after her death. Despite rumors that the crash was caused by Nazi saboteurs, it seems the "mystery" was nothing more than pilot error. This volume would have been better served by a conventional chronological arrangement; the results of the crash are described in graphic, excessive detail. Additionally, the author is one of many who presume to describe what a real-life person may have been thinking at a particular moment, a writerly conceit that seems questionable. VERDICT On balance, the book is recommended, with reservations, for vintage-film buffs.--Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA

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