If you’ve spent any time digging through the history of Old Hollywood, you’ve probably seen the name Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham pop up in the footnotes of Clark Gable’s life. Usually, she’s cast as the "older woman" or the "wealthy socialite" who stood in the way of Gable and Carole Lombard’s legendary romance. People call her Ria. They paint her as a stiff, perhaps even calculating, figure from a bygone era of studio contracts and forced marriages.
But honestly? That version of Maria is kinda boring. And it’s mostly wrong.
When you look past the MGM press releases from 1931, you find a woman who was a powerhouse in her own right long before she ever met a struggling actor named William Clark Gable. She was a mother, a survivor of multiple marriages, and a savvy operator who knew exactly how the world worked.
The Woman Before the Legend
Maria wasn't born into Hollywood royalty. She was born Maria Jane Franklin in 1884, way out in Chapman, Kansas. Her life wasn't a silver screen dream from the start. By the time she hit her twenties, she’d already been through more than most people face in a lifetime.
She married William Prentiss when she was just seventeen. It didn't last. Most teen marriages don't, especially not in the early 1900s when social pressures were basically a vice grip. She moved on, eventually landing in Texas, where she met Alfred Thomas Lucas.
This is where the "wealthy socialite" tag actually comes from. Lucas was a successful businessman—think bricks and real estate—and he was twenty-two years her senior. When he died in 1922, Maria was left with a massive fortune. She was suddenly one of the wealthiest women in Houston. She had two kids, George Anna and Alfred Jr., and enough money to never have to care about what anyone thought of her again.
She tried marriage again with Denzil Langham in 1925, but that was a short-lived disaster. By 1928, she was a three-time divorcee/widow with a bank account that made her a target for every ambitious guy in the country.
Then she met Clark.
The "Protégé" Who Became a King
In 1928, Clark Gable was nobody. He was a stage actor with big ears and a thin voice. Maria saw him in a play called Machinal in New York. While most women saw a handsome guy, Maria saw a project.
She basically became his unofficial manager. You’ve heard of "Grooming for Greatness"? Maria took it literally. She bought him expensive clothes. She paid for the dentist to fix his teeth. She taught him which fork to use at dinner and how to carry himself like a man who belonged in a mansion rather than a garage.
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There was a seventeen-year age gap. In 1930, that was scandalous. Today, we'd probably just call it a "power dynamic."
They were living together before they were married, which was a massive no-no for MGM. The studio was terrified. They had this rising star, and if the public found out he was "shacking up" with an older woman, his career would be over before it started.
That Messy 1931 Wedding
The story goes that Maria eventually got tired of the "living in sin" situation. She reportedly went to Howard Strickling—the head of MGM PR—and essentially threatened to burn it all down. She told him she'd go to the press and tell the truth if Clark didn't marry her.
MGM panicked. They waved a morality clause in Clark’s face. He didn't really have a choice.
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They got married on June 19, 1931, in Santa Ana. It wasn't a romantic getaway. It was a business transaction. They had already been signing hotel registers as "Mr. and Mrs. Gable" for years, so the studio actually had to tell the press that their first marriage wasn't legal just to cover the tracks of why they were marrying now.
It was messy. Really messy.
Why Maria Still Matters Today
Most people think Maria was just a bitter woman holding onto a man who loved someone else. It's true that by 1936, Clark was head-over-heels for Carole Lombard. And it’s true that Maria didn't give him a divorce for years.
But you have to look at it from her perspective. She had invested years of her life and thousands of dollars into making him "The King of Hollywood." She wasn't just his wife; she was the architect of his fame. When she finally agreed to a divorce in 1939—after a massive $300,000 settlement—she did it with her head held high.
She went back to Houston. She lived a quiet, wealthy life. She died in 1966, long after the glitz of the Gable years had faded.
If you want to understand the real Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham, you have to stop looking at her through the lens of Clark Gable’s biography. She was a woman who navigated a brutal social landscape, built a future for her children, and successfully managed the career of the biggest movie star in history.
Actionable Insight for History Buffs:
If you're researching Old Hollywood figures like Maria, don't rely on studio-issued biographies from the 1930s. These were heavily scrubbed by "fixers" like Howard Strickling to protect the stars. Instead, look for contemporary newspaper archives from Houston and New York, which often contain the "real" social columns that hadn't been filtered by the MGM machine. You'll find a much more complex woman than the one the movies wanted you to see.
Check out the digital archives of the Houston Post or the Los Angeles Times from the early 1930s to see how the narrative about her shifted as Gable became more famous.