Jean Harlow and Clark Gable were one of Hollywood’s most magnetic on-screen duos, starring together in classics like Red Dust and Hold Your Man. Off-screen, they shared a close friendship, one that made Gable uniquely attuned to her well-being. Perhaps for this reason, during the filming of Harlow’s last film, Saratoga, in 1937, Gable noticed something deeply troubling about the actress.
Gable later said, when he bent to kiss her, he caught an unmistakable odor on her breath, the sharp, sour scent of ammonia or urine. It startled him, but he didn’t understand what it meant. That smell, later recognized by doctors as uremic fetor, was a signal that Harlow’s kidneys were failing. In her final days, she became weak, swollen, and delirious before slipping into a coma.
