 When she did, Lombard was nowhere to be found.While Turner always vehemently denied rumors that she and Gable were involved in an affair, only going as far as to say she was quite smitten with him but looked up to him as more of a father-figure than anything else, it has always been speculated that a Turner and Gable affair had something to do with Lombard's last minute decision to take a plane back to Los Angeles rather than a train, resulting in the crash which took her life.Turner claimed that the only time she and Gable ever saw each other outside of a professional environment was in the months following Lombard's death.