1934: An Open Letter to Clark Gable

 

An Open Letter to Clark Gable

By J. Eugene Chrisman

Hollywood magazine, August 1934

 

From J. Eugene Chrisman, speaking for countless fans who want to help Clark Gable before it is too late!

 

Dear Clark,

When Laurette Taylor became a big star in “Peg O’ My Heart”, she noticed that the audiences were not as friendly to her as they had been at the beginning of the play. She complained to her husband, Hartley Manners, author of the play, and asked him why.

“Because,” said Manners, “when you were on the way up you asked your audience to love you. Now that you are on top, you demand that they do.”

I am not saying that applies to you, Clark, but people are talking. They are saying that success has gone to your head. They can’t say that you are slipping for the way the fans mobbed you in New York proves that they still think you’re a swell guy. The thing they don’t like is that you are no longer the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em Clark Gable of old. They are beginning to believe that you have traded your leather jacket and turtle-neck sweaters for a dress suit. They are saying that you are getting fed up with it all and that your work lacks the fire and virility that it formerly had. Perhaps it isn’t true, Clark, but even if it isn’t, it doesn’t do you any good for such talk to get around. That’s why I’m writing you this letter.

I’ve known you a long time. I’ve written a lot of stories about you and you’ve always been a good egg. You’ve come a long way, Clark, since you played the heavy in The Painted Desert. It’s been fun watching you grow. I hate to see you spoil it all now by giving up mulligan stew for caviar. Perhaps even you don’t realize how far you have come. Your former wife, Josephine Dillon, once said of you,

“When I first knew Clark Gable all he needed was a toothpick behind his ear, a gold tooth and a celluloid collar to make him a perfect hick.”

I don’t believe you were that bad, Clark, for by that time the rubber factory, the oil fields and the lumber camps were behind you. You had been places and seen things. But no matter how uncouth you may have been, there has always been a fine streak underneath. Josephine Dillon did a lot for you and so did Lillian Albertson, who got you your role in The Last Mile.

Women have been kind to you, Clark, but unlike Lou Tellegen, you haven’t written a book about it. Your innate fineness has prevented that. You hate a man who kisses and tells. Your dead stepmother, about whom I once wrote a story, must have been a splendid woman for I have heard you discuss women many times and no woman who ever came in contact with you has ever been spoken of with disrespect.

Because there is something of the eternal boy in you, women have been milestones on the road to your success. There was Treela your first sweetheart in Hopedale, Norma the blonde girl in Akron. There was Elsa when you were in stock in Mississippi and Alice, also in the South. Then, when you were in Silverton, Oregon, there was Franz. It was she, you remember, who first told you that your English must be improved and who bought books and helped you study them. There was Josephine Dillon, Ruth Collier and now your wife, Rea.

Every one of these women gave you something, Clark, but it was a fair exchange for you gave them something in return. They gave you affection, help and inspiration and you in turn gave them of your youth, your virility and your strength. Then came your success on the screen and you were able to give to millions of women what you had before been able to give to but a few.

I wonder if you know or realize what you gave these women, Clark?  I wonder if you know how many thousands of starved lives and lonely hearts you entered into, a White Knight in shining armor to lighten the tedium of their days and nights? I wonder if you realize your responsibility to these women and what you would do to them if you took their dreams away?

But the thing that you gave them was Clark Gable. It is Clark Gable they want, the vigorous, virile, menacing Clark Gable of A Free Soul. You reached your utmost height as Ace Wilfong in that picture. That’s the man they want to see again and not a pale imitation in a full dress suit. They don’t want the polished gentleman you threaten to become. Your formula was a dangerous toughness under a thin veneer of self-education and a hastily acquired culture. That Clark Gable thrilled women because every woman was sure that she would not be safe for one minute with him alone.

You threaten to become a gentleman, Clark, and it won’t do. Ace Wilfong has learned to wear tails and dawdle a teacup on his knee. He has bought a string of race horses, developed a bulge in his mental waistline and learned to use the right fork.

Your old swagger seems gone. Your smile which was bitter, sullen and hard, now comes too easily. The chip has been removed from your shoulder. The devil-may-care twinkle in your eye which made women want to take you in their arms, even while they shuddered in apprehension of your brutality, is gone. Your own wife has admitted that you are getting tired of it all.

You are a great personality, not a great actor. I think you would be the first to admit that. You may resent this letter but I don’t think you will. I speak for millions of your fans when I say that I have seen Hollywood spoil too many careers and that I don’t want it to spoil yours. Give your fans more he-man roles. Tear off that boiled shirt and let us see the hair on your chest again.

Always your friend,

J. Eugene Chrisman