1934: Clark Gable Replies

 

Clark Gable Replies to J. Eugene Chrisman

Hollywood magazine, September 1934

 

 

To tell him he’ll always be a mulligan eater at heart!

 

Dear Gene,

What a pal you are!

Anyhow, thanks for the kick in the pants. Perhaps I needed it. I just finished rereading your open letter to me in the August issue of HOLLYWOOD and if talk like that is going around, you can tell the world I want to answer it.

You ask if I’m going high-hat. My answer is No!

You ask if I’m going social, if I’ve traded my turtleneck sweaters for a tuxedo. No again! I’d rather climb into a leather jacket and a pair of hiking boots and tear out to Arizona in my Ford after deer or cougar than to go to a Mayfair Ball any day. Stiff collars hurt my Adam’s apple and always did.

You’ve written a lot of stories about me, Gene, and they were good stories, too. Even I have enjoyed reading them and that’s something. I’m not responsible for the parts I play but you ought to know me too well to think that I’ve changed any off-screen. Success hasn’t softened me, not a bit. If anything, it has hardened me more. The fight to keep on top takes a lot more work than the one to get there and the fellow who lets it soften him doesn’t stay on top long.

But where do you get that boiled shirt stuff? I haven’t work a dress suit since Strange Interlude. What about Red Dust and Men in White and even It Happened One Night? Was I a softie or a stuffed shirt in any of those? And when it comes to trading mulligan stew for caviar, give me mulligan every time and no matter if I eat it out of a tin can or out of hand painted china and whether I eat it with the right fork or use a bent spoon, I’m still a mulligan eater at heart.

You say I’ve come a long way. I have and I admit it. I couldn’t be where I am today if I still had the mannerisms that I knew when I was a lumberjack or an oil field worker. A rolling stone might not gather much moss but it picks up a lot of polish. I have, and I’m proud of it. Polish may make a man more of a gentleman but it should not make him a sissy and a softie. Some of the he-est he-men in the world know how to balance a teacup and wear a tail coat.

You say that Ace Wilfong in A Free Soul was my best role. I don’t think so myself. I liked my part in It Happened One Night. That was comedy, of a kind, but I’ve always wanted to do that kind of comedy. Anyhow, the Ace Wilfongs went out with the gangster cycle.

Then they pick up this race horse business. Said it was an indication that I was going Gene Tunney on them. Do you want to know the real lowdown on why I bought a racing stable? Here it is. I learned to ride in order to get my first big break in The Painted Desert. That taught me to love horses. I began to ride a lot, for pleasure and to play a little polo. Then I had an operation and the doctor told me no more riding for a long, long time. I love horses and wanted to be around them, so I bought four racers. I have only one left. That’s the real low-down.

Maybe I have a lost a little of what you call my punch and virility on the screen. Perhaps I am fed up. I’ve done a lot of hard work. I can’t get the slant that most picture people have, that Hollywood and pictures are the center of the universe.  I keep realizing that there is an interesting world outside, places to go and things to do and see. I’m a rolling stone and I’m always wanting to see what’s behind the next hill. I’d get away and take that sea trip on a mangy tramp steamer if I could but I’d be afraid that I might never come back. I do the best I can with my hunting and fishing trips.

Nobody knows better than I, that I am not a great actor. I wouldn’t even agree with you that I’m a great personality. I’m just a guy who got a lucky break, that’s all. If people like me on the screen and I manage to give a few million people a vicarious thrill, that’s’ fine. I want to give them the kind of roles they like, as far as I can but if I ever let it go to my head, I hope somebody will take a punch at it.

Success has changed me. It will change anyone. When I was struggling along, I wanted success, I wanted fame and I wanted money. Now that I’ve got them, I don’t think they are worth what it takes to get them. If I had a swagger and carried a chip on my shoulder it was because I had a goal to fight toward. If I’ve lost it, it is because I’ve found that the grass on top of the hill isn’t as green as it looked from below. I don’t mean to sound cynical. I’m merely trying to be honest with you and with the people who put me where I am today.

If I had a swagger, it was because I had learned in the school of hard knocks that life is mostly bluff. If you want to get what you want, make people think you are good. I thought then that the greatest thing in the world was money, fame, luxury. Now I know that it is to be free. When people get tired of me on the screen, the world is before me. There are a million things I want to do, a million places I want to go. I’m not going to let Hollywood get me down.

Thanks for the letter, Gene, it was great of you to think of me as you did. I hope I’ve made myself clear.  At least I’ve been honest. I haven’t strangled many babies in recent pictures of kicked many cripples but that doesn’t mean I’m softening up, going high-hat or trading in my leather jacket for a stiff shirt. Perhaps the role I have with Joan Crawford in this picture we’re making will convince my fans that Adolphe Menjou’s reputation is safe from me.

Sincerely,

Clark Gable