1936: Clark Gable Warns Stenos What Happens When Husbands Get Caught in a Triangle

Clark Gable Warns Stenos What Happens When Husbands Get Caught in a Triangle

By William Ulman

Hollywood magazine, April 1936

 

Clark Gable grinned. It was on the set while they were shooting the ice rink sequence for “Wife vs. Secretary.” He started scraping the ice with the point of his skates, piling the crust into little mounds and then absently brushing it away.

He was still grinning when he looked up. “The office husband problem is a tougher subject to talk on than politics—unless you stick to the fence, and I don’t like people who do that. Anyway, I’ve never worked in an office so I wouldn’t know much about that, but, just from the way you have to figure these things out for a picture, I’d say that office wives have to be as careful as office husbands—and the poor bosses are sure on the spot.

“Look at it this way,” he said, warming to the subject. “The girl in the office is apt to have a tendency to idealize the guy she’s working for. After all, he pays the check, is ‘Mr.’ So-and-So and is something of a big shot in his comparative field. Her whole job is to build that guy up so that he seems to amount to something even if she knows darned well he isn’t half that good.

“A lot of them get to believe it themselves if ‘the boss’ is at all attractive, but the thing that the office wife is apt to overlook that the house wife can’t, is that this big, bold, dashing man of affairs with the super-salesman’s personality is also subject to hangovers, may even wear bed-socks and probably has a foul disposition before his orange juice or bromo seltzer.

“That’s one side of it. But now take the spot Van Sanford was in after Faith Baldwin got through with him. He was in love with his wife. He had a grand looking girl in the office who practically ran the business for him. She was crazy about him. He liked her a lot—nothing serious, just mutual understanding and respect coupled with a common interest in the business. A strong bond? Certainly! But any woman who hasn’t the self-confidence in herself as a wife to meet such a situation and call it for what it is worth, is either going to worry herself to death anyway or lose her husband’s respect—and, eventually, love—by unfounded jealousies.

“In the picture, Myrna Loy, as Mrs. Sanford, does have that confidence in herself and it brings them back together again after a temporary split growing out of malicious gossip. People in real life are continually faced with that problem. If either one of them are at all attractive. The triangle is the world’s oldest story, but it’s how a certain set of characters react to it and what they do that make it interesting.

“I don’t think that the office wife situation is as acute these days as it used to be and, frankly, one reason I think so is that pictures have shown both men and women so many true-to-life situations and how to meet them that people are beginning to profit subconsciously from the examples set them.

“There’s no question, for example, the most modern wives are far better companions for their husbands than they were, say, thirty years ago. They go places with their men; since their so-called enfranchisement they do much the same things that used to be the sole prerogative of the males. And, therefore, they have less to fear in losing their husband’s interest.

“They’ve gained more confidence now that they’ve learned to play men’s games with men and they therefore no longer regard that good-looking blonde who sees their husband eight hours a day as an unscrupulous menace. There was a time when a man was undertaking a distinct family liability if he hired a looker for his office no matter how she helped his business.

“But, today, people realize that it’s almost as essential for a successful businessman to have an ‘office-hostess’ as it is to have a ‘home-hostess.’ I know of two or three very smart ladies who go out of their way to cultivate their husband’s secretaries, when, a few years ago, it wasn’t considered just right to have any social contact with a girl who worked in an office. And there is another problem. When two women get together, one at home and one at the office, in a friendly alliance to circumvent a man they both like, and make sure that he puts on his rubbers or doesn’t forget to take his pills an hour before lunch, he’s sunk!

“But it’s swell for the girls and they aren’t as apt to be so suspicious of one another. The type of man who pulls the old ‘misunderstood at home’ line might just as well fold up his tent and remain on the reservation. Which he deserves for lack of originality in excuses. Likewise the wife soon learns to play better bridge because she isn’t spending half her time worrying about the predatory aims of that mysterious ‘Miss So-and-so” person down at Rollo’s office.

“As a matter of fact, that same wife will eventually learn to be darned glad that her husband has a good-looking and efficient ‘office wife.’ After all, it’s rather old fashioned to assume that there’s anything between a man and his secretary, or any other feminine employee just because they both earn a living in the same shop. The two fields of mutual admiration are really so far apart. The psychiatrists might even coin a couple of new phrases such as ‘marriage-love’ and ‘work-love’ to cover two distinct and nonconflicting emotions. Everyone knows nowadays that it is physically impossible and mentally unhealthy for both parties to attempt to be completely possessive. A business relationship is essentially mental and down far different channels, at that, than the relationships of the home.

“But, with all this talk of home versus office and wife versus secretary, people are prone to overlook the plight of the two kinds of office husbands. First the man behind the desk who is pleasantly aware of an attractive girl with him—and another one to whom he’s devoted at home. Second, the husband of a girl who either has to or wants to work. The second husband is in precisely the same spot as the more familiar housewife and the same rules, of course, apply to him and his conduct with his wife as apply in the reversed situation.

“It is the predicament of the first man that should bring solace to the boss with a matronly and forbidding co-worker. Van Sanford, for example, has Myrna Loy at home. Many men would never leave home under such circumstances, but the balance comes with Jean Harlow as his very efficient aide in the office. We all know that with both men and women a person can very readily tell when a member of the opposite sex is beginning to develop the telltale symptoms of a heart attack. Now what is a man, or woman, for that matter, to do? Should a man fire an efficient girl because he suspects that her feelings are not strictly fiscal? Or should a girl quit a good job because she likes it—and the boss—too well?

“As I said before, you’re trying to put me on the spot by asking me to answer stuff like that. Okay! Well, here’s where little Clark gets himself right off the spot. I don’t know the answers any better than you do—if as well. I don’t work in an office, I don’t have a secretary and I’m very glad I’m an actor—especially after thinking of all the pitfalls that beset the paths of a man behind a desk. Personally, when I’m not working I prefer to be behind the butt of a good gun looking down the sights at a brunette who never heard of allure, who prefers berries to berries to caviar and only makes a pass at man when she’s mad—a Rocky Mountain Bear…

Clark Gable started grinning again as he got back on his skates. “And now,” he concluded, “I suppose you’ll go home and quote me as saying I prefer Rocky Mountain Bears to Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy…Well, in a way, maybe I do! I’m the one guy that knows when he’s outclassed!”