1932: What the Future Holds for Clark Gable

By Wynn

Modern Screen, January 1932

Is Clark’s success a temporary thing or is it permanent? Why is it he is popular in unpopular parts? Will he be as successful in sympathetic-hero-roles? What are his chances for duplicating Valentino’s tremendous success?

There are a lot of things in this life that don’t seem to fit in with what we’d expect in the normal course of cause and effect.

For instance, if Clark Gable had popped in on you, say, three years ago, and asked: “I want to go on the screen and play villains, gangsters and bad men generally. Do you think I could ever be popular and have Greta Garbo say I was her favorite leading man?”

What would you have answered?

You or I or anyone else who used ordinary common sense would probably have been wrong. For he has done just those things.

And the strange thing about it is that he hasn’t glorified the gangster. Although some of his lesser roles have shown him as a hero, he hasn’t had a sympathetic part in a single picture in which I’ve seen this peculiarly able actor.

He takes parts that we all instinctively dislike and shines through them with his own personality.

He is a born actor, for his natal Sun position is in the fifth house of his horoscope, and the fifth is the location of, or the source of, most of the influences that attract men and women to a theatrical career. There’s a tip for you, if you were born between the approximate ours of 8 and 10 pm, for that is the time of day, every day in the year, when the Sun is in the fifth house. Of course, there are other influences that can be in the fifth division of the heavenly circle; the Sun is by no means the only one, for many successful screen stars were not born at this time of the evening. If you ever work out your horoscope, study the fifth house carefully if you have aspirations toward success in screen work.

The most striking thing about this horoscope of Gable is the conjunction of Neptune, the planet of the Movies, with his mid-heaven—similar to the horoscopes of Robert Ames, Joel McCrea, Ronald Colman, Ben Lyon, Charles Farrell, and Ralph Graves. This position instantly shows that its owner could do well in connection with the celluloid industry, although we must look elsewhere for the evidence of ability to perform before a camera and mike. In comrade Gable’s case, this is seen in the position of the Sun in the fifth. But there is even more to it than that: Mercury, the mental planet, is not only his ruler (because it rules the sign on his Ascendant) but it is also the ruler of his tenth (occupation and position before the public for fame and reputation) and the ruler of the sign (Gemini) in which we see the planet Neptune when he was born. This links his true temperament (external expression and what others see of him) to the work he is now doing.

You who have been reading my comments on the horoscopes of screen celebrities in these pages will recall that I predicted a few years ago a great advance in the movies, a literary advance. Well, we have seen this advance, at least the beginning of it, for we certainly are getting a bigger percentage of well-thought-out and well-directed film fare. The basis of that prediction was the present (then to be) position of Neptune in Virgo. Now notice how actors, and others who make pictures for our entertainment, who have Neptune and Virgo prominent in their nativities, make this prediction come true.

The planet at the mid-heaven, if there is one in an individual’s horoscope, is the most important in his or her life expression. Here we see Neptune, the custodian of film success, so located in Gable’s birth chart. But that doesn’t yet show him as a big contributor to the better pictures. Where is Virgo, the other element we need to make the recipe complete? How would you like to have what he has at the mid-heaven plus the sign Virgo in the most personal position of the entire horoscope? Well, that’s what he has! Virgo on the Ascendant.

This makes him analytical, a deep student of not only the parts he portrays, but also of the entire surrounding environment of the whole piece. He probably knows the lines of the other actors and actresses in the casts with him as well as they do. He feels, in all probability, that he must know this in order to be able to give the best interpretations of those he himself speaks. Yes, I think we have here a man with an exceptional viewpoint on his profession. I think he could give a perfect explanation of why he is popular in unpopular parts, for he is a student of not only the old, but of the new, in dramatic presentations. He has ideas. He doesn’t do the job in the old way just because that is what has been the custom.

He is a breaker of customs. He is original. He thinks out new ways to put over the biggest possible perfection of his interpretations of his parts. Yet, he has enough of the old (Saturn in his fourth, in its first and therefore related to his ability to repress and delay his effects, especially in emotional matters) to link him with the traditions of both stage and screen. This may sound strange—he is so young to be a tradition—but I am speaking of the future, when we will all look back at the work he will have done. If he will be careful of himself and take no chances that would endanger his physical well being (I don’t particularly care for some of the indications of his position of Mars in the twelfth house) he has a long stretch of mounting success ahead of him. He should go slow, especially in occupational risks, including those of possible damage to his personal reputation and relations with superiors, from January 24 to February 12, from May 23 to June 8, and from September 28 to October 25, 1932, for these are all risky times for him, as well as for those born in his decan (from January 31 to February 9).

I could not advise Clark Gable to risk any of his financial strength during the first half of 1932, for he will be under vibrations at that period which would make his judgement inaccurate in anything having to do with the proper investment of money, the choosing of partners, and also in anything of a legal nature. Thereafter, however, if he will get the approval of his wife on whatever appeals to him, there is strong probability that they together could go into something which would turn up a neat profit in the end.

Yes, he is a money maker, as are most of those born with Jupiter in the sign Capricorn (including those who entered the world between January 19, 1901, and February 6, 1902), for this is the second house-sign shows that he knows how to hold on to money.

Speaking of planets in their first house-signs, all of which add to the color of a person’s temperament, look at his Moon up there in his tenth (mid-heaven) in its own sign Cancer. That is the real key to his popularity and his ability to know what the people want. For the Moon is the planet of the multitude, the majority. He instinctively has his soul in tune with the people who sit out in front watching his shadow portray even the part of a hard racketeer. He can assume the character they want him to feel. Personally, I don’t know every many tough gangsters intimately, but I’d like to have them all like Clark Gable. And that’s the point. Probably a real tough isn’t at all like Gable’s characterization of such a person, but he has the touch of sensitivity through that position of his Moon at birth that makes him know what we expect. What could explain his popularity in those parts better? Especially when we realize that its location in this horoscope is the occupational tenth house!

Marriage? He has previously been married. Two trips to the altar. Double sign on his seventh cusp, the sensitive point in regard to one’s partnerships, both of business and in the domestic circle. Pisces is the one referred to, and it is the sign ruled by Neptune, up there at the top of the chart. His first wife was connected with the same line of work and I have no doubt his present better half is of much value in his development before the public. I have read that he thinks a wife is not a part of a man’s career, but I don’t think he means it. Not with this horoscope. The ruler of the seventh at the mid-heaven shows that he needs her in his success, perhaps more than he knows.

According to his horoscope, Clark Gable is the type of man who, in order to keep interested in a woman, must find one who can at all times satisfy his mental development. And who must, therefore, constantly change in her outlook exactly as much as he changes. Clark is a rather complicated sort of person and, as you can see, it must be difficult for a woman to hold his interest.

He and his present wife are very happy. But in order to remain so, Mrs. Gable must keep on the alert to keep up to Clark’s mental changes which are bound to take place with his success. This does not mean he is going high-hat. Not at all. But such terrific success is bound to change a person’s outlook on life—it’s inevitable. And, if she is to remain his wife, Mrs. Gable must be able to mentally stimulate the new Clark Gable—a man at whose feet the word is bowing just at present.

Not an easy task for any woman. But let us wish Mrs. Gable luck.

One of the greatest developers of Clark’s character is travel. He has evidently done a great deal of it, but not enough. He would never be a purposeless roamer—everything would be tied up with something important in his character, to come out later in a portrayal that would be of entertainment or other value to his audience. It would be a wise producer who would pay him to see the word, for he would bring it all back to the box office for them and himself in the end.

No, I cannot see him as playing his present type of hard-hearted individuals much longer. But at the same time I cannot imagine anything sweet and softly romantic coming from the native of his horoscope in a professional way. He always should, and probably will, continue to play very marked characters with a great deal of repression, but they will be more varied and many of them, I hope, will be sympathetic, for he could do big things in such roles.

So far, we have seen him mostly in stories where the main part was that of a woman, and there is evidence in this horoscope that he should do this as much as possible. If, however, he was born fifteen minutes after nine o’clock in the evening, he could be starred as the male hero and would go over to a great success with fans. This is a large if, and his producers would do well to make sure of his exact moment of birth, for the point is a delicate one.

The dominating note in his character is a mental one, although he is intense in his emotions. He has literary capacity, not only shown by the Mercury-ruled signs on both Ascendant and mid-heaven, but by the fact that Mercury is in the sign Aquarius, its ninth house-sign. The ninth indicates the capacity for grasping philosophy and the intangibles of the higher mind. No, folks, Clark Gable is not all on the surface. He is the most intricate person. It will take years and years to see all the various angles that he is able to present. I know if only one or two others who could be compared with him in this respect among the other actors who are now on the screen.

He should never become a type, and I don’t think he will.

My underground information reporting system advises that there is chatter up and down Hollywood Boulevard, as well as in some of the less important places of the world, to the effect that Clark has it in his power to establish himself somewhat in the nature of a second Valentino. At the back of all this there is, I suppose, the hope that he can capture the hearts of sufficient among his audiences to make a pleasant jingle in the coffers of the producers. Theatre owners, you know, never object to paying the repair bills for fixing the doors the public has pushed down trying to get in to see a popular hero.

Well, astrologically speaking, a comparison of the horoscopes of these two excellent men doesn’t reveal the same causes of popularity. Valentino’s was almost purely an emotional appeal, such artistic ability as he possessed was shown by his Ascendant in Pisces. Friend Gable has the opposite sign rising (at the Ascendant); and Virgo makes a strong and clear-cut mental appeal, stimulating the logic and literary appreciations of his audience. Gable doesn’t make us feel as did Valentino. Valentino didn’t make us wake up and stir our minds as can Gable.

Always the actor who could make audiences feel without thinking has been the most powerful.

It would be an error, according to the way I look at it, to try to make Clark Gable into the type of character Valentino has made so famous. Comrade Gable may become just as popular and bring just as many fans to his support as did the immortal Rudolph, but it won’t be by the same means. I say this because the mental appeal is going to mark more and more the success or failure of pictures in the future. In other words, strange as it may seem, an attempt to imitate Valentino’s popularity in this case would defeat its own purpose.