1946: Are You The Girl For Clark Gable?

By Alyce Canfield

Movieland, October 1946

Filmdom’s most eligible bachelor has a dream girl—maybe you’re the one!

When Clark Gable visited Anita Colby every day during her pneumonia siege, the gossip columns buzzed. Every time he appeared at a magnificent soiree with clever socialite Dolly O’Brien on his arm, speculation was rife. When he was sending Kay Williams little trinkets like gold bracelets, fan stories appeared announcing “The Next Mrs. Gable.”

Yet, as a matter of fact, all these ladies, are, quite safe, for his dream girl has not yet come to life in the person of any one girl. His tastes in women are strongly contradictory. Until he finds one who manages to satisfactorily scramble the combination of sophistication, intelligence, zany gayety, and poise, he’s very apt to continue being filmdom’s most eligible bachelor. Nevertheless, he des have a dream girl. She is a composite of every attractive woman he has ever know.

Present evidence to the contrary, Gable has generally gone for older women, He met his first girlfriend. Franz Doerfler, when they were both trying to crack show business. Bobby-sockers won’t remember this romance, but it’s recorded in Hollywood history as being one of the hottest on record. Temporarily out of the theater, nineteen-year-old Clark used to work as a loader in the Silver Falls Lumber Company in Portland, Oregon. Every weekend he would walk seven miles to the Doerfler farm to beg Franz to marry him. Franz was attractive, slightly older than Clark, and an actress. She wouldn’t marry him because she didn’t think he could support her. Today, Clark makes $7,500 per week plus a percentage.

In those days, acting was of first importance. It was so important that after he had gotten the brush-off from the practical Miss Doerfler, his next girl was a woman many years his senior, a drama coach, Miss Josephine Dillon. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world but if you think this romance was a one-sided affair with Miss Dillon swooning at Clark’s feet, you are distinctly wrong. When she left Portland for Los Angeles, Clark raced madly after her. A few months after they met, they were married, at Clark’s vehement insistence. She was an actress. She taught him many things he did not know: stage presence, how to make an entrance, how to modulate his voice, and so on.

His next marriage was to fashionable Rhea Langham. She shared his most fabulous success; the period wherein he skyrocketed to fame, and became one of the first ten at the box office, a position he has consistently held except for the years he spent in the Air Force. Rhea was a brilliant hostess. Her mind was sharp, aware, intelligent. Her social background was fabulous. She may not have been the ideal mate for a man who had come up from the oil fields, but she was definitely someone from whom he could learn something. She, also, was older than he by a number of years. A difference in age has never mattered to Clark. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until his marriage to Carole Lombard that he ever married or fell in love with a younger woman.

First and foremost among the qualities of Carole Lombard was adaptability. For years she had been a habitué at night clubs. She had given parties almost weekly. She went out every night. When she and Gable married, she was almost ten year his junior; the only younger woman about whom he had been serious. She therefore was adaptable. Clark liked to go duck hunting. Clark learned to shoot and hunt and went with him.

He liked to putter with tractors and machinery around their ranch. Carole donned dungarees and tramped through the neatly furrowed rows with him. Whatever Clark wanted to do, Carole wanted, too. And yet she did all this without losing one iota of her individuality or femininity.

There you have the pattern. If you were Clark Gable’s dream girl, you would be a composite of not only these women he loved and married, but of every girl who has since appealed to him. On the one hand, he seems not to care for beauty or youth. Rather, because he is not himself an intellectual, he has always admired a keen mind in women. Yet, if it came to a choice between a Joan Blondell type and a Greer Garson type, Blondell would win out. Gable feels more comfortable with gayety, warmth and understanding than he does with gayety, warmth, understanding and brilliance.

Today, in his present love life, the contradictory, revealing fact that he is attracted first by one type and then by another is still evident. Anita Colby, for instance, is gay, past mistress of laugh-provoking small talk and gossip. She is amusing, beautiful, sophisticated, even brittle. She is also intelligent, but her intelligence is female rather than mental. She doesn’t discuss Renoir with Gable, nor the opera, nor Gertrude Atherton’s short stories. She does keep hm informed of most of the amusing highlights of the personal lives of the people who live in Hollywood. She is beautiful, statuesque, a little cool and remote in appearance. This latter is a tip-off to the central scheme of Gable’s love pattern. He is attracted by women he can look up to, from whom he can learn things, even if those things are only light gossip.

Contrastingly lovely Anita Colby, who, some say, resembles Carole Lombard, was Dolly O’Brien, who, others say, resembles Rhea Langham. Until her recent marriage to diplomat Jose Dorelis, Dolly held honors as Gable’s No. 1 lady. Dolly always gave the impression that she could take Gable or leave him alone. The spirit of independence has always been intriguing, and a challenge to male ego.

Occasionally, you will see Gable alone at the Mocambo giving the eye to a dewy little blonde. He isn’t immune to beauty. But no typical Hollywood blonde will ever hold his permanent interest. Because the pattern of Gable, his likes and dislikes, have been conditioned today by his past experiences. Three loves out of four have been for women who were actresses. Three women out of four with whom he has been serious have been older than he. Not that you can disregard the sweetest love story of them all: that of Gable and Carole Lombard.

Right now Gable’s ideal girl is one who is not thinking too seriously of marriage. Gable likes his bachelor’s life, and he isn’t particularly keen to give it up. He’ll never settle for any love less terrific than the one that ended so tragically in a crash on a Nevada mountainside. He’s tasted cake, and bread will not do.

One thing about Gable’s dream girl is stunningly clear: the hold-over from his youthful interest in older women reveals a positive fact. He likes his women to be mature. No bubbling, giggling, unbalanced, emotionally unstable girl would ever hold his interest for long.

As to height and weight, that seems to vary. Dolly O’Brien was petite, Anita Colby, more on the statuesque side. Carole was in-between. But, despite the beauty of most of the lovelies he dates, the bystander has the feeling that Gable—for all his brashness—looks below the surface. In the parlance of his last picture, “Adventure,” he is looking for something in a woman’s eyes; a spirit of adventure, comradeship, warmth and depth.

Gable has a terrific sense of humor. Being with him is fun. To be Clark Gable’s dream girl, you’d have to be able to appreciate the intonations of a word. He laughs a lot, for life amuses him. He has his serious side, to, but it’s never evident on a date. He likes to talk about you, which you’d find flattering. The old conventional trick of asking questions wouldn’t be your smartest move if you were Gable’s girl. Instead, he’d fire questions at you. Not just to be polite, not to make conversation, but because he’d be genuinely interested in your answers.

If you were Clark Gable’s dream girl, you’d at least have a reading acquaintance with certain masculine things that interested him most: automobiles, hunting, deep-sea fishing, or ranch life as compared to city life. You’d be interested in prize fights, all types of sports, football. You’d be able to speak his language. He’s no great shakes as a dancer, but an evening at the Mocambo with Clark Gable would be an event. Everyone in the place, it might seem, would stop at your table. He’d appreciate it if you didn’t sit there like a bump on a log when these people came by to say hello. You could tactfully let him do the greeting and talking, but when conversation languished, he’d glow if you kept his guests amused and gay until they went back to their tables.

If you were Gable’s girl, you’d have to possess real poise. Because wherever he goes, a hush follows. People stare. Even at the most celebrated nightspots—like Ciro’s or the Mocambo or the Trocadero—heads turn. You couldn’t be flustered by this intense scrutiny. You’d have to take it all in your stride.

If you were Gable’s dream girl and wanted to go out with him more than once, you would not report your evening’s fun to the local newspaper columnists. Many Gable romances have died a cool death when he picked up the next morning’s papers and read of the night-before activities. You see, Gable is human. He doesn’t like to be used for your personal publicity.

If you were Gable’s dream girl, you couldn’t do the rave act about his ability as an actor. Gable has no illusions about himself. Although millions of women thrilled to his Rhett Butler, he thinks any number of actors could have played the role. He figures that he’s just been lucky in his career. Once he told a Saturday Evening Post correspondent: “I can’t emote for sour apples.” He believes it.

Despite his aversion to the romance gossip in the papers, you’d be a smart cookie if you told him you liked newspaper people. By and large, Gable admires them. As a matter of fact, he would rather play a newspaper reporter in a movie than any other type role. He figures he understands them.

Gable is not emotionally complicated. He doesn’t like nervous, high-strung, neurotic girls. He would walk away from a fit of feminine temperament. He neither has the patience nor the wish to nurse a girl through a fit of hysterics. Genuine tears from real tragedy move him deeply, but tears of self-pity he doesn’t understand nor like.

Right now, with the memory of Carole Lombard not too far away, Gable doesn’t want a serious romance. So, if you were Gable’s dream girl, you’d hold the reins lightly. As a matter of fact, even if he fell madly in love with you and wanted with all his heart and soul to marry you, it would still be smart of you to hold the reins lightly. Because Gable’s theme song per women has always been, “Don’t fence me in.” He isn’t kidding, so don’t be the possessive type.

Gable has a twinkle in his eyes. He appreciates a trim figure, pretty leges, a good complexion, a bubbling sense of humor.

Don’t make him wait too long to find out he’d be nice to come home to. He’s not a patient man. You wouldn’t want to arrive at the point where you couldn’t live without him only to have him tell you, as he did Scarlett O’Hara: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”

See? We tell you everything!

Take this test to see if you’re the girl for Gable.

Are you mature in your manner?
Do you have a quick mind?
Do you possess a quality or knowledge which would make you interesting to Clark?
Are you honest, frank, direct?
Do you have a sense of humor?
Are you good at gay small talk?
Can you intelligently discuss engines, hunting, sports?
Are you adaptable?
Are you feminine?
Is your conversation filled with references to the opera, the classics, and so on?
Are you possessive?
Are you too marriage conscious?
Are you emotionally unstable, given to frequent tantrums or tears?
Do you possess a spirit of adventure?
Do you dress smartly?
Can you carry a conversation, answer questions interestingly?
Do you have poise?
Do you like newspaper people?
Would you keep Clark guessing for months about how you felt about him?

If you are Clark Gable’s dream girl, your answers would be: