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{In the News} The Final Years of Kay Williams 1965-1983
Here is our final installment of the Kay Williams news clippings series. The other installments: Clark Gable Marries Kay Spreckels 1955-1960 Kay Williams Divorces Adolph Spreckels, Dates Clark Gable Again 1951-1954 Kay Williams Marries Adolph Spreckels 1945-1951 Kay Williams Dates Clark Gable (For The First Time) 1944-1945 Kay Williams 1937-1943 We pick up in 1965. April 19, 1965: Los Angeles–On the flickering screen was the happiest marriage of casting and character, plot and player, in the long history of motion pictures. The handsome, muscular man who played the renegade Confederate blockage runner seemed less an actor than the real article. In short, it was hard to tell where Clark Gable…
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{In The News} Newly Widowed Kay Williams 1961-1963
We last left Clark Gable and Kay Williams Gable in late 1960. Clark died on November 16, 1960, and I am skipping over all the coverage of his illness and death as I have covered that before and it would get redundant–the subject at hand is Kay. You can read about Clark’s death and funeral here. So let’s pick up in January 1961, when Kay is newly widowed and an expectant mother. January 15, 1961: Gable’s Widow Gets Allowance Los Angeles–Clark Gable’s widow has a $5,000 monthly allowance from the actor’s estate to meet family expenses. The petition of former actress Kay Williams for this sum was approved in Superior…
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{In the News} Kay Williams Divorces Adolph Spreckels, Dates Clark Gable Again 1951-1954
When we last left Kay, she was married to Adolph Spreckels Jr. and had just given birth to their second child. September 13, 1951: Fifth Wife Sues Spreckels Heir Los Angeles–The fifth wife of Adolph B. Spreckels II, 39-year-old heir to a sugar fortune, has sued him for divorce, alleging cruelty. The former Kay Williams, 33, who married Spreckels six years ago, asked the court in her suit yesterday to oust her estranged mate from the Bel Air mansion they occupy. She claims Spreckels persists in staying there although they became estranged September 5. Mrs. Spreckels, former actress, alleged in her complaint that her husband used physical violence on her…
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{In the News} Kay Williams Marries Adolph Spreckels 1945-1951
Picking up with where we left off, Kay and Clark Gable are broken up and so Kay has moved on.. September 7, 1945: Kay Williams Is Bride Hollywood–Blond actress Kay Williams, who last year was reported engaged to Clark Gable, today was honeymooning with sugar heir Adolph Spreckels, Jr., of San Francisco. Same date: Film actress Kay Williams and Adolph Spreckels, Jr., sugar fortune heir, were married last night at the home of a Wickenburg justice of the peace. Adolph Spreckels Jr. was the grandson of Claus Spreckels, founder of the Spreckels sugar company. Now that she married Adolph Jr., you thought that was the last we’d see of her…
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{In the News} Kay Williams Dates Clark Gable (For The First Time) 1944-1945
When we last left Kay, she’d been awarded a divorce from her second husband, Argentine millionaire Macoco. Before we get into 1944, I want to address some inconsistencies about when Clark Gable and Kay Williams first got together. In her book, “Clark Gable: A Personal Portrait,” Kay details the following: I turned down the initial invitation to meet [Clark]. It was in 1942, shortly after I arrived in Hollywood. I had a stock contract at MGM, the same studio where Gable was the reigning star. I was living in a small apartment in Westwood when one day I received a call from Benny Thau, an MGM executive and technically, one…
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{In the News} Kay Williams 1937-1943
Just as I did for Clark Gable’s fourth wife, Sylvia Ashley, I’ve rounded up newspaper blurbs about his fifth wife, Kay Williams. Kathleen “Kay” Williams was born on August 7, 1916 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Her father left the family when Kay was very young and so she, her brother Vincent and sister Elizabeth were raised solely by her mother, Joan, on a peach farm. Kay knew her good looks could get her more than Erie could offer, and so she took off for New York at age 17 to become a fashion model in New York. She was soon heralded as “The Most Beautiful Model in the World” and appeared…
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Kathleen “Kay” Williams
Stats Born Kathleen Gretchen Williams on August 7, 1916 on a peach farm in Erie, Pennsylvania. She had two younger siblings, Vincent and Elizabeth. Her parents divorced in 1930 and her father abandoned the family afterwards. 5’5, blonde, blue-eyed. Quotes “Looking back I wonder if there are many people who even in 25 or 30 years of marriage find the happiness that Clark and I had in those five years and four months.” “Sometimes I would try to tease Clark into telling me some tasty morsels about his former leading ladies, but I might as well have banged my head against a stone wall. He simply refused to gossip. He’d…
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Finding Myrna Loy
From 1938 on, Clark Gable was known as The King of Hollywood and the name has stuck to him even now. Myrna Loy was crowned The Queen of Hollywood at the same ceremony, but unfortunately the title did not stick to her like it did Clark. Nonetheless, from then on, Clark affectionately called her “Queenie.” “Queenie,” much like Clark, was a small-town kid who seemed unlikely to gain worldwide fame, but did thanks to her star power and perseverance. I recently found myself in Myrna’s gorgeous home state of Montana and followed her around a bit. Myrna Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams on August 2, 1905 to David and Della Williams. She was born…
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1961: After Tragedy, A Rising Star (Part 3)
After Tragedy, A Rising Star By Adela Rogers St. Johns The Orlando Sentinel, January 8, 1961 When he came back from the war, things ganged up on The King. This led him into a way of life utterly foreign to the Clark Gable his friends had known and to his only miserable marriage—Lady Sylvia Ashley, who had married her title. She was the daughter of a footman, had been a London showgirl, and was the widow of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. In the first shock of wild grief after his wife Carole was killed in an airplane crash, Gable enlisted and went overseas. While he was away fighting he was, as…
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1960: The Story Behind The Man (Part 1)
The Story Behind the Man By Adela Rogers St. Johns The Orlando Sentinel, December 25, 1960 The King, Spencer Tracy called him. But as the years went by and his star continued to rise, Clark Gable earned a title that began in jest The king is dead. Long live the king, because this big guy is really worth remembering. The title started, or course, as a gag, bestowed on Clark Gable by a pal named Spencer Tracy. One morning when they were making a picture together, Tracy saw Gable drive up to the MGM studio gate through a populace of cheering girls, women, tourists, boys on their way to school,…
