On the eve of St. Valentine’s Day, [Clark Gable] drove his car into the garage of the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was staying, and steered for his usual stall.
“I’m afraid it’s already occupied, Mr. Gable,” said the watchman.
Clark got out, and, to his amazement, discovered a dilapidated Model T Ford, painted white, with a pattern of large red hearts. Tied around the body was a huge red ribbon with a card reading: “To My Valentine, from Carole Lombard.”
It wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without some photos of Clark and Carole. Here they are where they were happiest, at home on their ranch.
This article is the second in a series of four articles about Clark and Carole that appeared in Movie and Radio Guide in May 1940. You can read Part Three here.
Mr. Gable has a seven-year contract with MGM for $2,000,000. He has Carole Lombard! Gentlemen, if luck does that to a man, then here’s one fellow who begins today to make his troth with Lady Luck. We have an idea that ability and hard work had something to do with Mr. Gable’s success. Luck may get a man to the top, but luck can’t keep him there.
“Have you met Mrs. G?” Mr. Gable asked. “She’s not working right now. You ought to go out to the farm and see her.”
He was very serious. “I hope you understand one thing and that is that Mrs. G. and I want to live our own lives. We’re rather proud of our home. We’ve never allowed a picture to be taken inside of our house. You understand, I hope. That’s our home and we don’t care to have our personal belongings spread before the eyes of the world.”
And Mr. Gable meant it. That’s another thing I like about the family. After all, a couple has a right to privacy.
This is true. Often you see pictures of stars’ homes laid out in magazines, but never any of the inside of Clark and Carole’s. All publicity photos were taken outside the home or in the barn.
Mr. Gable is not as critical of other actors as his wife. Mrs. Gable will tell an actor that he or she was corny in a certain shot. She will argue with directors and producers. But Mr. Gable has a good word for almost everybody. It is not a question of diplomacy with him. A man with the contract that he’s got doesn’t have to be diplomatic. It’s just his nature. He and his wife sometimes argue. She will say, “You know that so and so hammed that part.” He will say, “Now, now, Carole, maybe he was doing the best he could.”
They never allow themselves to become bored.
“Boredom is the greatest sin in the world,” Mr. Gable said, “And the only cure for boredom is hard work and an understanding marriage.”
He and Mrs. Gable click because they never do the same things every day. They make life interesting. They entertain very little and have been to only two hot-spots during the first year of their marriage. They read a lot—good books.
I like that quote about boredom! It is evident in Clark and Carole’s marriage that they balanced each other out. She could be feisty, and he would settle her down. He could be a stick in the mud, and she would bring out his fun side.
You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive. And look out for Part Four coming soon!
In 1940, Fred Parrish, a well-known Hollywood photographer, mused on some of his favorite moments.
Gone with the Wind
For a scene of the evacuation of Atlanta in GWTW, a horse-drawn ammuniton wagon was to come down the street and explode just as the horse passed [a lamp post]. I picked the safe side of the street, but when the bomb in the wagon went off, the horse went the wrong way so fast he made Seabiscuit look sick. If it had not been for the iron safety bowl used in the wagon, I would have been blown right off the lot!
I’ll bet the hardest work [Clark Gable] ever did was the scene in “GWTW” in which he carried Scarlett up a long staircase. He did thirty times at almost a dead run before the “take” was okayed!
Ask me who I like the most, and the answer is Vivien Leigh. While shooting the evacuation of Atlanta, she started work every morning at 6:30. At 11:30 at night she was still running through the streets, dodging horses and being bumped around by extras. At midnight I thought she was ready to collapse. “You’re too tired to take a still,” I said. She grinned. “I’m not too tired if you’re not–I can pose for ‘em as long as you can shoot ‘em!”
[And also] the gamest star is Vivien Leigh. In “GWTW,” standing at the top of a staircase, she tells Gable she is to have a baby. Sarcastically he asks who is to be the father. She swings at him, he ducks and she falls. We shot the beginning of the fall three times, the end fifteen in a whole day!
Carole Lombard
Carole IS a lady! Too many gossip writers harp on Carole Lombard’s language. She does what she feels–but never swears unless it fits the situation, while some cuss to be vulgar. As a gag when I took this picture she hit me smack in the stomach with the ball. She’s unpredictable!
Carole’s Stand In
This was censored. Imagine what Carole Lombard would look like running around on the screen in this costume. The picture above shows her stand-in being light-tested in a “skeleton suit” on the “Nothing Sacred” set. Later, powers-that-be decided the idea was not so good. Carole is an agreeable subject for “gag” pictures; she is never snobbish with photographers or co-workers.
It’s no secret that Clark Gable didn’t want to be in Gone with the Wind. Despite the public’s insistence that he was the only one who could play Rhett, he had no desire to step into the shoes of the rebellious blockade runner. “The reason I didn’t want to do Gone with the Wind–here is a novel that is the top seller of all time. Now, people form opinions about characters–they formed an opinion that I was going to play it. They already had a preconcieved idea of what they were going to see. That’s why I didn’t want to play, I said too many people know this character. My God, with Rhett Buter, if they saw one thing they didn’t like, they would have remembered back to the book. I had to be on my toes and I knew that,” he later recalled.
Through pre-production and casting, the director on the film was George Cukor. George was a gay man and was known as being a “woman’s director,” able to coach the best performances out of actresses. This made Clark uneasy right from the start, as he was not feeling very confident in the role and knew that George was focusing more on Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland than him.
The rumor is that Clark didn’t like George Cukor because he was gay and that George knew about a gay affair that Clark had in the 1920′s and that made Clark uncomfortable, so Clark had him fired and replaced with his buddy, Victor Fleming.
Let’s peel the orange on this one. First of all, yes, Clark was a bit of a homophobe. He was a Republican and rather conservative in his thinking and, after all, this was the 1930′s, there weren’t exactly gay pride parades going on. Clark tended to be very uncomfortable around gay men. He felt the same around Charles Laughton on the set of Mutiny on the Bounty. For some reason, people pounce on this and declare that because he was so uneasy around gays that that must mean it was because he himself was gay! Ridiculous. If being a homophobe means one has gay skeletons in their closet, then we must have a lot of gay Republican politicians!
The “gay affair” that is claimed that Clark had was with William Haines, a gay silent movie actor who later turned interior designer. The rumor is that he and Clark had a fling around 1925 and that Clark was a “rent boy” and did sexual favors for pay. I am inclined not to believe this for several reasons, mainly because the only place this secret nugget has been printed is in salicious, disgusting so-called biographies that are full of lies. Also, it just doesn’t fit with whom Clark was—he was fascinated by women, always chasing women, and I just don’t think he was ever gay–even for pay. Also, if this thing with William Haines was such a well-known fact as these so-called authors claim it was, then why would Carole Lombard let Haines in her house? She and “Billy” were friends–he had decorated her famous Hollywood Blvd bacherlorette pad– and he was at the ranch from time to time. I sincerely doubt that Clark would let him in the house if the rumors were true and Carole wouldn’t have blamed him.
Clark’s preference for rough-and-tumble director Victor Fleming instead of George Cukor should come as no surprise, gay rumors or not. Vic Fleming was a long-time pal of Clark’s, having directed him in Red Dust, The White Sister and Test Pilot. But an important factor to remember is that David Selznick and George Cukor were at odds without Clark’s influence. Clark was probably a factor in Fleming being hired in George’s place, however.
From Michael Sragow’s excellent biography on Fleming,Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master
…Gable’s preference for Fleming to direct GWTW instead of George Cukor was not only well-known; it was also reported before principal photography began. And ever since he joined the production, Gable has been out of sorts. He shot his first scenes in January 1939, two weeks after Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Doubtless he felt uncertain in a new studio, acting with women who already a close rapport with Cukor.
After Selznick fired Cukor, John Lee Mahin recalled, Gable made a late night visit to Fleming’s house to beg to come on to GWTW. Mahin was probably thinking of the events of the early morning hours of Sunday, February 12; a coup de theatre straight out of a screwball comedy and at odds with Selznick’s denial that he consulted with Gable about the directorial change.
In this version, Selznick, Gable, and Eddie Mannix, after viewing GWTW rushes at Selznick’s house, paid a 3:00am visit not to Louis B. Mayer but to Mervyn Leroy at his Santa Monica beach house. The ruckus stirred Leroy from slumber. He looked down from his bedroom window and demanded; “I’m in bed–what do you mean by busting in at this hour of the night?” Selznick shouted in return; “We want your director–we’ve got to have Victor Fleming!” It took a series of phone calls–including at least one to Mayer–but a few hours later Leroy at released Fleming from The Wizard of Oz. Selznick announced Fleming’s hiring two days later.
“My God, imagine picking up a project like that at this stage,” Fleming was heard to muse that week on the Oz set. “Still, if Clark’s going to sulk, I guess I better do it.” As soon as Selznick made the switch, Norman Webb of National Box Office Digest wrote the producer that he was glad Fleming was taking over, because, unlike Cukor, “Victor Fleming has one of the very best box office records in the industry.”
So what did happen to Cukor? And why did Selznick summon Fleming? Contemporary columnists and well as latterday analysts, trying to make sense of Selznick’s decision, have often placed the onus on Gable. But several eyewitnesses contradict the notion that Gable catalyzed the crisis, no matter how central he was to the outcome. Susan Myrick, the film’s Georgia dialect coach and technical advisor, provided an intimate account in a letter to the book’s author, Margaret Mitchell. She wrote that Cukor told her he had “looked at the rushes and felt he was failing. He knew he was a good director and knew the actors were good ones; yet the thing did not click as it should.” He demanded that they return to the original script by Sidney Howard. Selznick balked and offered his own ultimatium: “OK, get out.” In 1954, Ed Sullivan wrote that Cukor reached the point of no return when he clashed with Selznick on how to film a scene of Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) walking down the stairs to meet Scarlett: “I think Ashley, at that moment, would be scared to meet her,” Selznick said. “I disagree wholeheartedly,” Cukor replied.
Cukor was never specific in his own recollections. “David talks generally,” he said in 1968, recalling the day he was summouned to Selznick’s office. “He said something like, ‘It’s not coming along the way I want it to, I’ve taken complete responsibility and it has to be my way.’”
Bottom line is, that even though Clark was the biggest star of the film, he didn’t have some inflated ego that caused him to demand that Cukor be shoved out and his buddy Fleming be brought in. Selznick and Cukor were butting heads already and Clark’s displeasure was just icing on the cake. Clark didn’t get Cukor fired, but once the decision was made that Cukor was out, he certainly was 100% behind the idea of bringing Fleming in.
And can any of us really say we are dissatisfied with the results?
From July 1941:
[I'm a prop man at MGM and] would you believe it, I’ve actually seen that big he-man Clark Gable halt production on a picture while he was allowed to leisurely indulge in a bottle of pop.
At MGM, I was filling the bookshelves on one of the adjoining sets and from this vantage point was watching a scene being filmed which called for some fast talk on the part of Clark. One of the sentences had turned out to be a tongue twister, and he stumbled on it over and over, becoming more annoyed at himself each time. Finally he went over and said something to the director. I saw him nod his head in the direction of the “candy man” who was just coming on the set with his little rubber-wheeled cart.
The director pondered a moment, and then turned and announced to the company that there would be a short recess.
What followed was comical. It was as though school had been let out. As the electricians scampered to switch off the big lights, the script girl put down her pen and pencil, the sound men abandoned their posts, and everyone flocked around the “candy man” like a bunch of kids. And Mr. Gable had his bottle of pop.
Then, in a short while, they were ready to go back to work. In a few minutes the camera was rolling again, the “mike” was cocking its sensitive ear at the players as they spoke—and the scene was recorded without a hitch.
Such is the life of a prop man, one of the unsung workers in the maelstrom called the movies. One of the thousands whose part in the world’s most glamorous industry is always behind the camera range.
I was ecstatic to find this article because I love Clark Gable and Jean Harlow together, on screen and off, and Hold Your Man is my favorite film of theirs. So what could be better than a behind the scenes piece, written by Anita Loos herself, the author of Hold Your Man?
One morning Jean was late in making her appearance on the stage. I happened to be there and Clark was plainly concerned.
“I am worried for fear Jean’s sick,” he said. “She’s never late unless something’s wrong. Do you know,” he continued, “I can’t understand how that tiny kid stands up under such strenuous work. She only weighs one hundred and nine pounds, but she seems to have the endurance of a prize-fighter. She is a brave little trooper—and can she act? Say, she sets a pace for me that keeps me on my toes every minute
She anticipates every move and –halfway. When it comes to weighing dramatic values, Jean’s scales need no adjusting. She ought to be a source of delight to directors—I know she is to Sam Wood. Sam says she is a mind-reader and kidnaps his thoughts before he can express them. Gee, I hope the kid isn’t sick!” And Clark heaved a genuine sigh.
I looked up over Clark’s shoulder. Tiptoeing toward us came Jean, forefinger to her lips.
While his back was turned toward her, Clark glimpsed her approach out of the tail of his eye but showed no indication that he was aware of her presence. He resumed conversation in a louder tone.
“The trouble with Harlow is that she’s mean. She plays her own stuff for all it’s worth but she certainly crabs my best scenes. I can’t call her down because she is a woman, but some day I’ll forget myself. Have you noticed her sitting around with her shoes off? Well, she does that because she can’t think without twiddling her toes, Her brains are in her feet.”
Jean stopped and listened.
“And what about a dame that can’t live without a gramophone going?” Clark continued. “Besides this one on the set she has one in her dressing room and three in her house with radio attachments. She lays the record of ‘Night and Day’ day and night—until I’m going nuts. Thinks she can crab my performance! Huh! The poor sap—she doesn’t seem to realize that if I don’t give a good performance in this picture there won’t be anything for the audience to see.”
At this point Jean confronted her traducer, and with hands on her hips. “My pal!” she remarked.
Feigning surprise, Clark jumped to his feet. “Well, well, how’s my little chromium blonde this morning? I was worried about you being late.”
“You big Ohio hillbilly!” blazed Jean. “I heard what you said behind my back!”
“Well, did you ever hear that old crack about eavesdroppers never hearing any good of themselves?” he asked.
The he-man of the films dodged just in time to miss Jean’s beach slipper as he fled.
Adorable! Clark and Jean really did have a close friendship and despite what is sometimes said, I never have believed there was any sort of romance or sexual relationship between them at all. They were like brother and sister.
“What a man, what a man!” grinned Jean as he left. “He razzes me every minute in hopes of getting my goat—and sometimes he does. In a big hot love scene the other day, he whispered, ‘Jean, you’ve got your eyebrows on upside down.’ So I ups to him and said I could hardly wait for him to grow old and gray as I was just crazy about Gray Gables. If he will go in for ancient wheezes, I can not only take ‘em—but I can hand ‘em right back.”
“Do you like working with Clark?” I asked.
“Well, I should say I do! I am never the least bit nervous with him. He is so sure—and dependable. All the time.”
“What would you think of Clark as a lover? I asked.
“He’d be great,” said Jean without any hesitation. “The type that doesn’t always want to be mooshing about with you. But if you did get sentimental he’d break down and meet you halfway. However, he’s in love with his wife and my big yen at the moment is for a Duesenberg car, so I don’t think we’ll get together this year.”
At this instant up hove Clark.
“Well,” said Jean loudly, “now I’ll have to be pawed over by that big lummox Gable for an hour. If I get a chance I’ll bite his ear off!”
You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive.
There are 40 new photos in the gallery today, some candids, some from films, including:
Clark and Kay Williams
on the set of "Hold Your Man"
Clark and Ria
See all the latest uploads in the gallery. Registration required.
Next Wednesday: New photos of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard!
I’m sure you’ve heard the song by the Postal Service, which is titled “Clark Gable.” The line that features his name is “I’ll kiss you in a way Clark Gable would have admired.” Say what you want about Clark and his acting limitations, but that man was a born onscreen lover!
Rosalind Russell recalled: “The only man who could make a love scene comfortable was Clark Gable. He was born graceful, he knew what to do with his feet and when he took hold of you, there was no fooling around.”
Let’s get a lesson in the fine art of onscreen lip locking from Mr. Gable himself…
with Rosalind Russell in "They Met in Bombay" (1941)
with Norma Shearer in "A Free Soul" (1931)
with Greer Garson in "Adventure" (1945)
with Joan Crawford in "Chained" (1934)
with Ann Baxter in Homecoming
with a lucky nurse in "Idiot's Delight"(1939)
with Hedy Lamarr in "Comrade X" (1940)
with Lana Turner in "Honky Tonk" (1940)
with Jeanette MacDonald in "San Francisco" (1936)
with Myrna Loy in "Men in White" (1934)
with Constance Bennett in "After Office Hours" (1935)
with Mary Astor in "Red Dust" (1932)
with Grace Kelly in "Mogambo" (1953)
with Marion Davies in "Polly of the Circus" (1932)
with Greta Garbo in "Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise" (1931)
with Doris Day in "Teacher's Pet" (1958)
with Claudette Colbert in "Boom Town" (1940)
with Loretta Young in "Call of the Wild" (1935)
with Yvonne de Carlo in "Band of Angels" (1957)
with Deborah Kerr in "The Hucksters" (1947)
with Barbara Stanwyck in "To Please a Lady" (1950)
with Jean Harlow in "China Seas" (1935)
with Carole Lombard in "No Man of Her Own" (1932)
Much to Clark’s chagrin, the media was apt to describing his life as lonely and sad after Carole’s death and he returned from war. No doubt he was lonely, but it’s rather hard for a man to move on when the press is constantly calling him out for being so and lamenting his lost love. Then he found Sylvia and they all cried how wonderful it was and how perfect they were together. Then when they divorced, they all said of course they didn’t work out, they were too different. Such is the press.
This article is after Clark married Sylvia and was still in newlywed bliss.
Many men survived the loss of loved ones, but maybe they had been young once. Clark was never young. This is something most people don’t realize. He never had a time when he was dating girls; he worked and studied and put love out of his life. His previous two marriages were what he believed love to be, perhaps. But only his marriage to Carole was the real thing.
As the world knows, he finished his picture, Somewhere I’ll Find You, and then went into the Army as a private. He was sent to Officers’ Candidate School to train with 18 and 19-year-olds in Florida. If he hadn’t been quite a hunk of man, it would have done him in. It was tough training. Later, in London, he went on seventeen air missions. He was a gunner, and he stood up all the time on those missions—a tough thing for a man his age to do all the long flights over Germany.
He was lonely then, with a loneliness no one could penetrate despite the always-present Gable charm that endeared him to everyone.
What is that charm? How can a guy who is Clark Gable not act like Clark Gable? How come he sticks his head under the hood of anyone’s automobile and tinkers with the engine? Several years back, he parked his long, streamlined, custom-built car before a grocery store and went in. Two young, awestruck kids in a jalopy got out and looked at the car. They didn’t know it was his and were looking at the dashboard and exclaiming over it when Gable came out of the store. Instead of blowing his top or getting excited about prowlers, he grinned and asked them if they’d like to trade cars. It was a joke, of course, and the two kids embarrassedly grinned back—for they recognized him. He stood there, although it was pouring rain, and talked with them for a good half hour. This is a guy who doesn’t have to come down off a throne and mingle with the people. He is the people.
I really love that last sentence: “This is a guy who doesn’t have to come down off a throne and mingle with the people. He is the people.” What a fantastic description of him! I love that. Also it is a good point to say that Clark was never really young and carefree. He struggled and didn’t have a lot of time for goofing off.
And what about Sylvia? Where Gable is King through his own hard work and efforts, so she has attained her position through a hard core of determination, too. She also lost the great love of her life, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Clark’s experiences and hers are strangely parallel. He came from common, good stock and worked his way up to the top; she came from common, good stock and did the same thing.
Then, with varied backgrounds, of a similar age, they met. And it had to be. It had to be because Clark has been lonely for a long time, because—although he has escorted cuties and brilliant, brittle socialites by the score—he has not met up with a woman of maturity whose experiences were of the same cloth as his own. Sylvia admires Carole and doesn’t want to infringe upon the past; just as Clark admires Fairbanks and will let Sylvia keep her memories.
Personal things reveal how lonely he has been, how much he has clung to the past. He has never changed a thing in Carole’s room from the time she died until now. Today, if the house she decorated for him with such loving pride is to be sold, it is far better to bury memories than live with them long year after year. There isn’t a place on the property that doesn’t hold a memory of Carole. The fruit trees they planted together, their rose garden, the big outsize furniture. Down through the groves of trees, there must be many nights when Clark hears Carole’s warm laughter, her throaty stevedore’s vocabulary, her wonderful gaiety.
I have always maintained that Clark never wanted to sell the ranch because he wanted to be haunted by Carole’s memory. He didn’t want to abandon it; it became part of him.
Clark and Sylvia did come from similar humble backgrounds but Clark worked his way up while Sylvia…married her way up.
You can read the entire article in The Article Archive.
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