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Gossip Friday: Dwindling Gift
From January 1937: Carole Lombard, high prankster of Hollywood, was on the other end of the gagging when she had a birthday party recently. Instead of elaborate gifts, all her pals got together and sent her the most amazing things! Honest, I can’t tell some of them. But I can tell you what Clark Gable sent—a huge package, elaborately packed and wrapped. Carole, aflutter, unwrapped and untied and untied and unwrapped Clark’s gift. It dwindled and dwindled. And finally, she found a ten-cent-store pop gun! But Clark made up for it. Later, he sent her his real birthday gift—a jeweled bracelet, and a cocker spaniel.
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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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Gossip Friday: Reconciliation?
From November 1935: Hollywood–Reconciliation of Clark Gable, romantic film hero, and his second wife hinged today upon developments after the actor returns here in two weeks. “I think it is entirely possible they may patch up their differences,” said Ivon D. Parker, Gable’s business representative, who with his brother, Claude, handles all the couple’s legal affairs. Mr. Parker admitted Gable would go to a hotel here, not to his Hollywood home, where Mrs. Gable will remain. Romantic speculation stirred in New York by Gable’s appearance at a hockey game with Miss Mary Taylor, Park Avenue society girl and fashion model. “They’ve done that before,” Mr. Parker recalled, adding that Mrs.…
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Gossip Friday: Morose and Cynical
From September 1936: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard have discovered their temperaments differ too widely to allow of friendship. Incidentally, most of Clark’s friends have remarked that, since the separation from his second wife, he has been exceedingly morose and cynical.
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Gossip Friday: Interested Observers
From September 1936: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard decided to patch up their quarrel for the sake of the joint box they owned for last week’s Pacific southwest tennis tournament. Another interested observer at the matches was Mrs. Rhea Gable, who spent most of the time looking sadly at the husband from whom she is separated and his blonde companion.
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Gossip Friday: Jiminy Cripes
From September 1941: Rumors spring out of nowhere in Hollywood and traverse the town’s grapevine routes like wildfire. A report that Gable and Carole Lombard were splitting up had the town on its ears one day last week. Gable, it was said, had quit home and gone to live with George Raft. After MGM’s phones buzzed for hours with queries, the matter was put squarely up to Gable. “Jiminy Cripes,” he said, using much stronger language than that, “what have I done to get this? I don’t even know George Raft.”
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Gossip Friday: Concentration
From December 1948: Clark Gable was once asked how he got into a romantic mood for his big movie scenes. “I concentrated,” he explained, “on a big, juicy tenderloin steak!”
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Gossip Friday: Plumb Wrong
From August 1950: When Clark Gable eloped with Lady Sylvia Ashley a few months ago, the Hollywood skeptics and frustrated matchmakers started comparing notes on whether or not the newlyweds were properly suited to one another–and the answer turned out to be “no.” They agreed that the lady was a charmer, all right, but they also agreed that the new Mrs. Gable, being a super-sophisticate, was not the girl for a rugged, down-to-earth guy like Gable, who preferred hopped-up automobiles to yachts, and whose best pal was more apt to be a garage mechanic than a member of the titled aristocracy. If Lady Sylvia was a bit miffed at his…
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Gossip Friday: Regifting
From December 1948: Anita (The Face) Colby, who recently resigned an executive post at Paramount in Hollywood to establish a public relations firm in New York, arrived here the other day with two expensive paintings–farewell gifts from Clark Gable. What Miss Colby doesn’t know is that the paintings were brought over from Paris and presented to Gable by Dolly O’Brien, once her rival for the handsome actor’s affections. And Miss O’Brien, of course, doesn’t know that Gable, no lover of art, has given the paintings to Miss Colby, between whom no love is lost.
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Gossip Friday: A Good Critic
From July 1936: The big show at a Hollywood Boulevard movie house the other evening was for that group of people who sat behind Clark Gable and Carole Lombard at a showing of “San Francisco.” But Gable’s conversation about the picture he’s in didn’t go unnoticed. He’d made a good movie critic.
