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Gossip Friday: A Different Clark Gable
From January 17, 1942: On the screen Clark Gable is a suave, swashbuckling hero. Nothing ever really upsets him. He has ice water in his veins. But today there is a different Clark Gable, a Clark Gable with disheveled hair and reddened eyes, a Clark Gable who looks like a broken man, a Clark Gable who spent the night nervously pacing a floor, and chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting for word about his wife, the beautiful Carole Lombard, in a TWA airliner which crashed in the Nevada mountains. Gable wanted to join the rescue party going to the scene of the wreckage, but policy persuaded him not to.
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Remembering Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard died 83 years ago today, on January 16, 1942. On a record-setting ward bond selling trip with her mother and Gable friend Otto Winkler, they all perished in a plane crash on Mount Potosi outside Las Vegas. As someone who only started researching Clark Gable and Carole Lombard the past 20 years or so, it is incredible to me that she has been gone 83 years. Carole just oozes a tangible human quality–you can see her walking down the street in 2025 no problem. It’s so sad to think we missed out on an elderly Carole, still in her fur coat and diamond brooches with cigarette in her…
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Gossip Friday: Got Their Limit
From December 1958: Kay and Clark Gable got their limit of quail at Catalina. Last year Clark gifted her with long cashmere underwear. She said: “He taught me to shoot. I’m one of the few wives of his gun club who goes along. When I listened to men talking about hunting in the Stork Club, I used to shudder. Now you can have the Stork Club, I’ll take hunting. We looked like Mexican bean pickers after we’d picked up our birds.”
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Gossip Friday: Croonin’ Gable
From January 1, 1936: All the fellows are kidding Clark Gable, the actor, because he does some crooning in his next picture, “Wife vs. Secretary.” Clark can “take it,” though. He just bought a new car for $16,000. Not on time, either.
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Gossip Friday: Tara Lives Again
From December 1958: Some 20 years ago, an acre of real estate in Culver City, Calif. hypnotized millions of movie-goers. It was the site of the mansion Tara in the silver screen epic, “Gone with the Wind.” Hollywood artizans had fashioned a structure that probably out-dazzled any of the real “plantation palaces” which dotted the southern landscape at the time of the Civil War. Two decades later, time has taken its toll on the bleak location. The once brilliant white colonades, where Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and the late Leslie Howard strolled, have become shades of faded gray. Still they stand, majestic and formidable, guarding the entrance to the make-believe…
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Gossip Friday: Awaiting the Real Thing
From December 1941: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable: It’s not that I’m lazy, but on these couples that I’m hooking together for a combination gift you can be sure that it’s exactly what they both want for the happiest holiday. I suppose you’re thinking that Clark and Carole have everything, and you’re darned near right. There’s no use filling their stocking with fame, riches, happiness together, fine horses, motor cars, or any other gift most movie stars would be crazy about. They already have everything you’ve got in the bag–with on exception. If you can spare a mama-doll, please be sure that Carole gets one. It’s about the only thing…
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Gossip Friday: Clark’s Favorite Newsboy
From December 1939: Clark Gable’s Christmas present to a little boy resulted in the screen’s discovery of its outstanding child actor since the advent of Shirley Temple. It was while Martin Spellman was a newsboy at the MGM studios that he got to know all the big stars. He sold them magazines, newspapers and shoeshines, and his only ambition was to win a shiny red bicycle that was a prize for the most magazines sold. But young Martin, he is only 12, who knew every big star and important executive on the MGM lot, has his favorites, like every fan. They are Myrna Loy and Clark Gable and Norman Taurog…
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Gossip Friday: Gift for Susan
From December 1954: Clark Gable’s Christmas gift to Susan Hayward, his co-star in “Soldier of Fortune,” a doll he bought in Hong Kong earing a remarkable resemblance to Susie but dressed in Oriental splendor.
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Gossip Friday: Gable Oranges
From April 1939: Clark Gable has been offered a high price for his oranges if he’ll let them be marketed decorated with his photograph. He recently bought a ranch near Encino on which there were 900 orange trees A packing house offered to buy his crop at far above the market price if Gable would permit his picture if Gable would permit his picture to be stamped on the boxes and on the individual oranges, which would then be sold as “Gable Oranges.” Gable undecided.
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Gossip Friday: Looks Just Like Him
From December 1948: Clark Gable walked into Romanoff’s the other day and the eyes of two feminine tourists almost popped out of their heads. One turned to the other and said: “Look, Clark Gable. And he looks just like him, doesn’t he?”
