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Gossip Friday: Scared Stiff
From July 1937: According to an Irishwoman who is kept busy doing elderly women parts in Hollywood, the preview of “Parnell” nearly gave her a stroke. There are films in which she admires Myrna Loy and films done by Clark Gable that fill her with enthusiasm, but, oh, “Uncrowned King” of the latter and the Kitty O’Shea of the former! “Sure, ye were wise, ye never even attempted it!” said the Lord Mayor of Dublin when Herbert Beerbohm Tree asked for his opinion on his Irish brogue in, I think, “The Illustrious O’Hagan.” Mr. Gable tried to be Irish when he began the film, which he need not have been,…
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Gossip Friday: Bear Hunting Trio
From July 1937: Screen Stars to Hunt Bear in Glacier National Park Two popular Hollywood screen stars, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, and Director Jack Conway, also of the movie city, are planning a bear hunt in Montana within the next week or 10 days, officials of Montanans, Inc., announced. The movieland hunters will make their headquarters at the Jennings ranch near Glacier National park, and will hunt in the high mountains of the park and adjoining territory, accompanied by Flathead county sportsmen. A movie cameraman will travel with Gable, Tracy and Conway, and will film incidents occuring during the trip.
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Gossip Friday: Clark Gable in Vallejo
From July 1940: In a short but interesting interview with Clark Gable, visiting movie actor, this morning in the lounge of the Casa de Vallejo, quite a few Vallejoans learned just what a real fellow he is. Clark came down to Vallejo this morning from Napa aboard Councilman James Fisher’s yacht and reported an enjoyable trip. He said, “Vallejo looks like a nice place. However, due to my limited time, I will be unable to judge it well.” Leaving about 11 o’clock this morning from the Vallejo Yacht Club aboard Dr. E.J. Casper’s “Junemma,” Mr. Gable hoped for some good fishing in the bay area, as, like golf and hunting,…
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Gossip Friday: Retirement Site?
From July 1940: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, who have 20 acres in fruit trees near Hollywood, are going into ranching in a big way. They returned from Prescott, Ariz., carrying a 30-day option on a tract of 48,000 acres, which Mr. Gable this week said he would purchase. If so he will stock it with thoroughbred cattle and point to it as a retirement site when he and Carole decide to quit pictures–which many believe may come much sooner than the expiration of Clark’s contract in 1945.
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Gossip Friday: A Gardening Dispute
From July 1940: That row in the MGM commissary between Clark Gable and Bill Gargan, which didn’t get beyond words, was–of all things–over the proper way to plant nasturtiums!
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No-Show Newlyweds
From July 14, 1955: Lake Tahoe, Nev.–Clark Gable and his new bride, the former Kay Williams Spreckels, remained in seclusion today somewhere in the rolling cow country around here, much to the chagrin of scores of newsmen, movie fans and a hotel manager with 40 juicy steaks on his hands. The Gables were supposed to have showed up last night at a dinner party for them and 38 guests at the Cal Neva Biltmore Hotel. But the steaks and scads of Alaska lobster, onion soup, champagne and even a three-tiered wedding cake failed to tempt the newlyweds. Cal McKinley, an old friend of the actor and part owner of the…
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Gossip Friday: Back to the Oil Fields
From July 1940: When a mere youth of eighteen, Clark Gable went out to his father’s farm near Hopedale, Ohio, took one look at it and said, “Farming’s not for me.” He said he was going to find work he liked better. His father smiled and let him go. The first work he found thereafter was in the Oklahoma oil fields. It was harder than farming but Clark Gable liked it. Now for the first time since, he is doing some of that boyhood work. He is playing an oil driller in “Boom Town.” When he worked in the oil fields he was a roustabout. He was too young and…
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Gossip Friday: Rumored Radio
From June 1941: For the first time in seven years, the Major Bowes Amateur Hour will not be heard this Thursday night. On the advice of his physicians, the Major is in Doctors Hospital for an emergency appendectomy. The program will remain off the air until he is fit enough to take over personally. Straight variety entertainment will fill in during the Major’s absence. Bowes has been making radio headlines of recent weeks. Last month he announced the withdrawal of his Sunday morning Family Hour. This feature, oldest network show on the air, had a record run of 19 continuous years. Two weeks ago, rumors started flying that Bowes’ auto…
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Gossip Friday: Straight from the Script Clerk
From June 1936: A script clerk’s job apparently seems very unimportant–until something goes wrong. For instance: We were “picking up” an exterior night shot. Hundreds of extras were called and many “bit” people were on the set. Suddenly Mr. Van Dyke asks: “Did Clark Gable have the gloves on or off as he was leaving the Paradise night club when we shot it the other day?” There’s a dead silence. Clark remembers. He thinks he had them on. His valet, who usually stands by, says he was on an errand the day we shot the interior. The assistant director and the property man had been so busy that day they…
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Gossip Friday: Having a Swell Time
From June 1936: Hollywood–Breathlessly I must report the biggest story you’ve heard this week. Down in Olvera Street, which looks like a chunk of Old California, a crowd of folks was watching a Mexican child sing and dance on the pavement. In the crowd were two very well-knowns but not a soul paid a but of attention to them. However, it appeared to me that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were having a swell time.
