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October Movie of the Month: Comrade X (1940)
This month, Clark is a rogue foreign correspondant in Russia and Hedy Lamarr is his reluctant hostage in Comrade X. Gable is McKinley Thompson, an American reporter living in Russia who is secretly sending news out of the country as the elusive “Comrade X”. His bumbling valet, Igor (Felix Bressart) discovers who he is and blackmails him to take his headstrong Communist daughter (Hedy Lamarr) out of Russia to protect her from prosecution. Everything doesn’t go as planned and soon the three of them are racing out of Russia with the Russian army on their tails. This one isn’t legendary film making by any means, but it’s fun. Clark is always at ease…
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{Photos} Clark Gable and Carole Lombard on a Picnic
By 1938, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were madly in love, and everyone knew it. The stories of “Will Their Romance Last?” were starting to dissapate and the “When Will Ria Gable Give Clark the Divorce so These Lovebirds Can Marry?” stories were roaring. So, no surprise, Carole was Clark’s date to the annual MGM company picnic that year (I think I am mostly surprised Clark attended at all–maybe Carole convinced him to be a good sport?). The pictures of them from this event are some of my very favorites. Clad casually in sweaters and Carole with very little make-up and her hair pushed off her face, they look like…
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Gossip Friday: Keeping Miss Lombard Waiting
From May 1941: Chief among the 1941 Academy Award winners whose name does not appear on the official honors list is your present correspondent, who won an Oscar for perpetrating the outstanding bonehead play of the year. In the interests of her millions of fans he arranged to interview Miss Carole Lombard. A rendezvous was promised in a quiet sitting room on a side street in Beverly Hills for a certain Thursday. The hour, the date and the place were as clear as a blueprint in his mind. He thought. The momentous day arrived. Your correspondent, methodical as ever, leaped into his motor car well ahead of schedule and went…
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Happy Birthday, Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard, aka Jane Peters, aka Carole Gable, would have been 105 today! It wouldn’t be Carole’s birthday without this snippet of Clark singing Happy Birthday to his “Ma”: HappyBirthday To celebrate, here is the tale of Carole’s 32nd birthday and how it didn’t go exactly as she planned it… [On the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, on her birthday, Carole Lombard] had a hunch that [director Alfred] Hitchcock would send her a Western Union singing boy, so she decided to top his gag by having ten Western Union singing boys arrive on the set at five o’clock and sing birthday greetings to everyone on the set except herself. It was…
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Gossip Friday: Dachshund Wanted
From November 1935: Carole [Lombard] is playing in “Hands Across the Table,” with Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy. We drop in with the F.S. Reinhardts from Minneapolis for a chat, to find her trundling Ralph in a wheelchair, for a scene in the flicker. Enter Fieldsie, Carole’s secretary: “Carole, I give up. I can’t find a black, male dachshund anywhere.” Carole: “But we’ve got to!” Ralph Bellamy: “Try Frank Morgan–he knows all about dachshunds.” We: “What’s this all about?” Carole: “Well, the nephew of a friend of mine lost his dachshund, and he is broken-hearted. I’ve got to locate one just like it before the boy discovers his pet is…
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{New Article} 1937: How Will the Gable-Lombard Romance End?
This article from 1937 is taking a guess on how the fairly new but highly publicized Clark Gable and Carole Lombard romance would end. Sadly, I don’t think anybody would have ever guessed how it did end just a few years later. At this point, though, a lot of people were still eyeing the romance as another flash in the pan Hollywood union. And of course at this point Clark was still married to Ria and it really seemed as though that divorce was never coming! Carole was wise during this period. She knew that Clark was still married and while her and Clark were pictured together at Hollywood events,…
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It’s Carole Lombard Month!
It’s October so that means it’s here again: Carole Lombard month on DearMrGable.com! Stay tuned for articles, pictures and more on the zany love of Clark’s life!
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September Movie of the Month: Night Flight (1933)
Okay, okay, I know it’s the end of the month and here I am just now declaring the Movie of the Month for September. In my defense, I just moved and my office has turned out to be the last room to get unpacked. I always rewatch the Movie of the Month and reread the passages about it in some of the books I have. So I had to wait until I found my DVDs and books! I actually had another film in mind for this month but I can’t find the DVD at the moment, so Night Flight it is. Night Flight is a true ensemble piece, boosting an impressive…
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Gossip Friday: Date Night for the Gables
From September 1941: Carole Lombard was calling for Clark Gable at the close of the day out at MGM. “We’re having an evening out,” Clark said. And what do you suppose they did? They went to dinner at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby, then slipped back to the studio, where Ann Sothern’s new picture “Lady Be Good” was run off in a projection room for the two of them. That’s the way they see all their movies. If they attempt to go to a regular theater—they’d be mobbed!
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{New Article} 1934: Any Man Would Like Clark Gable’s House!
This is the story of the house that a million women have dreamed about and have wanted to know about—Clark Gable’s new home. And when men read about Clark’s surroundings, he will rate even higher with them as a he-man than he already does. Don’t miss this vivid pen-picture of the interior of his home, which will give you new ideas of your own! …says the Editor’s note at the beginning of this article from 1934. Which is rather funny on many levels. This article describes the Brentwood home that Clark and his second wife Ria rented for about two years, 1933-1935. I believe that Ria stayed on there after…