-
{Event} Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum–Belles, Beaus and Barbecue
Last weekend I headed down to Marietta Square for a Gone with the Wind event held by the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum. I didn’t attend all the events, such as Friday night’s Sock Hop. You can see the full schedule here. Saturday we headed down to the square near the museum for Belles, Beaus and Barbecue! Summer in Atlanta is not pleasant, as any fellow resident will attest. It was 94 degrees on Saturday and it sure did feel like it! We managed to stay in the shade and we had our fancy hand fans to keep us cool. There were several brave souls who showed up in their…
-
Gossip Friday: Lombard vs. Gable
From March 1937: At sporting events, Gable and Lombard are a wow. They are more fun than the show itself, usually–because invariably, they each root for opposing contestants. Football games, horse races, wrestling matches, prize fights–it doesn’t matter; Gable roots for one side, Lombard for the other. It got so funny that just during the fuss about who was to play in the annual Rose Bowl classis, some Hollywood wag proposed: “Why not Lombard vs. Gable?”
-
Gossip Friday: “One Honey of an Actor”
From February 1940: ….we beat it for the “Strange Cargo” [set], which [includes] not only Gable and Crawford, but also Paul Lukas, Ian Hunter, J. Edward Bromberg, Peter Lorre, Albert Dekker, Eduardo Ciannellu, and John Arledge. They are all on the set as we mosey in and a worse looking crew you never lamped. They are escaping from the jungle. They have one small boat and Crawford between them. The idea is that the men are escaping convicts. Crawford is a babe from the streets whom Gable has picked up and dragged along, and love is beginning to gnaw them. You practically can’t see What-a-Man Gable behind the three days’…
-
Clark Gable and the Almost-Scarlett: Paulette Goddard
In the post-war, post-Carole years, Clark Gable had a full dance card—dating actresses, script girls and socialites. And one former Gone with the Wind hopeful: the spirited Paulette Goddard. Paulette, blessed with a gorgeous face, was probably best known for comedies, such as the Charlie Chaplin classics Modern Times and The Great Dictator, as well as sparky Miriam in The Women. She had been around Hollywood since the early 1930’s, first as a blonde Goldwyn girl. She proved herself a dramatic force in films such as Kitty and her Academy Award nominated performance in the war drama So Proudly We Hail!. But she could also dance and sing, as she did…
-
Gossip Friday: Tennis Can Get You a Gable!
From October 1936: What’s the most necessary requisite for a young actor or actress coming to Hollywood, we are often asked. And here’s our answer, children. Learn to play a cracking good game of tennis. Tennis has broken more ice in Hollywood than a spring thaw. Tennis has been the means of young people breaking into important friendships. Tennis has been the ladder in which young hopefuls have climbed. Albeit, it hasn’t kept them there. Why, believe it or not, it was Carole Lombard’s ability to smack the ball across the net at a certain prankish party that convinced Clark Gable she was the girl. And if tennis can get…
-
{New Article} 1940: A Woman’s Lowdown on Clark Gable!
This article is from the Gone with the Wind-publicity period and is supposedly unique because it tells a woman’s perspective on Clark. I don’t know how unique this article is but it is rather gushy. This fellow is unimpressed by all he has acquired; with his importance as a star. Luck, he insists, was with him: “Anyone who has ears and can speak and understand words of one syllable can do it,” he shrugs. “It might have been any other guy; it just happened to me.” Even his bosses are set back on their heels at unexpected moments by his passion for facing facts. In Atlanta, at the super-swank premiere…
-
{Gossip Friday} Mr. Gable Excites Miss Stanwyck
From September 1940: Movie stars must have their little jokes. When Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor did “Nothing Sacred” on a radio broadcast recently they arranged it so that several lines of dialogue would read thusly: Bob says: “Is there nothing that will excite you?” Barbara answers: “Yes, put me in a room with Clark Gable.” Bob then says: “What’s the matter with Robert Taylor?” To which Barbara replies: “I never heard of him.”
-
{May Movie of the Month} Adventure (1945)
“Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!” You couldn’t tread many places without hearing MGM’s infectious tagline for Adventure. The return of Clark Gable after a three year absence from the screen was heralded high and low. Clark, now a decorated war hero and a widower, was a bit thicker around the middle, a bit grayer around the temples, a bit sadder in the eyes…but was back in the saddle. While Clark had been overseas, British import Greer Garson had become the #1 leading lady at MGM, after such hits as Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest. In the beginning this film has a lot in common with Teacher’s Pet, which would…
-
Gossip Friday: Carole Lombard’s Opinion on Whiskers
From March 1937: When it comes to sheer, downright having-fun-out-of-life, you’ve got to hand it to Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. These two have had more amusement out of their romance than most people get out of a whole lifetime. Both are inveterate practical jokers–and never does either let the oppurtunity pass to “gag” the other. Carole’s latest and biggest chance came with all the fuss over whether or not Clark was to raise a set of whiskers to play the role of Parnell. Hardly had the discussion begun at MGM than Gable began to get the works–first, mysterious men with long whiskers would pop up in the most unexpected…
-
{Book Review} Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood
When I heard a bio on Myrna Loy was being released, I was very excited. Myrna’s autobiography,Being and Becoming, is hands down the best autobio I have read of a classic star. Honest and refreshingly un-fluffy, the book cemented me as a Myrna Loy fan for life. Unlike a lot of autobios, I felt that Myrna had really covered all the bases so I was intrigued as to what Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood could offer. Well. I can’t say this bio is overflowing with new information. I can’t say at all that I understand Myrna better as a person after reading it. I CAN say that I did…