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Gossip Friday: Valentino + Dempsey
From November 1931: Someone asked Lionel Barrymore to describe Clark Gable. He answered promptly: “Rudolph Valentino made up as Jack Dempsey!
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Gossip Friday: We Knew Him When
From January 1932: When Clark Gable walks into the studio lunchroom all the boys and girls “who knew him when” rush to him, pat him on the back and say, “Clark, old boy, old boy, we always knew you could do it.” But they didn’t. They used to think he was a ham actor. And Clark knows that the minute he makes a couple of no-good pictures and the dimples don’t flourish. his fair weather friends will be colder than dead love.
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Gossip Friday: The Man He Surely Is
From January 1938, letter to fan magazine: Being in the business world of Hollywood and meeting the stars every day, I can give this impression of Clark Gable, not as fiction, but as a true fact from everyday life. He called at our place of business one morning dressed in sport clothes. Very businesslike, this Gable. He wandered about the store missing nothing, with our employees giving him little attention. (He prefers that). A little girl seated in a toy automobile glanced about, and suddenly seeing Mr. Gable, called her father’s attention to him. She wanted his autograph. The father spoke to Mr. Gable, and, smiling graciously, Clark walked over…
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Gossip Friday: Pays on Time
From March 1932: Well, well, well, Mrs. Clark Gable certainly pays her bills on time. She was in Magnin’s shortly after the first of January and gave the saleslady a check to take to the accounting department to see if it checked with the store’s figures of what she owed them. She had kept track of her bill and brought in the check before she received an accounting! And was she getting attention! Seven salesladies hovering over her at once. And the customers whispering to each other, “That’s Mrs. Clark Gable.” I couldn’t help but remember Clark’s remark, “And a year ago I could have walked down Hollywood Boulevard munching…
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Gossip Friday: Misadventure
From February 1951: You can safely bet anything you have that Clark Gable and Greer Garson will never kiss each other, or anything each other, in any movie. “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!” I remember the ad excitement when Clark returned from the war, and Greer, then Queen of the Metro lot, grabbed him for “Adventure.” A better title might have been “Misadventure.” They never did hit it off. Some say it was because Greer was ready to work until 10:00am. Clark Gable stomped on the sidelines, made up and ready to go from 9:00am. But that I find hard to swallow. Greer is too conscientious an actress to…
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Remembering Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland, one of the very few classic-era actresses still with us, has died at age 104. Her passing will probably only merit two paragraphs in celebrity magazines this week, probably under the title “Gone with the Wind Actress Dies”—a title that makes me, as it would her, wince. Olivia de Havilland played sweet, doomed Melanie in Gone with the Wind, and ironically was the last to die of the principals of the film. But that is hardly the only film she should be remembered for. Olivia won two Oscars (for 1947’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress) and was nominated a total of five times–including her Best…
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Gossip Friday: Who Knows the Score
From November 1951: Clark Gable goes for girls who know the score. He likes ’em sophisticated and social: age or coloring makes no difference. In his time Clark has gone for females as far apart in looks and background as Metro stenographer Elaine White and socialite grandmother Dolly O’Brien. His first two wives were his age seniors. Carole Lombard was younger, but she always knew the answers. So does his present wife. Sylvia seems to prattle about inconsequential subjects, but she is always amusing, always to the point, and I’ve never heard her say an unkind word about anyone. Clark likes easy-going women because he himself is a little obstinate.…
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Gossip Friday: He’s Picky
From January 1948: Clark Gable, I’ll have you know, is an angel who wears tweeds instead of wings and a devilish grin or scowl rather than any seraphic mien. He hates affectation. All of which is fair enough! He’s so completely unaffected himself. There’s not a grip who hangs from the rafters of a set who doesn’t yell “Hi!” the very instant he comes into view. Ask Clark what makes a woman attractive and you’ll get his answer in one quick, incisive word. “Naturalness!” He might add, “Naturalness in appearance as well as manner. “For it’s the healthy outdoor looks he likes, including simple sport clothes. Many times he’s been…
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Gossip Friday: We All Make Mistakes
2020 From October 1931: Mark Hellinger tells a good one. It seems that a little over a year ago Leslie Howard was authoring and directing a play on Broadway and was muchly in need of a young man to play the love interest. A young man called at the theatre and asked for a job and the producer sent him to talk to Howard. Howard gave him a try-out and then reported to the producer that the young man he had picked up was utterly impossible in the role of the hero whom women adored. he just wasn’t the type. So, said young man was fired. Now it’s so happened…
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Gossip Friday: Well, He Hasn’t Asked
From December 1944: Clark Gable, though he still takes Kay Williams to parties, is having lots of dates for himself with different gals these evenings. But he’s seen mostly with Sally Wright, an attractive non-professional, who almost went to the altar with Bob Cobb, owner of the Brown Derby Restaurants, a few months ago. Kay Williams now announces she’s not going to marry Clark Gable because he hasn’t asked her, which is as good a reason as any. At a party the other day, Kay, whose divorce from the South American Macoco is final, announced a fortuneteller had told her she’d marry twice. “Oh, then you on’t be marrying Mr.…
