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    Articles

    {New Article} 1934: An Open Letter to Clark Gable

    This article is one of these “Open Letters” that often appeared in fan magazines of the period; they would be written by fan magazine writer “friends” of the star and then the following month the star would “respond.” When Laurette Taylor became a big star in Peg O’ My Heart, she noticed that the audiences were not as friendly to her as they had been at the beginning of the play. She complained to her husband, Hartley Manners, author of the play, and asked him why. “Because,” said Manners, “when you were on the way up you asked your audience to love you. Now that you are on top, you…

  • Articles

    {New Article} 1934: Gable-Crazy!

    This article from June 1934 details some of the outlandish experiences Clark Gable had with crazy fans on his public appearance tour to the east coast. It’s not easy being a film star, folks: A toll of Gable’s losses on his short trip includes the following articles: 27 silk handkerchiefs 33 buttons torn from his clothes 1 complete sleeve of a dress shirt 1 lapel from the coat of a business suit 1 pair of bedroom slippers 1 top half of a pair of silk pajamas 1 wrist watch Anybody find that their grandmother or great-grandmother had one of Clark Gable’s buttons or shirt sleeves? Many and strange were the…

  • Articles

    {New Article} 1934: Why I Like To Be Alone

    Here is another article from 1934. This one is a typical “Clark Gable isn’t into the glamour and glitz of Hollywood! He is an outdoorsy, simple man just like you!” piece.   “Hollywood is over-civilized! A man could go soft in this place in a month. I had to fight like the devil during the first year or so to keep my perspective. Too much chatter. Too many parties. Too much bunk! That’s why I took to going off the backwoods by myself. I had to do that or go crazy…” This was Clark Gable—the last of Hollywood’s Great Untamed—speaking. “The Last of Hollywood’s Great Untamed”—oh brother. He looks you…

  • Articles

    {New Article} 1934: Clark Gable’s Real Family Life!

    Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing new-to-the-site articles from the year 1934. We’ll start out with this one, which proclaims with an exclamation point that it’s about Clark Gable’s Real Family Life! A rather deceptive title. Clark at this time was a superstar; 1934 saw him win national acclaim for his performance in It Happened One Night, and his films with Joan Crawford that year had been hits.  His studio, MGM, was not too pleased that their manly man star that had women falling at his feet came with a much older, matronly wife with two kids in tow.  But that’s what they had to work with, so…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: No Castles

    From August 1936 (Jimmy Fidler): I laughed myself ill over Clark Gable’s attempts to rent a modest five-room bungalow. After his separation from Mrs. Rhea Gable, Clark headquartered at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, much to the delight of autograph hunters who greeted his every appearance in so central a spot. For weeks he sought a small house with sufficient grounds to accommodate his dogs, but real estate agents had other ideas; they insisted on leading Clark to country estates and town castles. So one morning he said, “T’hell with hit” and turned the house-hunting job over to a friend who proved successful.

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Gable Oranges

    From April 1939: If Clark Gable wants to rubber-stamp his oranges with a likeness of himself he can make a fortune from them, he was informed recently. On the Encino ranch which Gable recently purchased there are between 800 and 900 Valencia orange trees, now loaded with fruit. A Valley packing house made him an offer to buy the crop at a figure far above the market price, if Gable will allow his picture to be used on the boxes and on the individual oranges, which will be sold as the “Gable Oranges.” __ Well that never came to fruition.  Haha, see what I did there….

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: April Fool!

    From April 1, 1939: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard today denied any marriage plans and said that they are “just good friends.”  “It was merely a publicity stunt from the beginning,” chuckled Miss Lombard. “Why, I am young enough to be Mr. Gable’s sister! He is really engaged to May Robson, and I have consented to marry Mr. Jasper Jitterwhisk, a tap drummer. Mr. Gable is returning all my presents except Bessie, the mule, which he needs for his spring plowing.” APRIL FOOL! ___ That was really printed in the paper as an April Fools joke, along with other gems like “After changing his director, scene artist, cameraman and several…

  • Anniversary

    Happy Anniversary, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard

    Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were married 79 years ago today, on March 29, 1939, eloping to Kingman, Arizona on the spur of the moment. You can read Clark’s description of their wedding day here. Because they managed to slink away and marry with no fanfare, they dutifully obliged to an early morning press conference on the front lawn of Carole’s home on St. Cloud Rd.  There is newsreel footage of this press conference, with Clark and Carole in their wedding attire, beaming and laughing and constantly touching each other. But it is silent. There are dozens and dozens of pictures of them; every time I think I’ve seen every…

  • Anniversary,  Photos

    Happy Birthday, Mr. Gable

    Today is Clark Gable’s 117th birthday! To celebrate, I thought I’d comb through my massive collection and pick out my favorite 117 pictures of him. Not an easy feat, as I lost count at 20,000 photos a long time ago and there are so many I haven’t scanned or categorized yet. But here they are. These are in no particular order; they are not a countdown of my favorite pictures and they are not in chronological order either (thought that would be boring). They are just 117 of my favorites and the reason I love them could be because they are beautiful, they are weird, they are funny…whatever reason. Here…

  • News

    Last Year, This Year, Next Year

    A belated Happy New Year to all! I usually do a re-cap of the year’s blog posts but things were a bit quiet here in 2017. Not due to lack of new content available, as my office is drowning in it, but due to personal obligations I couldn’t post as much as I wanted. I certainly didn’t want to stop the Gossip Fridays but even those had to be halted for a bit. My ambition for this year is to at last get through articles I have had for years. And I’m also going to re-watch a lot of Gable films and offer a new post. So those are coming.…