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Gossip Friday: The Madam
From August 1936: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, playing the night spots together, are having a picnic of fun. Of late Clark has called Carole “The Madam.” Dining out, he insists on saying “Will the madam have this?” or “Where would the madam like to go?” A Trocadero waiter stared strangely at Miss Lombard after such an address from Gable the other evening. After he had taken their order and departed, Carole murmured, “Perhaps you had better not call me ‘The Madam’ in front of strangers!”
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Gossip Friday: No Letters
From September 1941: Then there is this amazing explanation of Carole Lombard’s reluctance and downright refusal to write letters: Carole Lombard chews up more letters than she writes. When she sits down to write she chews the edge of the stationary while she is thinking, and by the time the letter is halfway finished, it is so well chewed up that she throws it in the waste basket and goes out to feed the chickens. That’s why you don’t ever get letters from Lombard.
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Gossip Friday: Who’s That Girl
From December 1936: For the last three days, movie gossips have seen Clark Gable lunching with the same girl at the studio restaurant. They were surprised when they learned her name. She is Mary Anita Loos, 20-year-old niece of Anita Loos, humorist who wrote “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” She recently began a career in pictures.
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Gossip Friday: Strictly Informal
From March 1940: Carole Lombard admitted the other day that her attempt to keep life on a strictly informal basis at the Gable-Lombard ranch has been carried a bit too far. Nowadays when she calls home and asks to speak to Mr. G., the maid cups her hand over the mouthpiece and yodels to the butler, “Hey, tell Paw that Maw’s on the phone!”
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Gossip Friday: Wants Not a Cent
From July 1951: Clark Gable, who plonked out $350,000 to get his freedom from Ria Gable, can relax. Sylvia wants not a cent from him—nor any part of his property. She sent word to me from Honolulu where she had fled after the bitterness of their parting. “Why should I ask for part of his 20-acre ranch in Encino when I own 4,000 acres in Del Mar?” Sylvia asked. Although Clark remains as mum as an oyster, he told a mutual friend that he has never spent as much money in his life as he did during the year-and-a-half he was married to the former Lady Ashley. He says he…
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Gossip Friday: Nice Going
From June 1940: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are confirming the baby item to close friends. They sent one pair of new parents a congratulatory wire saying: “Nice going, you beat us but not by much.” ____ Sadly, not true.
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Gossip Friday: Light a Match
From December 1938: Tyrone Power and Clark Gable exchanging reminiscences abut their South American travels at the Jack Benny party to Ruby Schinasi…”What gave you your greatest kick, Ty?” asked Gable…”At Colombia,” said Power, breaking into a grin. “The manager of the local theatre told me that he wanted to show me what happened when we made bad pictures in Hollywood…A picture was just starting, I won’t tell you the name of it, and it was pretty bad. All of a sudden, the audience started lighting matches and holding them up like torches. ‘You see,’ said the theatre manager, ‘if they don’t like a picture, instead of booing or hissing,…
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Gossip Friday: Scared
From October 1933: Clark Gable tells an amusing story about Joan [Crawford]. “The only time I ever have been scared in my life was the first time I worked with her,” he declares, “I wasn’t worth a nickel those first few days, couldn’t remember my lines at all, and even acted scared. “It’s funny when I look back, because the one person of whom I should have been frightened, Garbo, didn’t bother me in the least. The first four days I worked with her I never even spoke to her except when we were doing scenes together. And it was during those four days that we shot all the hot…
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Gossip Friday: Strangely Related Duos
From August 1936: Strangely related duos in Hollywood. It’s a small world at that. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Bob Riskin and Julia Lair. Mrs. Gable and Alex Buckman. (Lombard was Riskin’s old girl, Miss Laird is Buckman’s ex-wife, and you know about the Gables.) ____ Riskin, who wrote the screenplay for It Happened One Night, later married Fay Wray in 1942.
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Gossip Friday: Never Heard of Him
From July 1960: Producer-Advertiser Joe Levine best illustrates his attitude in an anecdote: “I saw Clark Gable at a party the other night and he said he ought to be in one of my pictures. I told him the people who see my movies never heard of Clark Gable. We both laughed at that.”
