Articles
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{New Article} 1940: Joe Lucky
This 1940 article was in The Saturday Evening Post, whom I’m guessing paid their journalists per word because all their articles are so very bloated. This one is 5,838 words, but who’s counting. Me, the one who typed it, I am the one counting. Anyway. This article is supposed to be about how lucky Clark is and that’s why he is a success. But yet it goes into a rather pointless meandering tale of Clark’s early years working in the oil fields, the lumber camps, as a small time theatre actor–a lot of hard, broke times that eventually led to success. At least the author did indeed interview Clark, so…
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{New Article} 1934: What’s Happened, Gable?
The latest article in the Article Archive is a typical one for the period. The MGM publicity machine was very keen on painting Clark Gable as this rebellious rogue who scoffed at fame and stardom and wanted nothing more than to walk away from it all. “The fault lies purely with myself,” [Clark] said. “I thought I wanted something, something I find I don’t want at all. I was not meant to be a motion picture actor—or any actor. But in the beginning I didn’t realize that I thought I wanted acting fame more than anything in the world. How, then, can Hollywood be blamed for giving me what I…
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Clark Gable in Tampa Part 5: Mrs. Gable is Nice
For the last segment of our series of interviews Clark Gable gave at the Tampa International Airport in February 1958, it appears that as the female reporters were hounding Clark asking him mundane questions, a male reporter managed to talk to Kay Gable. Mrs. Gable is Nice, Male Reporter Says by Leland Hawes, Tribune Staff Writer I had Mrs. Gable all to myself–for 10 nice minutes while her crinkle-browed husband was nearly “skwushed” by a squad of inquiring reporters, female variety. A cool, cool blonde with blue, blue eyes, Kay Gable didn’t twitter an eyelash at the spectacle of her chunk-of-man surrounded by palpitating pulchritude. “It’s really rather refreshing to…
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Clark Gable in Tampa Part 4: His Ears Aren’t So Big After All
Continuing in our series of Clark Gable being interviewed at the Tampa International Airport in February 1958, here’s Part 4, in which you find out he loves huckleberries, if he still loves acting, and if he’d consider going to the moon: His Ears Aren’t So Big After All by Ramona Demery, Tribune Staff Writer I’m rather new at this thing, I guess you call it a cub reporter. Well, not even that, for my job is to keep the floor clean, file weddings and write garden club notices. Then along came a chance to interview Clark Gable. What a madhouse: four women firing questions at once. This one just gave…
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Clark Gable in Tampa Part 3: Scarlett Never Got Rhett Butler Back
Continuing our series of articles from Clark Gable being interviewed at the Tampa International Airport in February 1958, here’s Part 3, in which he gives an answer to whether he thinks Rhett ever goes back to Scarlett, and he spoils the end of Run Silent Run Deep: Scarlett Never Got Rhett Butler Back By Panky Glamsch, Tribune Staff Writer Just as Rhett Butler never returned to Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable may never return to The Tribune Woman’s Department. But at least four women staff members will never be the same. The day it was announced The King would arrive at Tampa International Airport, the air was…
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Clark Gable in Tampa Part 2: He Looked at Me–And I Reached For The Wall
Continuing in our series of articles posted in the Tampa Tribune in February 1958, here is Part 2 of Clark being interviewed at the Tampa International Airport: He Looked at Me–And I Reached For The Wall by Lee Winter, Tribune Staff Writer Clark Gable’s whiskery glance stirred up a thick batter of longing among women waiting in the cold wind at the airport. Mostly, they were older women who strained for that first look at the tall figure striding from the plane. One woman tore a button off her glove as she leaned on the wire fence. Later, she told me that her first memory of Clark Gable was a…
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Clark Gable in Tampa Part 1: Virility and Charm–And His Voice is Husky Yet Soft
Since it’s Clark Gable’s birthday month, we will be featuring a series of small articles that were printed in the Tampa Tribune in February 1958. It was around his birthday that Clark Gable and wife Kay Spreckels arrived at the Tampa International Airport, en route to a cruise to the West Indies. Is any of this earth shattering information? No. But if you wanted to know what Clark thought of chemise dresses, if he ever unclogged sinks at home, if he thinks women should know how to cook, if he thinks Rhett ever came back to Scarlett, what his favorite cake is and if he likes to die in movies,…
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{New Article} 1949: The Story Behind The Gable Legend
Here’s a new article from 1949. Most of the fan magazine articles about Clark in this post-WWII, late 1940’s period are all about who he’s dating and who will be the next Mrs. Gable. This one has actually has some nice quotes about Clark. It’s kind of funny that in 1949 there is an article trying to explain why Clark Gable has been popular for almost 20 years. Here we are, 90 years after his film debut, still talking about him! He’s launched a double-dozen young actresses to fame through being his leading lady. He’s been a man’s hero, too. No clotheshorse ever, when he wore turtlenecked sweaters, everybody started…
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{New Article} 1954: Please Don’t Talk About Me
Here’s another one of these early 1950’s articles debating whom Clark will or will not marry. The subject of this one is the elusive model Suzanne Dadolle. I discussed Suzanne a few years ago in this post. Suzanne, like many before her, made the fatal mistake of talking to the press about her relationship with Clark. And with that, Suzanne was swiftly cut off, and rather stunned at the abruptness of it all. In Paris, on October 12, Suzanne, after returning to work at Schiaparelli’s, announced that she and Gable had been engaged, “but informally,” for several months, the implication being that never in a million years would she have…
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{New Article} 1954: Gable and His Girls
This 1954 article was written by everybody in Hollywood’s favorite “frenemy,” the infamous Louella Parsons. Most of the articles of this period, between Clark’s ill-fated marriage to Sylvia Ashley and his subsequent union with Kay Williams, focus on all of Clark’s girlfriends and who will be the next Mrs. Gable. The King laughed when I persisted in asking about beautiful blonde Grace Kelly (the new Hollywood sensation) with whom Clark was supposed to have been very much in love with they were making ‘Mogambo,’ and of Suzanne Dadolle, the French charmer of the odd name, with whom his name was later linked all over Europe. Grace is supposed to have…
