Articles
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{New Article} 1950: Love Walked In
Here is another article Modern Screen magazine ran just a few months after the article I posted yesterday. This one goes into more (fluffy fluffy fluffy) detail about Clark and Sylvia’s “great romance.” For the actor he is, Clark Gable put on a bad performance these past few years. Loneliness stood out on him like a neon sign. The evenings he spent at his Encino ranch home, he’d wander from room to room, pick up a book and drop it, pick up a phone and decide not to call, sink into a chair and stare at nothing. The nights he went out the newshounds followed him to parties and theaters…
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{New Article} 1950: Fit For a King
This article was published in March 1950, one in a sea of articles heralding Clark Gable’s fourth marriage to Sylvia Ashley. They sat opposite me at Amelio’s, one of those restaurants in San Francisco where the steaks are tender and titanic. I tried not to stare. Clark and Sylvia Gable had been married only 48 hours. In another two, they would head for pier 32, and board the S.S. Lurline for Honolulu and their honeymoon. As I say, I tried not to stare. But after all, I’m a woman with a woman’s curiosity, and I couldn’t help myself. There, sitting opposite me was Clark Gable, the King, the most celebrated…
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{New Article} 1955: Clark Gable: After 25 Years in Hollywood, He’s On His Own
This article about post-MGM Clark was syndicated in newspapers in 1955. After a quarter of a century in the movie business, William Clark Gable, the acknowledged king of the actors, has decided at the ripe age of 54 to go on his own. “From here on in,” Gable confided recently in Durango, Mexico, where he was on location for The Tall Men, “I’m through working for salary. I’ve been on salary since 1930, and I’ve got less to show for that kind of security than most people think. “The thing for an actor to do nowadays is to work for a share of the picture’s profits. You’ve gotta take a…
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{New Article} 1938: Getting Gay with Gable
Ok, ok, stop laughing about the title of this article. “Gay” meant something else entirely in 1938! This article is about attending a dinner party with Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Walter Lang and his wife Fieldsie and Claudette Colbert. So the next morning Clark, who is a good shot, brought back a bevy of wild duck and because he lives at a big hotel in Beverly Hills and has no cook, no valet, no chauffeur, no second maid, no China boy (“I’m not helpless,” says Mr. Gable when someone suggests that a movie star ought to have servants), he dumped them on Walter Lang’s ping pong table and said it…
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{New Article} The King and I
This new article was syndicated in The America Weekly, which was a Parade-magazine-like insert in newspapers. I actually was very surprised to find this printed in 1957. Clark had a very arms-length relationship with the press. He was usually cooperative but he never let them get TOO close. When they bought the ranch in 1939, Clark and then-wife Carole Lombard immediately instituted an ironclad rule that no pictures were to be taken inside. With the exception of this interview, which I absolutely adore and is as close as we’ll ever get to Clark being on Johnny Carson or the like, Clark’s answers about his personal life were usually guarded. Knowing…
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{New Article} 1936: Gable Returns
When coming upon this article and seeing it’s line under the title: “Clark Escaped the Senoritas of the Argentine Only to Be Captured by a Broadcasting Station”–you would expect an exciting article about Clark Gable’s recent trip to South America. And you would be disappointed. Initially, we are treated to these tidbits about Clark’s trip: Clark, you see, had suddenly taken it into his head to hop off to South America by plane, and his journey, started in Hollywood with so much secrecy at the ungodly hour of four-thirty one cold morning, by degrees took on the semblance of a romantic good-will tour. Everywhere he stopped he was mobbed by…
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{New Article} 1935: The Only Girl on a Gable Location
This piece from 1935 was written by a reporter sent to the Catalina Island set of Mutiny on the Bounty. Oh, to be the lone female reporter hunting down the scoop to the location shoot of the latest Clark Gable picture! Sounds glamorous, right? Apparently not… If you’re going from Hollywood, you ride the film boat from San Pedro wharf direct to the Isthmus, some ten miles across Channel. The boat makes it once a day carrying passengers and supplies. And so, surrounded by eight twenty-gallon gasoline tanks, four cartons of strawberries, two dead sharks, (to be used for Bounty atmosphere), and six milk cans, I started my great expedition.…
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{New Article} 1937: Gable and Taylor Rivals?
This 1937 is purely MGM propaganda–“We have two hot male leads! Look at how great they both are!” A bunch of hogwash to think that because they were both leading men they were instantly rivals. Clark and Bob, in fact, grew to be good friends in the years following. Bob and his wife Barbara Stanwyck had a ranch near Clark and Carole’s and the four of them were often together. Only thing worthwhile in this article is some of the quotes: “I see Mr. Taylor as a rival!” marvels Mr. Gable, spreading his four-square smile. “Never even thought of such a thing. Bob’s a fine boy, a fine-looking boy, a…
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{New Article} A Date with Clark Gable
It’s Valentines Day, so let’s all go on a date with Clark Gable, shall we? Ok, first of all, this really isn’t “a date,” more like just meeting a journalist for a quick lunch, so the title is pretty misleading. Also it is of note that it’s long been Hollywood lore that Clark and the author of this piece, May Mann, had a thing going for a while. Apparently to score her first interview with him, she sat outside his dressing room door in a tight, lowcut dress. From then on she scored several interviews with Clark and they were spotted out on the town together in the late 1940’s,…
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{New Article} 1936: Gable’s Bachelor Dates
New today is an article about the freshly single Mr. Gable. Having separated from his wife Ria, Hollywood’s shiniest star was now available and on the prowl! Or is he… Let’s plunge right into this new private life he’s having for himself and learn All. Maybe your imagination turns riotous at the very idea of his amusement program. Since he’s single again our most popular actor ought to be having a hot time in the swanky Beverly Hills every night. With his appeal, his money, and his screen halo, his leisure divertissements should be just colossal. Oh, no doubt Clark has to pop over to the studio to be glorified.…