Academy Awards
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Oscar Night! Clark Gable and Doris Day are Proud to Present…
On March 26, 1958, Clark Gable put on a tux (complete with tails, no less) and headed to the RKO Pantages Theater for the 30th Annual Academy Awards. He attended as a presenter with his Teacher’s Pet co-star, Doris Day. This marked one of the handful of times that Clark attended the awards and is especially significant because it is one of just a few occasions that he appeared on television. Clark and Doris presented the two awards for Best Screenplay, Adapted and Written for the Screen. Clark and Doris appear at 4:40, after Bob Hope does some stand-up (lot of Russian and I’m-never-nominated jokes). Notice they play the…
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Oscar Night!
Since tonight is the Oscars, let’s look at the times Clark attended: February 27, 1935–Clark was nominated for It Happened One Night and did not expect to win. In fact nobody expected this little bus comedy from Columbia to walk away with Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture. The event was held in the Biltmore Bowl at the Biltmore Hotel and Clark reluctantly took Ria, even though he probably would have preferred the company of his latest mistress, Elizabeth Allan. The Gables arrived with Irving Thalberg, Norma Shearer, Helen Hayes and her husband Charles MacArthur. You can read about Clark’s only Oscar here. March 5,…
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{Hollywood} The Academy Library Clears Up a Clark and Carole–Gone with the Wind Mystery
People sure did look at me funny when I said that one of the things I was most looking forward to on my Los Angeles trip was a visit to the library. Sounds strange, but this is not just any library, it’s the Margaret Herrick Library, the library for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). If you’ve read a bio on a classic star (a reputable one, anyway) bet your bottom dollar they did their research here. They house thousands of original scripts, screenplays, correspondence, you name it. Many, many people have left their personal papers to the library, including Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Billy Wilder, Esther Williams, …
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Oscar Night…Minus Clark and Carole
The Academy Awards are tonight, so I thought I would post something about the night “Gone with the Wind”won it big–February 29, 1940 at the now-destroyed Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles. Clark didn’t win that night; the only black spot on an otherwise glorious night for the film. The one thing about that evening that has always puzzled me is the lack of pictures of Clark and Carole at the Academy Awards. There are none. Zilch. Zero. I understand Clark didn’t win, but how can there be no photos? I am a Clark photo fanatic, as is evident by the thousands of pictures in the gallery, and I have never…