Gossip
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Gossip Friday: Fireside Chat with Clark and Carole
From December 31, 1940: Two Hollywood stars have had a lesson in acting that ought to make them much better performers in 1941. I refer to Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. For what reason, I don’t know, they seemed to be visiting the White House Sunday night, and were included in the small group that watched the President broadcast his address to the nation. Comments on the speech did not mention the reactions if Mr. Gable and wife, but whatever they may have thought of the message itself, as professional actors they must have realized they were sitting in the presence of a master performer. It seemed to this listener…
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Gossip Friday: Unorthodox Presents
From December 1938: The gifts Carole Lombard and Clark Gable have exchanged are even more unorthodox. Whoever heard of a woman in love with a man giving him a gun for Christmas! Or a man, crazy about one of the most glamorous, sophisticated and clever women in the land, hanging a petrol scooter on her Christmas tree! For Clark, Carole stopped, almost overnight, being a Hollywood playgirl. People are expected to change when they get married. The necessary adaptation to a new life and another personality shows up in every bride and groom. All Clark and Carole did was strike up a Hollywood twosome. Nobody said “I do!” Clark Gable…
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Gossip Friday: Praise from Lombard
From December 1938: George King Wins Praise of Miss Lombard For Getting Clark Gable to Learn Dancing Ability as Hoofer Was Required For Role in ‘Idiot’s Delight’ HE LOSES WEIGHT by Robbin Coons Hollywood, Dec. 22–From Carole Lombard to George King: Congratulations. Miss Lombard presented the same to Mr. King because he had accomplished (1) what she had been unable to do and (2) what no movie script had been able to do, and (3) what no woman had been able to do. Mr. King, a business-like young man, had made Clark Gable dance. Mr. Gable, for these many years, had gone through life practically without stepping on a dance…
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Gossip Friday: He Knows They’re Big
From December 1950: It happened to Clark Gable. A news gal, interviewing him, unwittingly mentioned all the gags about his ears, and then she crimsoned over her faux paus. “I don’t mind the kidding about my ears,” Gable reassured her. “I know they’re big.” “They only seem big, Mr. Gable,” was her tactful reply, “because your head isn’t.”
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Gossip Friday: The Waiting Game
From November 1938: Technicalities legal procedure, it appeared today, may prevent Hollywood from hearing Carole Lombard and Clark Gable say “I do” until some time in 1940. The actor’s $286,000 property settlement with his second wife, Maria Langham Gable, has been mutually approved but requires a court’s okay before Mrs. Gable can file suit for divorce. Gable said his wife, from whom he has been separated for three years, would seek a divorce as soon as a ruling is obtained on the legality of the settlement. He did not say he intends to marry the effervescent Lombard, but his friends declared they are sure he will as soon as he…
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Gossip Friday: A Country Style Recipe
From November 1939: Country style recipes rule on the Carole Lombard-Clark Gable ranch. A favorite old-timer is fried apples, quartered, cooked on brown sugar, flavored with a hint of orange or lemon juice. Delicious with country sausage.
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Gossip Friday: Plenty of Nails
From November 1941: Carole Lombard knows that Clark Gable is always building something on their valley ranch so about a month ago she said to Clark: “You better buy plenty of nails because they’re going to be difficult to get after a while.” Gable laughed, but Carole went out and bought 2,000 pounds of nails at 7 cents a pound. Lombard was right. There is now a shortage of nails, and practically every hardware store in town is phoning Clark Gable wanting to buy nails from him at 17 cents a pound.
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Gossip Friday: A Strange Quartet
From November 1938: Carole Lombard-William Powell-Clark Gable-Rhea Gable–how do the members of this quartet regard and treat each other in the narrow confines of Hollywood? Lombard and Powell are perhaps greater friends now than when they were husband and wife. When they first started making “My Man Godfrey,” their dressing rooms were at opposite sides of the set. Halfway through the picture they were halfway nearer each other. By the time “My Man Godfrey” was in a “canned” condition, their two rooms were side by side! And the ex-Mr. and Mrs. dined together at least five times a week, and it looked as though Bill had nosed out Mr. Gable…
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Gossip Friday: Rhett Sketches
From November 1938: George Cukor visited Clark Gable on the set of “Idiot’s Delight” today with the first Rhett Butler costume sketches tucked under his arm. And if you think this picture isn’t heading into the home-stretch at last–William Cameron Menzies will have the exteriors of “Tara,” Scarlett’s home, ready to shoot within two weeks.
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Gossip Friday: Everybody Relax
From October 1938: Everybody can relax a little, in case they’re still worrying about it after all this time. Clark Gable is definitely set for the role of Rhett Butler. He cut his Canadian vacation short in order to be back to celebrate Carole Lombard’s birthday.
