Gossip
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Gossip Friday: Sitting Fireside
From December 1940: Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, were Sunday evening guests at the White House and were among the 19 persons who were with President Roosevelt when he delivered his fireside chat. Gable stopped here during the weekend en route to Baltimore where he enters John Hopkins Hospital today for examination of a shoulder injury suffered a long time ago. Mr. Roosevelt usually has no one present during such intimate broadcasts to the nation except the necessary radio announcers and technicians. Last night’s address was broadcast to an estimated 80,000,000 to 100,000,000 persons throughout the world over the three major radio networks in this country and re-broadcast…
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Gossip Friday: Merry Christmas, Louella
From April 1959 (Louella Parsons): My biggest “kick” of the holiday season: Clark Gable (and his Kay, of course) personally coming over to my house to turn on the lights on the very pretty ornamental Christmas tree he and Kay gave me. It’s not everybody who can have The King crawling around on his hands and knees at the light switches!
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Gossip Friday: Kinks in the King
From May 1950: Clark Gable spoils his two hundred percent perfection with his hundred percent streak of stubbornness. Maybe Lady Sylvia, who is where she is today because of flexibility, will smooth over the one kink in the King.
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Gossip Friday: One Take, Please
From August 1951: Uncertain though their future plans may be, to watch [Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner] together is to fully realize their deep devotion for each other. Following lunch, we sat on the “Lone Star” set and watched Frankie boy’s best beautiful girl being made love to by—Clark Gable! “Any suggestions?” called out the King to the crooner. “Just do it in ONE take!” was the kidding answer.
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Gossip Friday: Buoyant Blondell
From May 1945: While several MGM actresses literally drooled to play the gal who tries to lure Clark Gable away from Greer Garson in “The Strange Adventure,” Joan Blondell was quietly signed for the role. Funny part is Joan is so well liked and so admired by her cinema sisters, they couldn’t say a word. But brother, what they were thinking was really something. Only the buoyant Blondell could get away with it.
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Gossip Friday: Wrapped Them Himself
From November 1944 (Louella Parsons): It’s been a month of parties, parties, parties! The little Queen of the Ice, Sonja Henie, certainly looked the part at the big affair she gave at her house….I had the time of my life doing rumba after rumba with Clark Gable! Between numbers–Clark and I sat at one of the bright little tables and had a long talk. Gable has been going to all the parties–perhaps because he wants to forget all that he saw overseas. It is certainly something new for him because he isn’t a party man and enjoys far more being with a crowd of his pals and hunting and fishing.…
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Gossip Friday: Quite a Hazard
From November 1960: The hazards of choosing magazine cover subjects! The cover of the December issue of Cosmopolitan magazine just out, pictures a smiling Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable as exponents of the issue’s theme, “the pursuit of happiness.” Since the magazine went to press, Miss Monroe announced her plans to divorce Arthur Miller, and Clark Gable was the victim of a fatal heart attack.
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Gossip Friday: All Eyes on Them
From March 1945: What follows remains to be seen. However, all eyes were on civilian Clark Gable and Ann Dvorak at the David Selznick’s Sunday afternoon tennis party. Clark hardly left her side all afternoon. Interesting news that Ann, who once walked out on a Warner contract to sail around the world with husband Leslie Fenton (now separated), is being paged to resume her acting at this same studio. At the time, they said she’d never darken their door again.
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Gossip Friday: Most Kissed Man
From May 1947: By the time he finishes “The Hucksters,” Clark Gable will be the most-kissed man in Hollywood. His first scene called for him to kiss Connie Gilchrist, who plays a telephone operator; three times. Later the same day, he kissed Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner and five-year-old Diane Perrine! Clark has dropped 20 pounds since he made “Adventure”–and not from all that kissing, either. He didn’t like the way he looked on the screen with all that weight and went to work exercising it off. Here’s a little tip that may interest you. After seeing Gable and Ava Gardner in action, MGM is thinking about remaking some of the…
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Gossip Friday: She Knows a Flop When She Sees It
From May 1938: It was Carole Lombard who first tipped me off to the movie star’s definition of a flop. Carole didn’t go to the recent preview of “Fools for Scandal” in which she co-starred with Fernand Gravet. The picture has just been released at this writing and there are no figures yet from Kansas and the Bronx, much less from Afghanistan and Latvia, but Carole has a pretty good hunch that the picture is a “flop.” It seems that the day following the preview in Hollywood her friends called her up, as is the custom after a preview. “Darling, you looked simply divine last night! I have never seen…
