Gossip
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Gossip Friday: Rhett on the Radio?
From April 1939: Latest bulletin from the Hollywood Front is that Cecil B. DeMille is dickering to present a radio version of “Gone with the Wind” on his regular Monday drama hour. And, by the way, they do some funny things in Hollywood occasionally. David O. Selznick spent thousands of dollars testing various candidates for the role of Rhett Butler…but Clark Gable, who was the first one signed for the picture, didn’t make one test! __ That never happened. Would have been quite the long radio program!
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Gossip Friday: In Her Hands
From 1941: The most beautiful pair of book ends I ever saw hold a few of Clark Gable’s favorite books on a night stand beside his bed. They represent a pair of exquisitely molded bronzed hands. They are really the hands of Carole Lombard. From a plaster of Paris impression Carole had the arresting bronzes cast so she could feel she was always, personally, holding Clark’s books ready for him to choose.
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Gossip Friday: Missing a Friend
From December 1955 (Louella Parsons): Mrs. Clark Gable has become so much the wife of The King that she is seeing few of the old friends who were so good to her in the dark days when life was pretty desperate for her. It’s understandable that a married woman must accept her husband’s friends and make his pals hers, but there is one case where I think Kay is remiss–that of a certain actress who was very good to her during the days when other of her friends shied away from the then Mrs. Spreckels for fear of publicity. Of course, I may be wrong and there may be some…
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Gossip Friday: A Fine for Clark
From April 1959: One rainy, stormy day in Pima, Arizona, a trailer-truck looked out of the midst and headed directly for an approaching car. The driver reacted swiftly, cutting his wheels to the right. With a sudden screech of brakes, both vehicles halted. Clark Gable emerged from his auto unhurt. A patrolman arrived, and finding both men all right, started to write out a ticket for Gable, charging him with ‘illegal passing.’ Clark grumbled something and got back into his car. On the day of the hearing, crowds of newsmen gathered at the courtroom. “Hey,” shouted one, “bet you Gable doesn’t even come himself!” “Yes,” agreed another, “he’ll probably send…
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Gossip Friday: The One That Got Away
From July 1934: Clark Gable, screen actor, can talk about the “one that got away” and without danger. Fishing off the Coronado Islands today from a live bait boat, with Garry Fleischman, Hollywood, a friend, Gable hooked a large barracuda. He had the fish within about 20 feet of the boat when suddenly there was a new tug on his line and it jerked toward nearby rocky cliffs. Gable never saw “the one that got away,” but the bait tank attendant from his more lofty perch, reported it was a large sea lion which had taken Gable’s barracuda.
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Gossip Friday: That Red Dress
From 1945, Hedda Hopper’s memory of the infamous Mayfair Ball in 1936 (my recap of this incident here): Hollywood first got exclusive at the Little Club in the Ambassador where only the bon ton and the elite could cavort and caper on bathtub gin. But I think Hollywood snootiness flowered much later on at the Mayfair dances. Something happened there I’ll never forget. The Mayfair numbered Hollywood’s ultra-smart set. A Hollywood copy of the London West-Enders, of course, and oh, my dear, so formal. For a time its balls made news all over the world and I doubt if there was ever a more publicized and flash-bulbed Peacock Alley anywhere.…
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Gossip Friday: On His Arm
From May 1942, fan letter to magazine: Los Angeles, May 28, 1937. I stood with many thousands at Wrigley Field, as busload of stars pulled in to watch the boxing match that night. I saw a great, handsome man emerge in a tweed coat and trousers, crepe sole shoes, and hat down over one eye, Behind him, his wife, Carole Lombard, dressed almost exactly like him. “Clark Gable!” I whispered, and he immediately pushed his hat back and grinned like only he can. I grabbed his right arm (Carole was on the other) and buried my head so that the police couldn’t see that I didn’t belong there, and walked…
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Gossip Friday: Chief Export
From December 1935: South America had a good shipping year. Their chief exports to the U.S. appear to be coffee, frozen meats, and snapshots of Clark Gable in swim trunks surrounded by various Latin dolls.
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Gossip Friday: Don’t Ask
From February 1937: Interviewers of Carole Lombard are cautioned in advance that they must not mention or ask about Clark Gable. Interviewers of Gable are expected not to mention Miss Lombard. Yet Gable isn’t in the least reticent about telling friends that he hopes to make a picture with Miss Lombard. Not only wants to, but expects to. __ Wants to make ANOTHER picture with Miss Lombard, to be precise. And a shame that never happened.
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Gossip Friday: Doing a Double Take
From October 1940: Clark Gable and the Missus are burned up about the story going round that all is not well between them. Those who are spreading the poison should be squelched by the announcement that the pair intend taking a four-month honeymoon-vacation just as soon as Carole completes “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Another muffler for the gossip was provided by Clark just a few days ago when he told the following story about the wonderful Lombard sense of humor. It seems a bad case of poison ivy hit Carole recently and swelled her face until it looked like an automobile tire about to pop. A vainer woman would have…
