Gossip
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Gossip Friday: A Change of Heart
From May 1955: We can be wrong, of course, but we also doubt that Clark Gable and Kay Williams Speckels will ever say “I do” to each other. Same magazine, September 1955: Clark Gable’s elopement with blonde and beautiful Kay Spreckels came as no surprise to me. Clark likes to laugh, and Kay is full of fun. This is the marriage Clark needed to forget his last mistake with Lady Sylvia. It was only shortly before they took the plunge in the wedding pool that the King was asked when it would happen. He put off with: “Kay and I might do it just to kill your favorite question.” But…
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Gossip Friday: Ouch Indeed
From March 1957: Cruel review for Clark Gable’s “A King and Four Queens” in a London paper. It ended with, “Why don’t you act your own age, partner? Be someone’s young graddad for a change.” Ouch, ouch and again ouch.
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Gossip Friday: Night Owl
From December 1953: On his last visit to [New York City], Clark Gable gave most of the major night clubs a big play, and he was spotted in as many as five and six different cafes nightly but never with a party of friends numbering less than eight. Toughest assignment to get, according to newsmen, was a daytime interview with the star—he was never available until after sundown and never after sunrise.
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Gossip Friday: Drama with Dietrich
From September 1936: The debut of the Music Box Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, as a broadcasting station, was quite an auspicious occasion. Hundreds of people came to witness Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable give a stirring performance. However, there was just as much drama before the broadcast, as there was while the players were reading their lines. Marlene had to have her microphone adjusted so she could face her audience. It seems she is quite self-conscious about her profile. On the other hand, Clark prefers giving his audience a profile view, instead of meeting them full-face. After these little matters were adjusted, the play got off to a flying start.…
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Gossip Friday: A Perfect Disguise
Happy Halloween! This “gossip” comes straight from fifth wife Kay Williams Gable: One year Bunker (his stepson) asked Clark to take him to the Halloween festivities at a nearby public park. Pa hesitated, remembering what had happened the year before when he had accompanied the children. he was quickly recognized and surrounded by autograph seekers the rest of the evening. Not only did he personally shy from such attention, Clark also felt all the commotion was unfair to the children. This time Bunker had it all figured out. He had been to the dime store where they were selling rubber masks fashioned in the likenesses of various movie stars. “Here,…
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Gossip Friday: Gone Garbo
From November 1936: Guess who really has gone Garbo on us in a big way? It’s none other than our own party-loving Carole Lombard, who hasn’t been seen out publicly in many a day. What’s more, Carole doesn’t want one single word printed about her romance with Clark Gable. Her close friends say it is still going on and much more serious than Carole wants the world to believe. And it was only yesterday that wild horses couldn’t have kept Carole home for an evening. It must be love.
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Gossip Friday: Unknown Backstage
From September 1937: Carole Lombard tells this one on herself. It seems that during the Los Angeles run of “Idiot’s Delight,” Clark Gable took Carole to see Lynn Fountanne and Alfred Lunt in this latest of their plays. Upon being introduced to Carole backstage after the play, Miss Fontanne asked Carole, quite naively: “Are you English?” Whereupon Carole replied she was not. “Oh,” said Miss Fontanne, “are you in pictures then?” Carole smiled in her best Gracie Allen fashion and replied, “Yes–I’m just around–” And we’d give a pretty penny to learn what Miss Fontanne’s reaction was when she found out to whom she’d been speaking!
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Gossip Friday: All Done Up in Cold Cream
From May 1936: It is not often that you can get a gasp of surprise out of the famous Fieldsie, Carole Lombard’s best friend and secretary, for she knows all the tricks and all the answers, but when she read in the gossip column of several chatter writers the other morning that Miss Carole Lombard had attended the swanky Turf Ball on Saturday night looking perfectly devastating in white and with Clark Gable she nearly fell out of bed. For it seems that on that Saturday night all done up in cold cream and looking anything but devastating Li’l Missy Lombard played double solitaire with Fieldsie until two in the…
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Gossip Friday: What a Coincidence
From May 1937: They tell me those red roses which are sent around from the florist daily to Clark Gable are from Carole Lombard’s florist. we wouldn’t want to say Carole actually sends them, but it is a coincidence.
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Gossip Friday: Present and In Style
From May 1950: For the first time in his life, glamour king Clark Gable attended a fashion show—and willingly yet. It was the big Adrian to- do which he has every year for the husbands of the gals he gowns and Mr. G. docilely escorted his bride to the shindig.