Gossip
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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.
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Gossip Friday: Visitor in a Station Wagon
From December 1939: It was a great thrill for the tiny coast town of Pismo beach to have a big movie location move right into their midst. The entire town was agog because Joan Crawford was reported really to have arrived in her limousine, in true movie star fashion. Every youngster in the village was out for an autograph. The Crawford name was magic until the youngsters found out that the guy driving an old station wagon looked like Clark Gable. When they found out it was Gable, and he fixed up an immediate game of softball to entertain the mob, because the weather got too foggy to work, glamour…
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Gossip Friday: Avoiding the Former Mrs.
From November 1953: The former Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Lady Ashley, etcetera, used the name Mrs. Clark Gable for her London social engagements and created no end of embarrassment for her ex-husband when he arrived in London en route to Hollywood and accepted party invitations. The “Mogambo” star had to send his regrets to several titled households when he cancelled out at the last minute because Sylvia Gable was to be among those present.
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Gossip Friday: You’d Never Guess
From November 1937: Just before he left on his extended bear-hunting expedition, Clark Gable had a short wave radio set installed in his car. You’d never guess whom he wants to keep in touch with during his trip, would you?
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Gossip Friday: Party of One
From December 1949: You can believe this or not—but we actually saw Clark Gable lunching alone in the MGM commissary—and all around him pretty gals who would have been delighted to keep him company. There was quite a glamour gang scattered around at the various tables—the three Taylors, Elizabeth, Bob and Don, handsome Barry Sullivan, Mark Stevens, Peter Lawford, Marilyn Maxwell, Bob Walker—looking fit as a fiddle—and the most beautiful girl in the room, Arlene Dahl, all excited about getting the lead in the Western “Outriders.” ____ This one made me sad. Like his heyday was over and there he is all alone while the new crop of stars takes…
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Gossip Friday: Compounded Salary
From September 1936: Everyone thought Clark Gable was clowning when he remarked that he would like to sign a contract for twenty-eight days, starting with two cents a day. Each day’s salary to be multiplied by itself. In other words, the first day he would make two cents. The second day four cents. Believe it or not, by the end of twenty-eight days, it runs up in the millions. If you don’t believe Clark, get out your paper and pencil and start figuring.
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Gossip Friday: A Familiar Looking Couple
From November 1939: One cold, fall night not long ago, an auto court manager in a small California mountain town rented a bearded man and his wife a cabin for one night. The manager didn’t pay much attention to the man, or the beard, because every male in town was growing one for the annual Fiesta. But he couldn’t he over how pretty the blonde girl was, and he was almost sure he had seen her before. The next morning word was buzzed about the town that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had spent the night there, and left behind a hunting coat with Clark’s name in it. There were immediate suggestions that the coat be…