Gossip
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Gossip Friday: A Storied Mind
From June 1937: During the preparation for the last three pictures he’s appeared in, Clark Gable has been sitting in on all story conferences. Studio executives feel he is a real help in working out details for baffling situations and more than welcome his presence. In fact, Anita Loos, who has been working on “Saratoga,” insists Clark has one of the best story minds in Hollywood.
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Gossip Friday: Lunch Break
From August 1936: All of a sudden like, the little stenographers in the upstairs executive officers at Warner studios started bringing their lunch. No one could quite understand the sudden love for office routine, until the reason leaked out. Below the windows is a tennis court where the stars sometimes play. temporarily it has been surrounded by canvas. Clark Gable is using it to train for his role of the prize fighter in the next Marion Davies picture. Well, girls, how would you like to sit up in a window for sixty minutes and gaze down upon Clark Gable, wearing little more than a smile?
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Gossip Friday: A Lurid Play By Play
From January 1941: I’ll bet Clark Gable could have walloped that youngster who hung around the “Comrade X” company on location and shinnied up a telephone pole, gathered a crowd below him, and did a play-by-play broadcast of Clark’s hurry-up change of clothes in his outside dressing room. The company was on location at Los Angeles harbor and Clark was dressing in a ceilingless enclosure. The youngster did a thorough job by shouting to his hilarious audience, “He’s takin’ off his left shoe—now he’s takin’ off his right—now he’s putting on his shirt!” he didn’t miss a trick, he even got in a lurid description of Gable’s colored shorts.
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Gossip Friday: The Fans Battle It Out–Gable vs. Novarro
From February 1933: ….I beg to be allowed to take up [the fan battle between Gable and Novarro fans]. In their foolish outbursts, pro and con, they have neglected to use the one effective weapon of all–I refer them to the criterion of the show business-Variety, a magazine that does not deal in conjectures, but cold hard facts and statistics. In the list of ten most popular players, Clark Gable’s name is prominently displayed, while Novarro’s is not included. In the list of then ten greatest movie-making and box office stars, Clark’s name is there again–but where, oh where, is Novarro’s? Variety also lists Clark Gable as “MGM’s greatest male…
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Gossip Friday: A Fan’s Poem
A fan’s poem from 1933: Judgement Day There’s the rush and roar of many feet– Young maids, old maids, sour and sweet. They’re clamoring, they’re yammering, They are glad that they are born, For romance is resurrected When Clark Gable blows his horn. ~Dvoll Semay
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Gossip Friday: Building Clark Gable
From February 1936: At a party we saw Mrs. Clark Gable chatting with the ex-wife of a famous star. “My husband didn’t play fair about alimony,” said the ex-wife. “I gave him the most dignified divorce Hollywood ever saw. I chaperoned him and his girl friend for months to avoid scandal. Now she has him when he’s on top. I worked for him during the building years.” Mrs. Gable nodded quietly. “I know a little about building myself.”
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Gossip Friday: Saving Clark’s Soul
From October 1935: Poor Clark Gable had to stand a lot of ribbing about being prayed for by members of a church in his old hometown, and everybody wanted to know how he was “serving the devil of lust.” Clark himself has some curiousity on the subject, too. Jack Oakie, who worked with Clark on “Call of the Wild,” was, at last reports, endeavoring to convert Clark by preaching to him, but without much success. Jack took on the duty because he took on such a long beard for the picture that he looked like a biblical patriarch. Anyway, it may all suggest a new religious film to some producer.
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Gossip Friday: Take a Ride in Clark Gable’s Wheels
From November 1940: A few years back Clark Gable owned a very swanky car. The body was low-slung, with dazzling chromium from stem to stern. The gaudy paint job made the car recognizable blocks away. Clark finally had to give up his foreign-made pet because it attracted too much attention. Now the Gable stigma still clings to the machine. It’s owned by an executive of a large corporation here. He uses it, specifically, to show visiting officials about Southern California. They get a big kick out of riding in a car once owned by Clark Gable.
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Gossip Friday: Mickey Rooney’s Idol
From May 1939: Clark Gable…played a very important part in Mickey Rooney’s career. No wonder Mickey wants to be just like him. It was about five years ago when Mickey was twelve, and on the verge of starvation. Vaudeville was a thing of the past, and Mickey couldn’t even get a job as an extra in Hollywood. He’d only worked about three days in three months. Then he had an idea. He called Clark Gable. “Mr. Gable,” he said, “there’s a good part for a boy in ‘Manhattan Melodrama,’ and I’d give my shirt to play it. I’ve been acting since I was a baby–and I know I can do…
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Gossip Friday: Good Lux from Carole Lombard
From July 1936: The latest gag present from Lombard to Gable was delivered to a somewhat bewildered Mr. G. at the close of a radio broadcast in which he was appearing in a dramatic skit with Marlene Dietrich. Just as the show ended an attendant brought in a huge floral horseshoe–the kind gangsters used to send their dead colleagues. The card from Carole read, “Good Lux.”