Gossip
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Gossip Friday: No King and Queen Stuff
From March 23, 1939, Hedda Hopper’s column: Tom Douglas and Rex Evans, former actors, have been decorating like mad–It’s Clark Gable’s new house and it was finished March 17. While the wires are being burned up to find out Clark’s wedding date, when Clark gets a couple of hours off he doesn’t bother about anything but tilling his soil. No king and queen stuff for Clark and Carole, they’ll break the news to all the papers at the same time. ____ Don’t worry, Hedda, they’d be married six days later.
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Gossip Friday: A Brief Divorcee?
From March 1939: Mrs. Clark Gable, who is in Las Vegas awaiting her divorce, may marry as soon as her former husband does. Hal Strotz, the former Mrs. Jay Gould’s widower, flew to Las Vegas to spend the weekend as Mrs. Gable’s guest. He telephones to her every day and, according to her close friends, is devoted to Ria. Her divorce will become final on March 6 and, while there is no official word that she will become Mrs. Strotz, things look serious between her and her admirer.
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Gossip Friday: Two Millionth
From March 1938: Clark Gable affixed his 2,000,000th autograph for “Ducky” Pond, coach of the Yale University football team. The star has kept accurate check on his signatures since asked for his first autograph six years ago as the result of his performance in “A Free Soul.” ___ I really doubt that….
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Gossip Friday: A Rush Job
From March 21, 1939: Carole Lombard has hired twenty-four gardeners to complete a rush job on Clark Gable’s Encino estate. Carole’s mother, Mrs. Peters, has put on record her desire for a church wedding, or a ceremony in a private house performed by a preacher.
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Gossip Friday: Mr. Bow Tie
From January 1936: Clark Gable, famous setter of men’s fashions, is introducing a new one or, rather, reviving an old one–bow ties for streetwear. He is wearing long bows with pointed ends in bright stripes. Gable’s first honor on this line was when he made popular the turtlenecked sweater.
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Gossip Friday: Something to Talk About
From February 1936: Did you hear about the [valentine] Carole Lombard sent Clark Gable? She had an old Ford painted white, decorated with huge red hearts and ribbon and had it delivered to Mr. Gable’s hotel with her compliments. All this because of the false reports that have been going around town regarding the fact that she was romantically interested in Clark. Carole says she thought she would give the gossips something real to talk about for a change.
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Gossip Friday: A Mangy Mule
From February 1939: Carole Lombard’s surprise birthday present to Clark Gable was a mangy mule. Andy Devine brought five chickens and another friend, a sack of fertilizer.
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Gossip Friday: No Clark, No Ava
From January 1956: A drive-in movie theater in San Fernando Valley marqueed it “Grace Kelly in Mogambo” following her engagement to Prince Rainier. No mention of Clark Gable or Ava Gardner, who never expected the no-billing treatment when they made the picture with a pretty, unknown blonde.
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Gossip Friday: Easy for Kirk, Not for Clark
From June 1958: When Clark Gable, a rugged outdoorsman, recently tackled an activity-packed P.A. tour for his “Teacher’s Pet,” he came home to announce, “never again. I’ve never been through anything so rough.” I asked returning soldier Kirk [Douglas] if he shared Clark’s sentiments. His answer was both yes and no. “This kind of thing is always a rough, exhausting experience. You seldom have a minute to yourself. Your schedule is jam-packed. You meet a million people, answer a million questions, smile a million smiles. But after you make a few of these tours you learn to roll with the punch. What’s more,” Kirk quipped, “you learn what kind of…
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Gossip Friday: A Different Clark Gable
From January 17, 1942: On the screen Clark Gable is a suave, swashbuckling hero. Nothing ever really upsets him. He has ice water in his veins. But today there is a different Clark Gable, a Clark Gable with disheveled hair and reddened eyes, a Clark Gable who looks like a broken man, a Clark Gable who spent the night nervously pacing a floor, and chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting for word about his wife, the beautiful Carole Lombard, in a TWA airliner which crashed in the Nevada mountains. Gable wanted to join the rescue party going to the scene of the wreckage, but policy persuaded him not to.
