Gossip
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Gossip Friday: Santa Checks Up on Good Boys and Girls
In the January 1935 issue of Hollywood magazine, they printed “Santa’s book” of good and bad points for film stars. So who’s getting what they wanted for Christmas and who is getting coal? CLARK GABLE Good Points: For giving is It Happened One Night. Being always thoughtful of others. When a friend had no place to keep her dog, he gave it a home on his ranch. Bad Points: Balks at picture assignments with women stars. Drives studio frantic by disappearing between pictures, when he is wanted for story conferences. Gifts: More dogs to take care of CAROLE LOMBARD Good Points: Proved she could act in Twentieth Century. Came…
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Gossip Friday: Nuts About Gable
Letter to the editor, from December 1931: I think Clark Gable is taking the movie world by storm! He’s marvelous! Handsome and everything a movie fan wants! But–why on earth can’t he ever have a likable part in a picture? He was miscast in “Laughing Sinners;” imagine Gable in a Salvation Army garb!!! He was great in the “Secret Six” but he had a dislikable role. He was marvelous as the polished gambler in “A Free Soul” but imagine how the feminine hearts sank when he was shot after doing all that marvelous acting. In the future let us see Clark taking the male lead. Then watch his rise to…
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Gossip Friday: The Curtain Raiser?
From December 1936: YOU know, of course, that Clark Gable and his wife are merely separated—and that, until now at least, there’s been no move toward divorce. They’ve been living under a verbal agreement whereby they have arranged to live “peaceably apart.” BUT—just the other day, Clark started legal proceedings in open court, asking the California Superior bench to “define, compute and compound” the agreement between himself and his wife—so that there may be no misunderstanding when and if a divorce move is started by either. Wonder if that’s the curtain raiser?
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Gossip Friday: Poetry for the New Sheik
From October 1931: Metro is letting its news about its new screen sheik, Clark Gable, trickle out slowly to a breathless world. The latest bulletin is this: Clark’s dressing-room is filled with books of poetry with many underlined passages.
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Gossip Friday: No Dinner Parties!
From January 1932: Clark Gable and his wife are pretty well reconciled to the fact that they are going to have to fight off divorce rumors from here on in. But just by way of keeping down the quantity, Clark has let it known that Mr. and Mrs. Gable “do not do any entertaining.” In other words, there wll be no chance for curious “friends” to be present at a party and mistable an innocent little difference of opinion for what would later pass as a “first-hand” report of an argument between the Gables. Social affairs are a hotbed of Hollywood gossip. You know how the whisper goes: “So-and-So arrived…
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Gossip Friday: Attacked by Small Town Vamps
From December 1931: Clark Gable almost had his coat and vest and golf knickers torn off at the preview of “Susan Lenox” in a small town near Hollywood. The only reason Clark didn’t come home in a barrel is because he managed to outrun the hysterical femmes who were waiting for him at the finish of the picture. Poor Gable! He tried to smile and “be nice” to the crowd until the ladies began to tear and pull at his necktie and his shirt. When one of the small-town vamps began to shout, “Give us a kiss,” and all the other small-town vamps seemed bent on putting the suggestion into…
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Gossip Friday: Grand New Rifle
From August 1935: Clark Gable has been hunting again–with that gr-r-rand new rifle of his, which has gold sights and mountings that catch the sunlight and warn any animal with range that he is on its trail. The plan to have his debutante step-daughter, Georgiana, screen-tested seems to be in abeyance for the moment. We understand that Clark is wholly in favor of the idea, but wants to take the tests with her and have her gowned by Adrian first. ______ This rumor of Clark’s stepdaughter being screen-tested appears quite often. I am not sure if it ever really happened, but “Jana” never became an actress. It also seems out…
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Gossip Friday: Gable in Grand Hotel?
From December 1931: What do you think of this for a cast? Great Garbo…John Gilbert…Joan Crawford…Clark Gable in “Grand Hotel.” Irving Thalberg (MGM executive and husband of Norma Shearer) thinks so much of it that it is practically set that these four stars will be united in Vicki Baum’s sensational story. Anyway, the folks have had a lot of fun casting the parts. Garbo as the dancer, Gilbert as the young crook, Crawford as the stenographer–everybody agrees on that line-up. But what part is Gable to have? the only other important role in the book is the invalid from the country. Does Gable look like an invalid to you? ____…
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Gossip Friday: Carole Lombard–Mrs. Kanin?
From January 1941: [When Garson Kanin was directing Carole] in “They Knew What They Wanted,” he’d say when he wanted her in a sad mood: “Just imagine you had married me instead of Gable.” [He] says it always worked!
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Gossip Friday: Joke’s on Clark
From December 1940: The town is chuckling over a gag that Carole Lombard recently pulled on Clark Gable. Clark couldn’t see the humor of the prank, they say, and he left the gathering in a huff. He and Carole were entertaining some friends at dinner and afterwards say down to see some home movies. Instead of the usual color shots of mountain streams and snow-clad peaks there appeared on the screen the first test Clark ever made for MGM. He was playing a native lover in nothing but a loin cloth and a hibiscus back of his ear. Gable couldn’t take it, but his guests had a hilarious evening running…