Gossip
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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…
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Gossip Friday: Keeping Miss Lombard Waiting
From May 1941: Chief among the 1941 Academy Award winners whose name does not appear on the official honors list is your present correspondent, who won an Oscar for perpetrating the outstanding bonehead play of the year. In the interests of her millions of fans he arranged to interview Miss Carole Lombard. A rendezvous was promised in a quiet sitting room on a side street in Beverly Hills for a certain Thursday. The hour, the date and the place were as clear as a blueprint in his mind. He thought. The momentous day arrived. Your correspondent, methodical as ever, leaped into his motor car well ahead of schedule and went…
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Gossip Friday: Dachshund Wanted
From November 1935: Carole [Lombard] is playing in “Hands Across the Table,” with Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy. We drop in with the F.S. Reinhardts from Minneapolis for a chat, to find her trundling Ralph in a wheelchair, for a scene in the flicker. Enter Fieldsie, Carole’s secretary: “Carole, I give up. I can’t find a black, male dachshund anywhere.” Carole: “But we’ve got to!” Ralph Bellamy: “Try Frank Morgan–he knows all about dachshunds.” We: “What’s this all about?” Carole: “Well, the nephew of a friend of mine lost his dachshund, and he is broken-hearted. I’ve got to locate one just like it before the boy discovers his pet is…
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Gossip Friday: Date Night for the Gables
From September 1941: Carole Lombard was calling for Clark Gable at the close of the day out at MGM. “We’re having an evening out,” Clark said. And what do you suppose they did? They went to dinner at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby, then slipped back to the studio, where Ann Sothern’s new picture “Lady Be Good” was run off in a projection room for the two of them. That’s the way they see all their movies. If they attempt to go to a regular theater—they’d be mobbed!
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Gossip Friday: Gable and Taylor, Quite a Pair
From August 1937: A Damon and Phythias pair these days are none other than Clark Gable and Robert Taylor. For a couple of years the two have been polite toward one another, but seemed to have no desire to become old pals. But the Screen Actors’ Guild has brought them together, for Clark is an ardent member of the organization, and when Bob broke down and joined forces the other day, he suddenly became Taylor’s most ardent fan.
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Gossip Friday: Gable is as Gable Does
From January 1938: Being in the business world of Hollywood and meeting stars every day, I can give you this impression of Clark Gable, not as fiction, but as a true fact from everyday life. He called at our place of business one morning dressed in sport clothes. Very businesslike, this Gable. He wandered about the store missing nothing, with our employees giving him little attention. (He prefers that.) A little girl seated in a toy automobile glanced about, and suddenly seeing Mr. Gable, called her father’s attention to him. She wanted his autograph. The father spoke to Mr. Gable, and, smiling graciously, Clark walked over to the car and…
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Gossip Friday: Hang On, Carole!
From November 1941: Clark Gable’s convertible coupe, with a canvas covered steel top as a precaution in case he turns turtle, is the fastest thing on wheels in Hollywood. And Gable has a habit of driving at terrific speed. I noticed on the right side of the car’s dashboard a heavy bar with leather finger grips and asked him about it. He grinned. “Oh, that,” he said. “Well–sometimes I turn a corner kinda fast, and Carole has to hang on.”