Gossip
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{Gossip Friday} Clark and Der Bingle Give Advice
From July 1941: Clark Gable and Bing Crosby pass out identical advice. If you want to be popular, successful and happy, say they, develop a sense of humor. “Because a sense of humor will let a girl be natural,” specifies Clark Gable. “It will act as a shock absorber for the rough spots a girl’s going to find wherever she goes. And because it’s a pleasure to work with jolly people, she will find herself in demand everywhere.” “A sense of humor makes affection impossible,” explains Bing. “A sense of humor and a sincerity set off a girl’s wholesomeness. That’s the best bit of happiness and success insurance any girl…
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Gossip Friday: Lombard vs. Gable
From March 1937: At sporting events, Gable and Lombard are a wow. They are more fun than the show itself, usually–because invariably, they each root for opposing contestants. Football games, horse races, wrestling matches, prize fights–it doesn’t matter; Gable roots for one side, Lombard for the other. It got so funny that just during the fuss about who was to play in the annual Rose Bowl classis, some Hollywood wag proposed: “Why not Lombard vs. Gable?”
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Gossip Friday: “One Honey of an Actor”
From February 1940: ….we beat it for the “Strange Cargo” [set], which [includes] not only Gable and Crawford, but also Paul Lukas, Ian Hunter, J. Edward Bromberg, Peter Lorre, Albert Dekker, Eduardo Ciannellu, and John Arledge. They are all on the set as we mosey in and a worse looking crew you never lamped. They are escaping from the jungle. They have one small boat and Crawford between them. The idea is that the men are escaping convicts. Crawford is a babe from the streets whom Gable has picked up and dragged along, and love is beginning to gnaw them. You practically can’t see What-a-Man Gable behind the three days’…
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Gossip Friday: Tennis Can Get You a Gable!
From October 1936: What’s the most necessary requisite for a young actor or actress coming to Hollywood, we are often asked. And here’s our answer, children. Learn to play a cracking good game of tennis. Tennis has broken more ice in Hollywood than a spring thaw. Tennis has been the means of young people breaking into important friendships. Tennis has been the ladder in which young hopefuls have climbed. Albeit, it hasn’t kept them there. Why, believe it or not, it was Carole Lombard’s ability to smack the ball across the net at a certain prankish party that convinced Clark Gable she was the girl. And if tennis can get…
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{Gossip Friday} Mr. Gable Excites Miss Stanwyck
From September 1940: Movie stars must have their little jokes. When Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor did “Nothing Sacred” on a radio broadcast recently they arranged it so that several lines of dialogue would read thusly: Bob says: “Is there nothing that will excite you?” Barbara answers: “Yes, put me in a room with Clark Gable.” Bob then says: “What’s the matter with Robert Taylor?” To which Barbara replies: “I never heard of him.”
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Gossip Friday: Carole Lombard’s Opinion on Whiskers
From March 1937: When it comes to sheer, downright having-fun-out-of-life, you’ve got to hand it to Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. These two have had more amusement out of their romance than most people get out of a whole lifetime. Both are inveterate practical jokers–and never does either let the oppurtunity pass to “gag” the other. Carole’s latest and biggest chance came with all the fuss over whether or not Clark was to raise a set of whiskers to play the role of Parnell. Hardly had the discussion begun at MGM than Gable began to get the works–first, mysterious men with long whiskers would pop up in the most unexpected…
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{Gossip Friday} If You Had 24 Hours to Live…
From April 1935: What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live? Carole Lombard…wants to gather her friends around her for the last bow. Instead of just a few, she prefers a large gay cocktail gathering in her home. “Because,” she said to me, “I think it would be great to go out with a ring of laughter and music in your ears, don’t you?” Cary Grant: “By cable, telephones, wires and radios I would get in direct communication with the few people I have hurt during my life. With death hovering near, I could explain and ask their forgiveness, a thing that seems too difficult to…
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Gossip Friday: Marilyn Monroe won’t be Clark’s “Lady”
From August 1955: Everybody at 20th Century Fox studio has been unhappy about Marilyn [Monroe], including Clark Gable. She was supposed to be his leading lady in “The Lumberjack and The Lady,” and the king was looking forward to playing opposite the Lady of the Calendars. What combo they’d make! ___ First I’ve heard of this project or even the prospect of Clark starring with Marilyn in 1955. Interesting. They’d have to wait five years…
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Gossip Friday: Life Doesn’t End at Forty, Clark
From May 1937, this is a reader letter in response to this article where Clark claims that life ends at forty: If Clark Gable really believes that “Life Ends at Forty”, let me remind him of a few gents who are over forty and doing very nicely, thank you. Lewis Stone is a fine example of what a man can do after he is forty; Wallace Beery isn’t slipping; Lionel Barrymore is not exactly on the shelf; although Warner Baxter may have a few gray hairs , we don’t stop to count them when we go see one of his pictures. Wake up, Clark! You sound like an old maid…
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Gossip Friday: Lost in Mexico
From May 1940: Getting “lost” in Mexico has been a favorite pastime among Hollywoodites recently. Oh well–it’s good for a headline–and sometimes for a laugh. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, vacationing south of the border in a station wagon, were mildly surprised to learn that their studios had been worrying about them–all over the country’s newspapers. Eddie Albert, whose publicity department lost track of him while he was sailing off Mexico in his boat, returned to Hollywood with a tale that ties the two Mexican mysteries together neatly. A Mexican deckhand on his boat, Eddie claims, asked him for a big favor. “Please,” begged the Mexican, “when you get back…