{New Article} 1945: Gable!

This one is a little piece written on the set of Adventure—a period of time when Clark Gable wasn’t offering too many interviews. The article starts out promising, as it appears she is the first to get “the big scoop” on Clark since his return to the screen. In actuality, it’s really just a girl reporter gushing about Clark–rather cutely–and then recapping what he’d been through the last few years since Carole Lombard’s death.

Well, says I, here’s the great Gable. Take a good look. Yep, he’s heavier. Betcha he weighs 200 if he weighs a pound. He’s taller than I thought he’d be. He barks when he talks before the camera, but his voice is soft when he’s just talking to his co-workers. He has presence. Even if it wasn’t Clark Gable, I’d know he was somebody important. And mama was right, he’s sure handsome, there is no doubt about that. Tall, dark, and mmmm! He can come over and say hello just any time now.

Not that I thought he would. An actor who has been on top of the top for fifteen years, who has so much money he’s forgotten what a plain little old dollar bill looks like, a guy everyone has spoiled rotten probably would think he was pretty special. He wouldn’t be going around saying hello to the hoi polloi.

That’s where I was wrong. The scene finished, Clark came over to where I was sitting. Emily introduced us. He turned on the Gable smile, gave with the Rhett Butler look and said: “hello, honey, are you getting everything you want?” I was miffed, remember. So what did I do? I beamed like a Chessy cat confronted with a bowl of cream. Hard to get, that’s me.

The first thing I discovered about Clark Gable was his honesty. He’s been riding that golden chariot reserved for THE top star for a long time, so he isn’t afraid to speak the truth. At this stage of the game it’s a pretty good gamble that his house won’t come tumbling down if he’s honest rather that politic. For instance, I had heard that the fabulous Mr. Gable was a great farm hand; that—in addition to working all day at the studio—he got up at 4:30 every morning to milk the cows. Honestly! So I asked him.

“What’ve they been telling you, honey?” he said. “I never milked a cow in my life! I never get up until I have to. I’m a lazy man, and the only reason I’m painting the fence on my place now is because I can’t find anyone else to do it. On weekends I sleep half the day, sometimes until three o’clock. Acting, in case you didn’t know, is hard work.”

I do love her school girly, gushing description of admiring him from afar!

I find his comments here that he is lazy and he sleeps all day on his day off very odd. If he did indeed say that, that must have been a temporary situation as he was usually an easy riser and looked forward to spending days off toiling on his ranch.

At forty-four, he’s honest about his age. “I’ve been in pictures fifteen years,” he grinned. “Hell, I’m an old man, honey!”

“On you, it looks good,” I said.

And it does. He’s no frail wisp of a man. He isn’t carefully prettied up with makeup, adhesive tape and a toupee. He wears no makeup at all. He’s six feet, one inch tall, weighs 200 pounds, is slightly tanned. He’s just as terrific, masculine and heart-throbby as he was in “Gone with the Wind.” And that ain’t bad.

Again loving her descriptions of him!

Like other Americans who had lost loved ones in the war, he found he had to build a completely new life. For the first time since Carole’s death, his name was linked romantically with the loveliest girls in Hollywood: Kay Williams, Anita Colby; and in New York, socialite Dolly O’Brien. Today, you often see Gable with a beautiful girl on his arm. But it is strangely significant that his choice has not narrowed down to one. He’s having fun, that’s all. To Clark Gable, Carole never really left home.

Remembering this, Hollywood does not try to pry into the past. As a matter of fact, people don’t pry with Gable. He is friendly, warm, a great conversationalist, but questions like, “What does it feel like to go on a bombing mission?” get a definite brush-off. He speaks of his adventures over there with great reticence, and even then he generally twists it around so that he’s talking about “his boys” rather than about himself.

“I used to go on a mission about once a week,” he told me, “but it would take me a couple of days to get over it. I’m no kid. You leave at 4:30 in the morning and don’t get back until around 3:00 the next morning, and you are under tension all that time, and under fire part of the time. I’d come back mentally and physically exhausted. But those kids, those twenty-year-olds, they went out every day. The way those kids become men in a few brief weeks is something that kind of gets you.”

The afternoon shadows had lengthened. It was time to go. I gathered up my impressions and dusted them off neatly, trying to figure out just what makes Clark Gable different. First, it is his amazing lack of ego, despite his unchallenged success. This is discernible in little things: the fact that he is honestly interested in the other person, that he actually listens when you talk, and that he would rather listen to you than talk about himself. He has a manner that comes from rubbing shoulders with all types of people in all walks of life. And he has a terrific, sizzling sense of humor. Being with him is fun. He’s modest, too, in a screwy kind of way. For instance, he said: “Gary Cooper could have played a wonderful Rhett Butler. A half a dozen actors in Hollywood could have played Rhett Butler.”

Mr. Gable, are you kidding?

Evidently, he just doesn’t realize what it is he has. It’s sex appeal, mister, and if your mother didn’t tell you, you’re a big boy now and somebody oughta! The plain truth is that Clark Gable makes a woman conscious of being a woman, and this reaction is as definite when you meet him in person as it is when see him up there on the screen.

As a matter of fact, I got home in a pleasant little daze, smitten like all fury with one Mr. Gable, and doing the neatest swoon act around the house a bobbysoxer ever saw. The girl next door greeted me with the uncomfortable honesty of ten-year-olds: “Is it true he has big ears?”

It’s a funny thing, but, you know, I never noticed!

It is usually stated that reporters never asked Clark about Carole in the years following her death. I wonder if that is actually true, or if they did ask and were brutally rebuffed?

The theme of him being humble and not boastful is not new, but I like how he is consistent through the years.

You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive.