{New Article} The King and I

This new article was syndicated in The America Weekly, which was a Parade-magazine-like insert in newspapers. I actually was very surprised to find this printed in 1957. Clark had a very arms-length relationship with the press. He was usually cooperative but he never let them get TOO close. When they bought the ranch in 1939, Clark and then-wife Carole Lombard immediately instituted an ironclad rule that no pictures were to be taken inside. With the exception of this interview, which I absolutely adore and is as close as we’ll ever get to Clark being on Johnny Carson or the like, Clark’s answers about his personal life were usually guarded.

Knowing this, it has always bothered me to some degree that, less than a year after his death, his widow Kay released her book Clark Gable: A Personal Portrait–inside were interior pictures of the ranch, pictures of his baby galore, intimate details of his daily routines, likes and dislikes. I have always imagined, despite Kay’s intentions of serving his fans, that he would not have been pleased.

So I was especially surprised to find this piece that Kay wrote in 1957, while Clark was still very much alive and kicking. I actually recognized parts of this article as being the exact same as in Kay’s book, word for word. Got started on it early, I guess?

“Home” is a rolling ranch in the foothills of the San Fernando Valley. Mr. G. has lived here now for 17 years, and I know he loves it more than any place in the world. However, he is a wonderfully unselfish man. Several days after we returned home [from our honeymoon] he said, “We can sell the ranch, Kathleen. We can buy a house in Bel-Air or Beverly Hills. I want you to be happy.” I was touched and said, “You love the ranch, Pa. I love the ranch. It’s an ideal place to bring up children. Let’s not think of moving.”

The house is white brick. It is furnished in Early American with exceptionally fine antiques which Clark and Carole Lombard bought in the East many years ago. It’s a man’s house, full of pewter mugs, bronze, coal-oil lamps, sporting prints and sturdy furniture. I added gay draperies and flowers.

Mr. G. says I put flowers into everything that will hold a few drops of water. I have even made vases out of our old 10-gallon milk cans. I painted them white and put them in the corners of our lazy rocking-chair porch, which is my favorite part of the house.

The three bedrooms are upstairs, and downstairs are the kitchen, dining room (a sumptuous room with a huge fireplace and bar), a living room, Mr. G.’s study, and his gun-room. It hasn’t been the gun room since Clark discovered my young son inspecting the guns that used to be kept there.

The den, as we call it now, is where we gather in the early evening to be with the children while they have dinner on their little desks with Patches and Pretty, their lovebirds, sneaking crumbs, and Rip, the hunting dog Clark gave them, standing by impatiently for a handout.

The house is tucked in the midst of 22 acres of pepper trees, citrus groves, peach orchards, gardenias, camellias and two miles of red roses growing on the white fences that circle the various alfalfa paddocks. Mr. G. has a green thumb. Anything he touches seems to bloom overnight.

The stables have been closed ever since he enlisted in the Air Force during World War II. His friend, Howard Strickling, publicity director at MGM, takes care of his horses on his nearby ranch. But we do have two burros, Silver Blacky and Baba. Grace Kelly gave Baba to Clark on his birthday after they finished Mogambo.

There are two guest cottages on the ranch, complete with their own kitchens. My two children and their nurse occupy one of these. They entertain their little friends in the afternoons and on weekends.

I am very glad that Clark had this kind of tranquility in the last years of his life. Kay knew that one of the mistakes Sylvia made was trying to erase Carole and make over the ranch and Clark’s life completely to her tastes. She was not going to make the same mistakes! Even though Clark might have said to Kay that they could move, I do not see him happy living in Beverly Hills at all.

And isn’t it nice the kids get their own house with their nurse. Well, good thing the nurse was there in case one of them had a bad dream in the middle of the night and called out for mommy. Anyway…

Life on the ranch is leisurely. When Clark is working he gets up around five-thirty. When he isn’t working he’ll stay in bed until six thirty or seven. His breakfast varies little month in and month out: coffee and grapefruit. He limits himself to one cup of coffee a day and has that cup for breakfast.

After breakfast he reads the newspapers and confers with his executive secretary and friend, Jean Garceau, who has been with him 20 years. The children drop in to say good-by on their way to the school bus. Mr. G. then checks with his two gardeners and spends the rest of the morning with them, plowing, planting, pruning, watering, and painting fences, I gave him a new tractor the Christmas after we were married and you would have thought I had presented him with Fort Knox.

We lunch on trays around two o’clock, by the pool, or on the lazy rocking-chair porch. The afternoons, while I am arranging flowers or working on my scrapbooks, he spends in his study making business phone calls, discussing films with his writers and directors, or reading scripts.

At five thirty we gather with the kids in the den. And while they have their dinner we have our cocktails and nibble on cheese and crackers. While I work on petit point slippers for Clark and the kids (they’re loaded with them) they watch television. Usually we have a game of bingo with Joan and Bunker and the nurse before they leave for their cottage. Before we have dinner we walk over to their cottage and listen to their prayers. After dinner we look at fights or special programs on our color TV set. Sometimes, but not often, I can persuade Mr. G. to run one of his old pictures on his projection machine.

After the picture I always try to tease him into telling me some tasty morsels about his former leading ladies, but I might as well bang my head against a stone wall. He simply refuses to gossip. He’ll break into that schoolboy grin that I (and 50 million other women) find irresistible and say, “She’s a fine girl. A fine girl.” That’s the only thing I don’t like about my remarkable husband, for I’m a gal who likes a bit of gossip, now and then. One of these days I’ll break him down.

He has absolutely no conceit about his acting. “Make like a great lover,” I’ll say, and he’ll give me a nauseating smirk. I’ll never forget the time a magazine writer asked him, “How does it feel, Mr. Gable, to be the screen’s Great Lover?” Clark gave her a quizzical look to see if she was kidding, and answered, “It’s a living.”

It’s funny, for decades it was said that Clark really never ate a big breakfast. Only exception is this 1934 article, which describes his love for pancakes and sausages.

Jean Garceau, who was originally Carole Lombard’s personal secretary, was not around too long after Kay moved in.

I do love that last paragraph. “It’s a living” indeed…

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