Gossip Friday: Not a Natural Hoofer

From January 1939:

Clark Gable’s feet have been problem children ever since he can remember. “The jams they have gotten me into would fill a book,” he said. But from now on, Gable’s 11-C’s have his blessings.

He admits being gratefully surprised that they piloted him safely through his song-and-dance act for “Idiot’s Delight,” now showing at the Liberty Theater.

“Frankly,” Gable remarked, “that dance business had me worried for two years. I was sold on playing the part of Hoofer Harry Van from the night I saw Alfred Lunt’s performance on the stage in New York. It was a great role, and one that I felt suited me, except for the dancing.  That was good, too, when Lunt did it.”

Gable had never stepped foot on a dance floor until he started work with George King, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dance director. He was convinced that he couldn’t make his feet behave in a pinch.

“As a kid,” he went on, “I had the biggest feet, hands and ears in Hopedale, maybe in all Ohio. I was as tall as I am now, but skinny as a rail and awkward as a colt. Being a clumsy youngster gave me a complex it took me years to break. I had my first date when I was a freshman in high school. I ruined a budding romance by falling all over myself and spilling a plate of ice cream down the front of my girl’s best dress at a Strawberry Festival. I was always tripping over my feet.”

_________

If that’s true, once he became famous that girl probably told that story proudly to everyone she ever met!