Gossip Friday: Star Ranchers

From November 1940:

Most publicized star-ranchers are Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, who can’t pick an orange or feed a hen without having to pose for a picture. So many yarns were written about Squire Gable’s real ambition—to leave the screen and go back to the land–that every mail still brings him a sale-offer of some other estate. One owner was sure that his $250,000 place would be exactly what the stars wanted, because it had two swimming pools and accommodations for 25 guests.

That’s just what Mr. and Mrs. Gable don’t want–especially the 25 guests. And Hollywood calls them shrewd bargainers because they paid Director Raoul Walsh only $40,000 for his 15 acres, well-stocked with citrus and nut trees, and with a good house on it. Gable is expecting to gather 100 sacks of walnuts this year, make a profit on them at $3.75 a sack. That will even up a little for getting a check for only $2.70 for his entire citrus crop. In the same mail he got the water bill for the week: $30.

Rather than repeat that humiliation, the Gables now give their oranges and lemons to the Children’s Hospital. Eggs and chickens, too, are sent to poor families but one such donation was more expensive than they had planned. From the flock of 500 Rhode Island Reds, Gable had selected six to enter in the Pomona County Fair. But the day before it opened, Mrs. Gable told the hired man to kill half a dozen chickens to give away. Three guesses what happened.