Remembering Clark Gable

Clark Gable died 58 years ago today after suffering a heart attack. He was 59 years old.

You can read about his death and funeral here.

From the Associated Press, November 17, 1960:

Doctors Give Details on Death of Clark Gable

Hollywood–Clark Gable’s doctors say the actor was recovering from one heart attack when a second blood clot took his life in a matter of seconds.

Details of the famed actor’s death were made public Thursday as plans were made to entomb him beside the body of Carole Lombard, the third of his five wives.

Private services will be conducted Saturday at 9am in the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn Memorial Park at nearby Glendale. Only members of the family and close personal friends will attend.

Miss Lombard was killed in a 1942 plane crash. Friends said Gable never quite got over his grief when she died.

The decision to entomb him in Miss Lombard’s Forest Lawn crypt was made by his widow, Kay, who is five months pregnant with Gable’s first child.

His physicians, meanwhile, gave details of the fatal illness which ended the actor’s three-decade legend as king of Hollywood leading men.

“I thought he was getting along so well,” said Dr. George C. Griffith, “that I talked to him Wednesday morning about how he should care for himself during the coming months–and told him there was no need for me to see him again, unless needed.”

Dr. Griffith was called in as a consultant by Gable’s heart specialist, Dr. Fred V. Cerini. The two physicians said Gable’s death Wednesday night resulted from a second blood clot in an artery supplying the back of the heart.

The doctors said that heart tissue damaged in the first attack was healing well, and that Gable, who was 59, had reacted favorably to drugs which reduce the coagulation factor in the blood stream, thus lessening the likelihood of clots.

Cerini said he had entered the actor’s room only seconds before Gable died.

From The Motion Picture Daily, November 17, 1960

Rites for Clark Gable to Be Held Tomorrow

Hollywood–Private funeral services for Clark Gable will be held at 9 am Saturday at the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn, attended by family and close personal friends only. Gable died in Presbyterian Hospital here last night of a heart attack.

Gable was a 30-year veteran of the motion picture industry and had set an enviable record. FAME Magazine reports that he had been named among the Top Ten Money Making Stars on 16 separate occasions between 1932 and 1955 and was said to be still high on current lists.

Although most famous for his 1939 portrayal of Rhett Butler in “Gone with the Wind,” it was his performance in “It Happened One Night” in 1934 that won him an Academy Award.

Sol Sigel, vice-president in charge of MGM production, in a tribute to Gable said: “Clark Gable always will remain in the hearts of those who were associated with him for so many memorable years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was, without question, one of the greatest stars the motion picture industry has produced.

“But to those who were his friends throughout the studio, and the world of show business, he will first be remembered as a fine and wonderful human being, a man who inspired and earned the love, respect and esteem of all privileged to know him. His is an immeasurable loss to us and to the millions everywhere to whom he contributed so much enjoyment and pleasure through the motion picture screen.”

Commenting here on the death of Clark Gable in Hollywood Wednesday night, Joseph R. Vogel, president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, yesterday issued the following statement:

“The death of Clark Gable is a deep and personal loss to the legions of friends and admirers he made during his long and successful association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In a sense, Gable and the studio reached success together, and his contribution to motion pictures and the happiness he gave to millions of moviegoers throughout the world as one of the screen’s greatest stars, can never be estimated.

“Clark Gable was a star as a human being, as well as of film. He will be sorely missed in the years to come, but his stature both as an actor and as a beloved personality will live on forever. I revered him as a friend and feel his loss deeply.”

From The Free Press, November 18, 1960:

Our Helen Salutes The King She Knew

One of the greatest of Helen Bower’s many thrills as Free Press movie writer was the time she appeared in a film with Clark Gable. Today she recalls with sadness, and tells you how that “Gable charm” conquered her.

“Jim, the colonel wants to see you.”

That line given to me to speak in “Teacher’s Pet” back in 1957 had become a running gag with producer William Perlberg and Clark Gable and me. “The colonel” was the publisher of the newspaper in the movie.

I’ll never know why THE Colonel–the one who runs the show for all of us–wanted to see Clark Gable now, of all times in his life.

When Gable went into the hospital this last time, I dashed off a note to “Dear Jim Gannon.” That was Gable’s name as city editor of the New York Chronicle in “Teacher’s Pet.”

I wrote “Jim” that he had made our front page that morning, and that something would have to be added to my line. The add would go something like “Jim, the colonel wants to see that you get lots of rest and get out of the hospital.”

Adding congratulations on the news that his sweet Kay expects to become the mother of Gable’s first child next March, I wrote that it would be a happy headline when the baby’s birth made the front page.

Down through the years of looking at Clark Gable’s movies–the greatest of them, of course, “Gone with the Wind,” with Vivien Leigh–I had always admired him as an actor.

Yet I never could quite understand why he had such power to charm women.

Then came May, 1957, and the chance to be one of the 67 working newspaper men and women director George Seaton assembled to have the staff in “Teacher’s Pet” act like real reporters.

That Sunday of arrival in Hollywood there was a supper party at Trader Vic’s in the Beverly Hilton Hotel–and there I met Clark Gable for the first time. And I encountered the Gable charm.

No other man had a smile like Gable’s. His rugged, sometimes stern, face would break up and his big dark eyes seemed to crinkle when he laughed. It was a happy thing just to see him look like that.

It was Wednesday of that week that the time came for me to speak my one line. How well I remember when Chico Day, the assistant director, called for a rehearsal.

As Gable came past me through the city room on his way to his desk, I exclaimed on cue, “Clark, the colonel wants to see you.”

Up came George Seaton to say, “You’re supposed to call him ‘Jim,’ sweetie.”

What made me Gable’s gal for life was what happened as he came back past me to begin the scene all over again.

His eyes were all smile-crinkled as he said under his breath, “DID you say Clark?”

“Teacher’s Pet” was the only movie of his for which Gable made a personal appearance tour. With Mrs. Gable he went to Washington, Cleveland and Chicago. Perlberg-Seaton flew some of us “former picture actors” in the area to Cleveland.

At the dinner I got another special smile from “Jim,” when Perlberg introduced me in my turn and I repeated my line.

On the Gables’ Christmas card that year (1958), his wife wrote a little note of appreciation in reference to the Cleveland visit.

Now one thing is giving me a strange feeling along with the grief I share with so many.

That letter to Gable in the hospital ended with another quotation, “Goodbye, Jim! Take care of yourself.”

I didn’t know it WAS going to be “Goodbye, Jim.”