Gossip Friday: Just Give Up

From June 1951 (Sheilah Graham):

No one, not even the columnists who were constantly linking Clark Gable with this girl and that grandmother, really expected him to try marriage again. I knew wife number one, Josephine Dillon, when I first came to Hollywood. It was Jo who nurtured the acting ambitions of young Clark. When talking to me about him, she was kind of detached, like an aunt discussing a favorite but far-away nephew. 

I was in New York when Clark’s second wife Rhea announced the separation. So was Clark, who sprinted all over Manhattan dodging reporters. The tragic death of wife number three, Carole Lombard, seemed to write “End” to Clark and his search for a happy marriage. For years he kept her room untouched at the small Encino ranch, although the often-printed story that her clothes were still hanging in the closet was absolutely untrue.

Funny thing, he met Sylvia–Mrs. Gable number four–ten years before he fell in love with her. She was then married to Douglas Fairbanks Senior. Clark was married to Carole. When they met again, a few months before they were married, love struck like lightning, burned the no-longer-young couple to a neat frazzle. If anything ever happens to this marriage, there’ll be no fifth try for either. They’d just give up.