{New Article} 1952: Gable’s in Love Again!

Here is a silly little article, not unlike a lot of the silly articles from the time period before he married Kay.  I thought perhaps this one might have some real nuggets in it until this part in the beginning:

You know what happens to women—practically all women—every time Clark Gable’s name is mentioned. It would be futile for me to deny that my own reactions follow the pattern. When I arrived in Paris this year and heard Clark was in town, prior to going to London to make his first picture there, I wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Naturally, then, when Anita Loos phoned me one day and asked me to join her for lunch with Clark, I lost no time in accepting her invitation. I met him at the Hotel Lancaster where he was staying and where many of the stars live while in Paris and I was completely delighted.

I saw a new Clark Gable—younger, more handsome than ever, radiating happiness. The first thing I said was, “Clark, you’re looking marvelous!”

“Why not, Elsa!” he exclaimed. And he smiled that inimitable Gable smile. “I’m as free as the air again. I’ve never been happier in my life. And I know now for certain that I shall never marry again.”

Over lunch, he exuded charm and his own rare brand of vitality.

“This is the perfect life,” he said. “Nobody bothers me. Nobody follows me. Most people here don’t even know who I am—and if they do, they don’t care.” Paris is much too polite to bother a King—even the King of Hollywood.

His face was a wreath of smiles when he floored me with his next pronouncement. “Elsa, there’s something terribly important I want you to know.” He paused dramatically. “I’m in love again. Desperately in love.”

“Who is she?” I gasped. My surprise was real, because I had distinctly heard him just a few minutes before vow that he would never re-marry.

“I’m in love with Paris,” he murmured dreamily. “With the Paris that you adore. And what woman could ever compare with her?”

Does anybody believe that Clark Gable dreamily murmured to a reporter that he’s in love with Paris? What a load of nonsense. This reporter, Elsa Maxwell, was a well-known Photoplay reporter who, I have deduced, liked to write about how she was best friends with everyone in Hollywood when in reality they probably rolled their eyes when they saw her coming. Any credibility she had in suggesting her and Clark were best buddies is smashed to bits with this nonsense:

The famous Garbo line would have been just as accurate for Gable as it was for the fabulous Swede. More than anything else, he wanted to be alone. He wanted to hunt, to fish, to break his way through bush-tangled paths.  And he neither searched for nor seemed to desire any feminine companionship on these masculine forays.

Until he met the late Carole Lombard. She strode into his life with easy assurance. In her breezy, fun-loving, free-wheeling way, she was the perfect complement to him. And she adored him. When they were married, she chose to key her life entirely to his needs, his enthusiasms, to place her career second to his.

Their life together seemed to be enclosed in a magic circle—so tightly drawn that no outside could step into it at all. They turned their backs squarely on Hollywood’s social life, which came as a surprise to people who knew them. Because Carole, at least, had loved the flurry and excitement of filmdom’s parties.

They moved out to Clark’s ranch in the San Fernando Valley and turned it into a sort of shrine to their happiness. I remember when I first went out there being almost overwhelmed by the way Clark—the man’s man—had turned his hideaway over to his wife. He had hung a huge portrait of Carole in his gun room—his own special retreat—and there was another painting of her in the drawing room. Her face and her personality were everywhere in that house.

Yet, I sometimes have the feeling that even before Carole’s tragic death, their romance had begun to wear just a little thin. Carole was the pal—the good companion in every way, one of the boys—but I think Clark was beginning to yearn for more real femininity, for a gentler, womanlier wife.

First of all, the San Fernando Valley ranch was never his bachelor pad or his hideaway! In fact, Carole bought it! She bought it before they were married and she was the one that designed it and bough the furniture. So to suggest that he had had this swingin’ bachelor pad there before Carole moved in and took over is completely false. And don’t get me started on Carole not having any real femininity. Who in their right mind would say that about Carole Lombard?!

Then three years ago, I gave a ball in New York, where I was inaugurating square dancing for the sophisticated Manhattanites. Dolly [O’Brien] wasn’t remarried at that time, and she brought Clark to my party. And what a job we both had convincing him to come!

I was calling routines over the microphone, and when I noticed that Clark and Dolly weren’t dancing, I determined to find him a partner. So I beckoned to Lady Sylvia Ashley—she was then Sylvia Fairbanks—to take him in hand. She got up to dance with him, and I think it was the first time they had exchanged more than polite “How do you do’s” though they had met before through Dolly.

Sylvia looked particularly lovely that night and Clark was really quite gay. It was obvious that they had something for each other. But nothing much came of it then, because Sylvia had to leave for California the very next morning. She had some business affairs to take care of—matters that had to do with the estate she had inherited from Douglas Fairbanks. Even if she wanted to stay, she couldn’t have.

Oh, so now she is responsible for introducing Clark and Sylvia! What a bunch of nonsense. Clark and Sylvia had known each other socially for years; Clark and Doug Fairbanks were friends for heavens sake.

Well if you want to read more of this drivel you can read the article in its entirety here, but I wouldn’t take Elsa’s word on anything.

(Article #17 posted in 2019)