{New Article} 1939: What’s the Matter with Lombard?

This article, published a few months after Carole Lombard married Clark Gable, wonders what is the matter with her, in the same vein as other articles after she became involved with Clark, such as Why is Carole Lombard Hiding Out From Hollywood?  and What’s Become of the Good Scout?

There are persons in Hollywood who are sore at Lombard. She doesn’t care, however, because she probably doesn’t know of her misfortune. If she did, she would doubtless do something about it, because Carole is too good a business woman to willfully make anyone sore at her and too warm-hearted to deliberately give offense to anyone. It never pays to make enemies. Least of all in Hollywood where that little, old office boy you’ve heard about today may be a producer tomorrow. Lombard knows all this. Yet she is making folks mad. What’s the matter with Lombard? That’s what Hollywood is asking.

Carole has long been a particular pet of the boys and girls who write stories about the stars, because she was always cooperative, because she always gave swell, honest copy, told the truth and didn’t blue-pencil every word she spoke that was more pithy than a nursery rhyme. Lately all is changed. There is, these days, an-Lombardian evasiveness, a disregard of matters she once attended to richly and generously.

Perhaps, you may say, Lombard has been shy of people, of the Press, because she has not wanted to discuss her recent marriage with Gable. But that is no good, for Carole has gone out socially, and has given interviews since the beginning of her romance with Gable.

In my effort to diagnose the case of Carole I’ve talked to her best friends. I’ve talked to Fieldsie, now Mrs. Walter Lang. And Fieldsie, as every Lombard fan knows, is Carole’s most intimate friend. Carole and Fieldsie were Sennett girls together, sharing the same custard pie, driving to and from the studio in Fieldsie’s car so that they could pool the expense of gasoline. Later, they shared a house together, and Fieldsie acted as Carole’s business manager. And so, from Fieldsie and one or two other old pals, I garnered the material I needed to answer the question, “What is the matter with Lombard?”

Granted, this fluffy article gives no real answer as to what is “the matter” with Carole. It basically lays out that what is “the matter” with Carole is that she’s rather scatterbrained, losing Fieldsie as her personal secretary has made her less organized, she’s fussy and that takes up a lot of her time and she’s economical and not snobby. I don’t know how any of this points to something being “the matter” with her, but whatever, fan magazine logic.

Then, too, Lombard is a fuss-budget. It takes time to be fussy. When she travels, for instance, Fieldsie says that “she is so neat about everything that it’s just like being at home.” When on a train, for instance, she always spreads dainty, crepe de chine blanket covers over the Pullman berths, “so the place will look homey and attractive,” she says. That’s all right. That’s fastidious and charming.

But that isn’t all. Oh, by no means. For Carole also has every article of wearing apparel packed (she does her own packing) in the most painfully systematic fashion. At any hour of the day or night she can “lay hands,” to anything she may happen to want. If a traveling companion has a migraine, a tummy ache, a fit, Doc Lombard is right there with the proper remedy. On a recent trip by plane, two of the passengers got air-sick. Before the hostess could get to them, Lombard was there with the proper first aid. There is the gypsy in Lombard, too, of course. But it’s a nice, capable gypsy who keeps her earrings, bandanna and stiletto in apple-pie order.

She’s the same about everything. When she plays tennis, she not only wears the proper tennis dress and shoes, but she also has the right-weight coat handy to fling over her shoulders when the game is done. She always has an extra pair of shoes along so that, of her feet hurt, she can change.

When she goes duck-shooting with Clark and the Andy Devines—this duck-shooting quartette is now so familiar to the ducks that they call them by their first names before they die—Carole is equipped.

Not in “what-the-well-dressed-duck-shooter-will-wear” type of thing, but in old cords and a shapeless sweater. For Carole doesn’t ride, shoot ducks and hunt quail in order to be in Gable’s shadow—when Gable can’t go, Carole goes alone. She has her own shot, and plenty of it. She has her bags for her own ducks. She is equipped with all the first aid remedies which might be required in case of any casualty.

When she goes hunting with Gable, Carole is no delicate doll lopping on Gable’s broad shoulder. Not if he knows it, or she, either. She draws a bead on her own bird—and what a shot she is! She even wades hip-high into the marshes to retrieve her own birds. Gable has made it plain to her that he will not act as retriever for her birds, not he. And Lombard, you can be sure, would not have it otherwise.

When she and Gable shoot at the same bird there is a rough and tumble brawl as to whose bird it is, whose shot brought it down. And Gable admits that he doesn’t always get the best of the scrimmage. And then, when the day’s shooting is done, it’s Lombard who is on hand with steaming coffee, drinks, hot food, whatever the hunters require. Carole is the one who comes prepared with extra blankets, cords and shirts for those not so far-sighted as she.

A lot of people blame Clark for forcing her to change, which is ridiculous. Carole has a head on her shoulders, a mind of her own. Carole decided she wanted Clark and so she went full throttle into a life with him. That was her choice. Also, I don’t think it is uncommon that a woman who was constantly out all night partying at night clubs in her 20’s to settle down to a more tranquil life once she’s married and in her 30’s. I doubt Clark and Carole spent much time worrying about the fan magazines guessing what was wrong with them.

You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive. 

(Article #25 posted in 2019)