{New Article} 1952: Gable’s Divorce Problem

Well, in a quick turnaround from the article I posted a few days ago, What’s Wrong with the Clark Gables?, it turns out a lot was wrong with the Clark Gables because here they are less than a year later, battling it out in divorce court.

On October 4^th, Clark Gable filed a divorce complaint against Sylvia Gable in Nevada, charging that, “the defendant has treated the plaintiff with extreme cruelty and has caused him great grievous mental suffering and pain without cause or provocation, and plaintiff’s health was and is thereby and therefrom impaired.”

When Lady Sylvia was served with a copy of the complaint she was enraged. The next day her lawyer, Jerry Giesler, one of the shrewdest attorneys in California, announced that the Nevada divorce would be fought by his client.

“In 1949,” Giesler explained, “the California legislature passed a law forbidding one party to obtain a divorce in another state if he has been a bonafide resident of California in the preceding 12 months. If he does obtain such a divorce, he cannot return to California for 18 months.”

The legality of this law has never been tested, and many attorneys say that Gable’s divorce is legal as long as he maintains a legal residence in Nevada. (Recent reports however, indicate that this is not the case, and that Gable will not be allowed a Nevada divorce.)

While all this legal hassling was going on, Giesler also announced that Sylvia Gable would amend the complaint she filed in Santa Monica last May and would seek both a settlement and an annual share of Gable’s income. He implied she would file a separate maintenance action.

“After all,” explained one of Sylvia’s friends, “I can’t understand Gable at all. You can’t marry a woman for 17 months and then throw her out of your house without making some provision for her support. I don’t care how much money a girl has in her own right. According to Anglo-Saxon law, a husband is charged with support of his wife.

“This is no case of the wife having left the husband’s bed and board. Gable had the locks changed on the Encino ranch house. Sylvia couldn’t even get in.

“They may not have any children, but certainly after 17 months of marriage, she’s entitled to something.”

Friends in Gable’s camp say, “You have no idea how much money Sylvia cost the King. Did you see what she did to the ranch house? She tore out half the orchard and replaced it with a formal rose garden. She moved her own furniture into the main house, bought paintings and a TV set, had a separate guest cabana built, changed the whole works. It must have cost Gable more than $100,000.”

To which Sylvia’s crowd says, “So what? Of course, she’s improved his property. What dutiful wife doesn’t? But it’s still his property, isn’t it? She didn’t buy a million dollars’ worth of jewels, or a big house for herself. All she did was make his place livable. In this country when you lock out your wife, you have to pay her something for services rendered. What does Gable want Sylvia to do, pay him for the privilege of having been married to him?”

When Sylvia’s lawyer and Clark’s lawyer got together in an effort to settle the mess, Gable’s lawyer said that Sylvia’s alimony demands “were so unreasonable and exorbitant it was obvious no agreement could be reached.”

The rumor was that Sylvia wanted a million dollars from Gable to be paid over a period of 10 years, $100,000 a year. In short she valued her 17 months of marriage to Gable at approximately $60,000 a month, figuring in terms of cold cash.

Sylvia gets a lot of flak from Clark Gable fans and I’ve heard it all. I do agree they were a complete and utter mismatch and I don’t know what came over Clark when he decided to marry her. She doesn’t fit the mold at all of what he expected out of a wife. However, you can’t really blame that all on Sylvia. Sylvia was who she was. It’s not like Clark didn’t know what Sylvia had earned her millions by marrying rich, famous and titled men over and over. It’s not like Clark didn’t know Sylvia had expensive taste and was known for her jet-setting lifestyle. And you can’t really blame Sylvia for redecorating the ranch. She was his wife now, wasn’t she? Doesn’t a wife have the right to redecorate? And I suppose he could have said no, couldn’t he have? Did he just stand there with a grimace while she ripped out the orchard? I must say however that $60,000 a month for 17 months of marriage sounds a bit excessive. $60,000 in 1952 is $582,670 today’s dollars! That’s almost $10 million!! No wonder after this Clark said he’d never marry again (although that didn’t hold).

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

(Article #29 posted in 2019)