1935: Why I Stay Married

By Gladys Hall

Modern Screen, March 1935

 

Are you wives on the spot? Jealous of your husbands? A famous husband named Gable tells his side of the story

 

If you have an attractive husband—or contemplate annexing one—you have the same problems that beset Ria Gable. She has the constant worry of predatory women—so have you. She has to fear flattery that turns a man’s head, ego that breeds superiority—so do you. Her husband’s reactions must be your husband’s reactions, so I sought out Clark. His answer is revealing, helpful to us all.

I said to Clark, over the luncheon table, “What kind of a woman do you think an actor should marry? In order to make marriage successful, I mean?”

Clark said, without an instant’s hesitation, “The kind of woman I am married to—my wife.”

We had been talking about Hollywood marriages and their failures and the why of their failures—Kay Francis and Kenneth MacKenna, Ruth Chatterton and George Brent, Ann Harding and Harry Bannister, Gloria Swanson and her exes, Jean Harlow and Hal Rosson, the sadly swelling list of them.

Clark said, “It’s all predicated, I believe, on the basic law of things—where the husband, or in our business the ‘star,’ is the breadwinner, the marriage has a seventy-five percent chance of success. You can look about and make, off hand, a list of vital statistics proving this contention. For instance, the Jean Hersholts, the Clive Brooks, the Leslie Howards, the John Boles, the Warner Baxters, the Morgans, Frank and Ralph—in every one of these marriages the husband is the one in the arena and the wife is just the wife. And in every one of these marriages, too, the marriage has stood and appears to be standing of the firm bedrock of many years. Also, in every one of these marriages the husbands and wives are of approximately the same respective ages and the wives are intelligent, self-sufficient women who have been around and know what it is all about. They are real people, neither jealous rivals nor paper-doll appendages.

“On the other hand, and in such cases as Ann Harding’s, Gloria Swanson’s, and so on, the wives were the stars. The men were known as ‘the husbands of…’ To be ‘a husband of’ means the divorce court even as you stand at the altar. You can’t get away from the fundamental laws separating and governing men and women. Grease paint on the face does not alter immutable laws. Man is born with a dominant ego—offend that ego or compete with it in the same field and, if you are a woman, you will soon be a divorcee.”

I said, “You’ve never talked, specifically, about your own marriage, Clark or your wife. Do you mind?”

Clark said, “Not at all. You’ve asked me what kind of a woman an actor should marry and the only way I can answer that question is to describe my own wife.

“To begin, then, I am the ‘star,” Ria is my wife. But she is a wife, who though not in my profession is in it, for me, not for herself. She is interested in it and she is thoroughly informed about every phase of it. She is ambitious about it for me. She is interested in it as she would be interested in medicine, in law, or in banking of any one of these were my life work.

“She is, also, a very self-sufficient woman, which is very important in the making of a successful ‘movie marriage.’ She has her own interests, her own friends, she has her bridge clubs and parties and children and our home. She doesn’t seize hold of my life with idle, and therefore morbidly curious, hands. When I come home at night and am too tired to talk about the studio or what I’ve been doing I don’t have to. Ria doesn’t care. There are dozens of other things, vitally important, to talk about. On the other hand, if I do feel like talking about what has been going on, she is as keen about it as I am, and knows as much. If I want advice, I get it.

“I could not, I would not, be married to an actress. In the first place, one professional ego is enough in any home. Two egos of the same stamp would blow the roof off Buckingham Palace. If I were married to an actress, and I never will be, here is what would happen: We would have a bad day, each of us. We would come home with nerves frayed and teeth one edge and we would want to talk about it; we would want peace and comfort and sympathy. We wouldn’t get it, either one of us. And all hell would break loose. In the course of many times like this one or both of us would look for comfort and sympathy elsewhere. Or we would have a good day in the studio and would be full of it, wanting an admiring and appreciative audience, eager to do a little strutting, a bit of boasting. We would both want the floor, in other words.

“I don’t have to combat that situation. If I’m tired and fed up, Ria has other things to talk about; other things to do. And because she is a mature woman and knows men and how to handle them, she does just that. If I’m keen about something, want to blow off steam over some scene I think I’ve done especially well, I can do it without having the nervous fear that she will want to break in with some similar bragging of her own.

“And I just wouldn’t be married to an actress neither would I be married to some sweet young thing, many years my junior, even though she were a non-professional and stayed at home. A younger girl could not know what it is all about. She would not be able to cope with the difficult and trying life of an actor’s wife in Hollywood. Because wives in Hollywood are on a spot and don’t you forget it. A young girl would be jealous. She would be suspicious. She would be resentful. Resentful of all the limelight flattery shown me. She would, at least subconsciously, crave the same flattery, the same attention for herself. She would be an easy victim of all the well-meaning ‘friends’ who would come to her and say, ‘My dear, I think you ought to know, Clark and that So-and-So, etc., etc.

“Things like that do happen. Ria had a lot of it to put up with during our first year in Hollywood. Any number of people came to her with little tales calculated to prove that I was stepping high, wide and handsome with this one or that. I was going here, I was going there, I was having an affair with a certain star…did she know…what did she intend to do? It was rather hard for her, just at first. It takes a good deal of adjusting. And only because my wife is a balanced, sane and wise woman did she survive.

“And also because she believes me. No actor should marry a woman to whom he cannot tell the truth and be believed. Ria knows that I always have and always shall tell her the truth. And so, when people came to her with trouble-making tales they got no reaction. Which is one reason, no doubt, why they have about given it up of late. It’s no fun to try to stir up trouble where it can’t be stirred. Ria always came to me and said, ‘I’ve heard this or that about you and so-and-so, Clark, is it so?’ And I would say, ‘It is not so.’ And that would be the end of it. I would never hear about it again. No nagging. No subterfuges in an effort to find out. I’d told her the simple truth and she knew it.

“Because Ria is a woman who has been about, who knows the world and life, she is intelligent. She knows how to handle life and how to handle men. I have none of the uneasy fears and compulsions under which many actors have to labor. If I forget to phone her during lunch hour, I do not have to spend the rest of the day with the uneasy knowledge that when I get home that night I shall be greeted with tears and reproaches, martyred looks or suspicious sniffs. I do not have to work on half a cylinder because I fear I’ll get the devil all evening. If I do not call at noon, that’s that. Ria doesn’t even expect me to. She’s probably be out somewhere if I did.

“My wife has never been on the set with me since we’ve been in Hollywood. Not once. Once or twice, when I’ve had to work late, she has come to the studio to have dinner with me and has left immediately after dinner.

“Marriage is a see-saw. If the balance is an uneven one, one of the other crashes down. Our marriage balances evenly and one side is equally as important as the other.

“Ria enters into every one of my interests. She makes them hers—or she makes me believe they are hers. Who has said that many a good actress is a good wife, but more good wives are good actresses? Whoever did, spoke the truth. Between you and me, I’ve a pretty good idea that Ria does a lot of things with me she wouldn’t do if it were not for me. Hunting, for instance. I don’t honestly believe she gets a big kick out of that. But she plays the part with such realism you’d never suspect.

“For my part, I share her interest in the children, in their plans, and interests, in what they like to do. For a time, the girl thought she would like to be in pictures. Louis B. Mayer saw a picture of her and offered to have a test made. I said that I’d make it with her, and I did. Clarence Brown directed us. It wasn’t so good, and she gave the idea up, then and there. Now she is interested in one particular boy and I imagine she’ll marry before long and settle down. Personally, I’m rather relieved. I think it is a better life for her, better chances for happiness, and so does Ria.

“Allen is absolutely anti-movies, or rather, he’s simply not interested at all. He never asks to come to the studio. He takes no interest whatever in me as a movie star. I think he forgets most of the time that I am one. I take him on hunting trips with me. We play ball together and swim and ride. Their friends are in and out of the house so much, both girls and boys, that they accept me, too, not as a man in pictures but just as a man. Allen is really funny. The other night he and Ria and I went to a movie together. As we came out, Scotty, Modern Screen’s photographer, was there and wanted to take some snaps of Ria and Allen and me. The boy wouldn’t do it. He edged away. He said, ‘Aw, I can’t be bothered. You and Mother do it.’ We did.”