Gossip Friday: No Ambition

From November 1933:

Gable Hasn’t Any Ambition to Be a Star

Three years later–later than the day he made an inconspicuous entry to films only to start a new style un movie heroes–Clark Gable still has no ambitions in the direction of single-handed starring.

“They’re too smart to let me try to carry a picture alone,” he says, referring to his studio bosses, “and I don’t want to , because I know I can’t.”

In the minds of Clark Gable the fans, perhaps, Gable already is a star, and, in fact, he enjoys that rating at the studio. But all his successes have been scored in supporting or co-starring roles with the “big” names of the MGM lot–Helen Hayes, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Wallace Beery, Marion Davies. The one film he made on loan to another studio, “No Man of Her Own,” starred him with Carole Lombard.

And co-starring is what Gable prefers. He said three years ago, when his star was rapidly rising, that he was not much as an actor and he knew it.

“And that crack still goes,” he said the other day.

Gable has the reputation around the lot of being “easy to handle.” Only once has he proved intractable. That was over salary, in the early days of his contract, when it looked as if no picture could be made without Gable in it, and he figured he wasn’t being paid enough. The contract terms were “adjusted,” and the sailing has been smooth ever since.