Gossip Friday: Keeping it Refined

From May 1952:

Mrs. Clark Gable’s furnishings are selling at auction today–but the auctioneer bemoaned that the event is the quietest in Hollywood history because “she wants to keep it refined.”

The former Lady Sylvia Ashley decided to auction off $250,000 worth of her antique furnishings, paintings and dishes after she bid farewell to Gable in a divorce court. Every night for two weeks, collectors and dealers will jam the American art galleries to bid happily on such items as an English mahogany washstand and an antique Georgian solid silver kettle.

But the disappointed curiosity seekers found only a handful of Lady Sylvia’s mementoes from her string of famous husbands, including Gable and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

“She wouldn’t let us have any personal things to sell,” said auctioneer Art Goode. “She wants everything on a high plane. She’s the only celebrity who’s ever reused us mementos for an auction.

“I put two of her pictures of Fairbanks on the window. Two hours later she heard about it and phones. I had to take them out. She wouldn’t let me tell which marriage the furniture came from.”

Auctions are apart of Hollywoodiana along with searchlights, snappy foreign cars and suntans. An auction is held in the cinema city when a luminary swaps mates. dies or gets the urge to redecorate, which is often around here.

Past auctions have featured John Barrymore’s girdle (sold for $35 to a butcher), Rudolph Valentino’s armor, Jean Harlow’s boudoir furnishings, Hedy Lamarr’s nightgowns and four wedding rings, the late Carole Landis’ ankle bracelet and the bed for gambler Mickey Cohen’s dog.

But the only interesting items the chic Lady Sylvia would sell were a gong that Fairbanks banged in “The Thief of Baghdad,” two of his guns and the shield and helmet he wore in another picture.

“Even her books don’t have inscriptions in them,” Goode mourned.

It cost $900 to collect Lady Sylvia’s furniture from the Gable home in Encino, her home at Santa Monica and warehouses all over town.

“Gorgeous stuff, but that’s all. Nothing interesting for publicity,” said the auctioneer. “Oh, well, we may get Sally Rands auction. That’ll be pretty good.”