Gossip Friday: He’s Not Dead

From January 1938:

Clark Gable, who’s had to deny his death more frequently even than Mark Twain, reported today that such denials are a real satisfaction to him.

“It always gives me great pleasure to tell the newspaper reporters that I am alive,” he said. “The only thing I can’t understand is how and why I’m always being killed–in somebody’s imagination.”

Last time Gable lost his life, via the rumor route, the report came from Washington and kept him up most of the night telling callers how happy he was to be alive.

“But while I slept, one of those rumors started again. It must have gone pretty far, because the dentist heard a newsboy outside shouting:

“‘Gable dead.’

“He rushed out and got a paper and sure enough it said I had died of pneumonia, or something. Well, sir, the dentist looked at his assistant and they tossed my tooth into the wastebasket and went home.

“Next morning I went after my tooth and you never saw such a surprised-looking dentist in your life.”

Another time Gable was on a hunting trip when his death was reported.

“The reporters couldn’t find me.’ he said, “so they called Carole Lombard (his girlfriend) and asked her about it. She couldn’t reach me, but she did get in touch with my cook. When I came in that night, the cook said:

“‘Mr. Gable, you is dead; you better call Miss Lombard ad tell her you ain’t.'”

The exceedingly live-looking Gable discussed his many deaths on soundstage 10 at MGM where he, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy and about 100 others were making a night club sequence in “Test Pilot.” The nightclub was the doggiest ever, with canary walls, gray carpets, white chairs and four porcelain fish swimming across the top of the bar.

The picture shows a triangle between Gable, his wife–Miss Loy–and his airplane. Gable loves his wife all right, but he loves his airplane more. Every time he goes up, he risks his neck, and every time he comes down safely, he gets drunk.

The current scene depicts one of those celebrations.

An interested spectator is Tracy’s ten-year-old son, who looks like a small edition of his dad, except for his hair, which is a little redder.