Gossip Friday: Didn’t Have a Chance

From January 1950:

Yep, Clark Gable and Sylvia Ashley stole a march on everyone. Five days before the wedding, one scribe wrote that Clark had been seeing Sylvia frequently, “but it is no romance. Neither Sylvia nor Clark is marriage minded. Sylvia ever has cared for anyone but Douglas Fairbanks and Clark cannot forget Carole Lombard.”

On Clark’s wedding day, a friend moaned to me, “It’s bad, but it would have been worse had he married Paulette Goddard.” Well that’s debatable. Another friend said, “Sylvia didn’t have a chance when he was wooing Dolly O’Brien, who kept saying no; but when Sylvia returned here three months ago, she rolled up her sleeves ad pitched in.”

Much as Clark denies being impressed by titles and the international set, I think you’ll find him in the south of France next summer, where he’s liable to run into many who have courted his pretty bride. Understand Gable’s place in the valley will be sold. Sylvia likes to live in her beach house where Douglas Fairbanks died. Clark’s life has been simple up to the date, but Sylvia’s a party girl. Sure, Clark likes ’em too, but not every night.

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Well, Clark didn’t summer in France, he didn’t sell the ranch, and this marriage lasted barely a year.