Gossip Friday: Plumb Wrong

From August 1950:

When Clark Gable eloped with Lady Sylvia Ashley a few months ago, the Hollywood skeptics and frustrated matchmakers started comparing notes on whether or not the newlyweds were properly suited to one another–and the answer turned out to be “no.”

They agreed that the lady was a charmer, all right, but they also agreed that the new Mrs. Gable, being a super-sophisticate, was not the girl for a rugged, down-to-earth guy like Gable, who preferred hopped-up automobiles to yachts, and whose best pal was more apt to be a garage mechanic than a member of the titled aristocracy.

If Lady Sylvia was a bit miffed at his reaction the part of some of Filmville’s busier bodies, she didn’t show it. In fact, about all she has shown, since she walked off with the town’s No.1 bachelor, is that they were plumb wrong.

Following the Gables’ honeymoon in the Hawaiian islands, where the bride’s unaffected friendliness proved to be as contagious to the inhabitants as that of her famous husband, they returned home to Clark’s Encino ranch without so much as one fanfare. And instead of launching into a round of party-giving, the “super-sophisticated” Mrs. G went right to work planning rose buses around the grounds. Moe recently, when Gable was sent on location to Durang, Colorado, where his new movie, “Across the Wide Missouri,” is being filmed. Sylvia went right along to cook personally her husband’s meals.

All I can say is, Gable was a mighty smart guy–to chose a “sophisticate” for a wife.

___

They were separated six months later, so….