Gossip Friday: Returns But Won’t Talk

From August 1951:

Gable’s Wife Returns but Won’t Talk

Mrs. Clark Gable, who still buys her airplane tickets under the name of Lady Sylvia Ashley, arrived home from Honolulu today and promptly shook her head at questions about her divorce fight with her movie-idol husband.

The 40-year-old blonde socialite stepped down from the Pan American Stratocaster at International Airport at 7:25am, carrying the usual tourist accessories–an armload of leis and a ukulele.

But her smile faded when she spotted the newsmen and she tossed her long blond locks in annoyance when asked if she planned to press immediately her divorce action against Clark Gable.

“I’ve made all the statements about him that I’m going to make,” the slender woman said, clutching at her expensive, king-sized alligator purse.

Rumors around filmland have it that Mrs. Gable plans to stall on the divorce suit she filed in Superior Court against the actor in June just before taking off for a yacht cruise to Honolulu.

The gossip experts say that the former Lady Ashley has decided to keep the handsome Gable cooling his heels for a while.

Gable started sparks flying when he filed an answer to his wife’s action, denying her cruelty charges and insisting that she needs no financial help from him. The couple married December 20, 1949.

Today, Mrs. Gable seemed more upset over the death of her pet dog, which she took with her on the cruise aboard the Vanderbilt yacht, than over Gable’s insistent pleas for his freedom.

Her sister, Mrs. Basil Bleck, who accompanied her on the flight, told reporters “she’s near tears over the dog’s death.”

Mrs. Gable, who wore an expensive linen sundress but no stockings, went to her beachfront home from the airport.

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I always thought it strange she took off for Honolulu when they separated, considering that is where they spent their honeymoon.