Gossip Friday: Clark Cleans Up

From February 1, 1942:

Having just returned home from a three months vacation, Clark Gable found the desk in his dressing room piled high with all sorts of communications–most of them marked “Urgent.” As he glanced through them he saw that the urgency had passed. By that time he was deep in that job that everybody dreads–cleaning out a desk. He remembered suddenly that he had not straightened it out for eight or ten years. Memories flooded as strange mementos that told much of the story of his life, with its triumphs and defeats, were revealed.

Way back in one of the drawers was a box containing a gold crown. The crown fit Gable’s head then and still does. It was sent him after forty metropolitan newspapers had voted him King of the Movies.

Lying next to that was a canceled check stub for seven dollars and fifty centsa. A friend had sent it to him as a joke. That represented the first money Gable ever earned in the film business–his first day’s work as an extra at Universal. In another compartment were a couple of notes widely different in character. One was from Lionel Barrymore. It was written long ago when Barrymore was test director at MGM, and it informed the then unknown Gable about the costume he was to wear for his screen test. Gable shuddered when he read it, for he had tried to forget that he once tried for a South Sea Island role, and paraded around the lot with nothing on but the masculine version of a sarong and flowers in his hair! And red flowers at that.

The other note was one of high praise for work in “Mutiny on the Bounty.” And it was signed by Irving Thalberg. That Gable will always treasure.

“Pretty good for a guy from the oil fields,” Gable laughed as he picked up the next letter, an announcement that his name had been included in society’s ultra-exclusive Blue Book.

A bit of tulle next caught his eye and he pulled out a very wrinkled and thoroughly absurd ballet costume. For a moment he could not remember why he had saved it. And then he chuckled. Carole Lombard, who loves a gag better than a turkey dinner, had sent Gable the ridiculous ballet skirt when he had to do a dance sequence in “Idiot’s Delight.”

He found eight unopened letters. Two of them were bills, which he paid immediately, probably much to the surprise of the senders since by now the debts were undoubtedly outlawed. Then there was his first advertising contract. He had been pretty proud of this because when the manufacturers thought his name would sell it, it had meant he was getting along in pictures. They had wanted him to recommend a certain pen. He had carefully signed the contract, addressed the envelope and forgotten to mail it! The rest of the unopened communications were fan mail. Gable answered these two.

A crumpled note was found carefully put away. It read, “Dear Gable, Will be in Los Angeles in couple weeks. If you got a spare bunk thought you might put me up for few days.” It was signed by the guide with whom he hunts up in the mountains. The guide has no idea who Clark Gable is. He has lived in the mountains all his life and has never seen a movie. To him Gable is just a grand guy and a good hunter. Nor would he be impressed by Gable’s stardom. Clark, incidentally, prefers that he never finds out.

A torn newspaper clipping, apparently a review of some early film in which he had a role, came next. Gable couldn’t remember the name of the picture but he had saved the one line concerning him. “In a small role is a young man named Clark Gable. We can prophesy no film future for this immature actor,” the very false prophet had written.

Came next a theater program from Hartford, Conn., with Gable’s picture–along with the rest of the cast of a blood and thunder melodrama—on the cover. Gable was shown as really “hamming” it as he pointed an accusing finger at a cowering belle. “That was the show that never got into New York,” Gable laughed. “And from the look of me in the part it shouldn’t have.”

Clark Gable has known plenty of highs and lows in his life–as the corners of his desk revealed. He straightened the litter and settled down with the latest arrival atop his desk–and the script of “Somewhere I’ll Find You,” his new film.

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This was printed just a few weeks after Carole Lombard’s death, and I’m guessing was written before.