Gossip Friday: Don’t Pat Clark Gable on the Back!

From June 1936:

Don’t Pat Clark Gable on the Back–He Hates It!

Clark Gavle was named recently as one of the three greatest stars of 1936 throughout the world–yet he remains the same Clark Gable. Now he adds to his laurels, with Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy in Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s “Wife Versus Secretary” opening at the Luverne Theatre June 29th.

He wears the same hat size that he wore when he was an unknown extra, but there’s a red feather in it today. He still has a passion for turtleneck sweaters, brilliant neckties and old clothes.

His favorite relaxation is fooling the willy trout. He can ride a horse without doing a Steve Brodie. He refuses to read stock market quotations, but he will stay awake all night to read a favorite novel.

Telephone calls give him a headache. He will never speak twice to the person who compares him to Valentino.

He is always chummy with the extras, and his best pal is an employee of the wardrobe department at Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios.

He will try everything once, and come back for more punishment. During the filming of “Wife Versus Secretary” he was surrounded by two hundred expert ice skaters. Gable had not had a skate on for twenty years, but on the second day he was cutting fancy figures with the best of them.

He’s extremely air-minded, has flown the length of South America and net plans to span the Pacific in the China Clipper.

To him there are only two kinds of people–the kind he likes and the kind he does not like. He indulges in all varieties of exercise. Of all the colors of the rainbow, red-white-and-blue is good enough for him.

He is proud that he got his first big break in pictures by getting disgusted with Hollywood and deserting it for the stage. He defies anybody to place a filet mignon in front of him and he enjoys best that kind of party where people who talk have something worthwhile to say.

He’d rather act than do anything else. People who pat him on the back are distasteful to him. And that’s Clark Gable, the sensation of the screen who learned his “oil” as a driller in the oil fields.