Gossip Friday: Praise from Lombard

From December 1938:

George King Wins Praise of Miss Lombard For Getting Clark Gable to Learn Dancing

Ability as Hoofer Was Required For Role in ‘Idiot’s Delight’

HE LOSES WEIGHT

by Robbin Coons

Hollywood, Dec. 22–From Carole Lombard to George King: Congratulations.

Miss Lombard presented the same to Mr. King because he had accomplished (1) what she had been unable to do and (2) what no movie script had been able to do, and (3) what no woman had been able to do.

Mr. King, a business-like young man, had made Clark Gable dance.

Mr. Gable, for these many years, had gone through life practically without stepping on a dance floor. Even during the simple motions of a one-step or a waltz (does anyone remember?) Mr. Gable always has suffered from acute shyness, Mr. King, with a few simple instructions and a large amount of cooperation, had turned Mr. Gable not only into a dancer but into a hoofer.

He earned the Lombard’s congratulations–and Gable has earned something else. Whether he is appreciative or not, he has this department’s unstinted admiration. Any man gets the same who is of Gable’s size and yet will cheerfully go through with a job of work that he thinks makes him look silly.

Mr. King, it is true, had a powerful weapon. He had the script of “Idiot’s Delight.” If Gable were to have any part of that script he had to hoof. Gable wanted it. He hoofed.

I watched the result during the filming of his hoofing scene, and I predict right now that Clark Gable is going to be a wow. It’s the scene in the hotel lobby wherein Gable’s vaudeville troupe entertains to relieve the new war’s tension among the guests. His audience includes Norma Shearer as the blonde (and phony) Russian countess, Edward Arnold as the munitions manufacturer, Pat Paterson as the young American bride and Charles Coburn as the scientist. On the sidelines the audience includes everybody on the lot who has managed to sneak in. (When Garbo talked it was nothing to this!)

So Clarence Brown gave the signal, and Gable, preceded by his chorus of six blonde dancers, hoofed on. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat of uncertain vintage, a tux, and a broad grin–and to the recorded tune of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” Mr. Gable “gave. Self-consciously, true, but he produced–and that scene ought to steal the picture.

For six weeks Gable and King, who is the Metro dance director, labored evenings on the hoofing routine. Two hours a day Gable gave to perfecting his technique in the “corny” steps of a not-so-hot vaudevillian of the middle 1920’s—and his weight, normally around 190 pounds, which is hefty for a hoofer, has been reduced. In one day’s hoofing before the camera, his net poundage loss was six.

Success with Gable, however, has brought its penalty for King.

“I’ve just had word,” he said, “that I’m to work on ‘Let Freedom Ring.’ All I have to do is teach Victor McLaglen to do an Irish Reel!