Gossip Friday: Fireside Chat with Clark and Carole

From December 31, 1940:

Two Hollywood stars have had a lesson in acting that ought to make them much better performers in 1941. I refer to Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. For what reason, I don’t know, they seemed to be visiting the White House Sunday night, and were included in the small group that watched the President broadcast his address to the nation. Comments on the speech did not mention the reactions if Mr. Gable and wife, but whatever they may have thought of the message itself, as professional actors they must have realized they were sitting in the presence of a master performer.

It seemed to this listener that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s talk was an epic case of dramatic delivery. I do not mean what he actually said, but the manner in which he intoned it. Of course the subject was of overwhelming and fateful importance, and the audience was keyed high for the message. But all its substance could not have accounted for those deeply stirring effects it attained. Something was given by the quality of the voice itself, by the shading and evaluation of words and fine judgement of tempo, and the moments when these qualities rose highest were the ones that bit deep into memory. Here, if ever I encountered a case, was a perfect example of “type casting.”