Gossip Friday: Why Not Paul?

From February 1948, Jimmie Fidler’s column:

I can’t help feeling irked when I read that Clark Gable, who will star in the screen version of “Command Decision,” is going to New York to study the stage performance of Paul Kelly. I have no brief against Gable; quite the contrary, I regard him as one of the most capable actors in Hollywood. But why not let Paul Kelly play the role on the screen which he’s created on the stage? Kelly is a Hollywood veteran; a great actor and a swell guy who’s had more buffets from Lady Luck than should fall to the lot of any one man. In “Command Decision,” he turned in one of the finest stage performances seen in many Broadway seasons. Legitimate theatre fans have accepted him and acclaimed him, and I think he’s earned a chance to garner movie laurels as well.