{New Article} 1940: Mr. and Mrs. Gable

Here’s another “look how happy they are and how simple they live” article on Clark and Carole from Ladies Home Journal. I say that like I am sick of that kind of article. But of course I am not!

A typical scene between Mr. and Mrs. Gable at home would be at tea or cocktails in Gable’s faintly adolescent gun room with its collection of lethal weapons in a glass case on the wall. Clad in jodhpurs or levis and usually needing a shave, Gable sits back in a large chair. Mrs. Gable starts off by perching decorously enough on a sofa. But soon she is squatting on the floor, her skirts far above the tops of the stockings on her pretty legs, and is talking steadily about politics, the war or just gossip.

Gable remonstrates, as husbands should, against her more flagrant extravagances, but most of the time he listens quietly, grins and reveals the dimples over which American women are mad. One rile, rarely violated in the Gable household, may contribute more than anything else toward the preservation of the existing tranquility. This that they shall not talk about pictures or any other business matter while at home.

The Gable-Lombard marriage is the direct outcome of dislike at first sight, which may also prove something or other. Three or four years ago they were cast in a film together and quarreled more or less consistently during the shooting. It would appear, on the other hand, that Gable was intrigued with this high-spirited, noisy girl. In any event, he invited her to go with him to an elaborate Hollywood function called the White Ball, being staged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But they failed to get along again and Clark took her home rather early. The next morning, in his hotel room, he was roused into confused consciousness by what seemed to be the cooing of pigeons. In the room was a cage with two white doves. Attached to it was a card from Carole. “How about it?” the card read.

 The last paragraph is not exactly truthful. First error being that it was not “dislike at first sight” at all. They got along well during the filming of No Man of Her Own. They weren’t best buddies, but they weren’t enemies either. Secondly, Clark did not ask Carole to the White Ball. He attended with a voice actress named Eadie Adams and she was the organizer of the ball, with Cesar Romero as her escort. Read the real story here.

The Gable-Lombard ranch—any country establishment in California bigger than ten feet square is a “ranch”—is twenty acres in size, with a main house, a small stable, a barn, a house for the hired farmer and his wife, and some chicken coops and brooders. An accurate guess as to their living expenses, based on knowledge of similar places in the region, would be about $16,000 for servants, repairs, taxes, food and automobiles. This doesn’t take into account permanent improvements or what Gable, who is fascinated by agriculture, may spend for seed and farm machinery. But taxes on such a place would run $1,200 or so; upkeep, water, electricity and supplies would be the chief item—say $7,200. Clark Gable likes to drive fast cars and these would amount to $1,500 for maintenance and replacements.

Although close enough to Hollywood for convenience, the San Fernando Valley is regarded as remote; and the Gables, at the moment, are passing through a phase in which they entertain very little. So their domestic staff is not large. Mrs. Gable, when working in a picture, obviously has no time to run a household, since she must leave for the studio at some such ghastly hour as 7:30 o’clock in the morning. She knows rather little about housekeeping anyway. So there is an expert cook-housekeeper, an amiable butler-handy man who serves drinks and occasionally drives for the Gables, and a maid. Their aggregate wages total about $3,600 a year. The cost of food, because of the vegetables and chickens raised on the place, is really insignificant. At the most, it would be $200 a month, or $2,400 a year. One secretary takes care of the mail for both. They are not interested greatly in the ravings of worshipers, so fan mail is sidetracked at their studios.

The Gables have no tennis court and not even a swimming pool, a sign of penny-pinching which, until recently, would have been virtually a scandal. Their ranch is roughly comparable to farms operated as hobbies by well-to-do business and professional men outside of New York, Philadelphia, Detroit or Chicago. The place is in the red as an agricultural unit, of course. But there are only three horses and a mule, a couple of cows, some chickens and turkeys and a mixed assortment of fruit trees.

I love how every article about the ranch points out that they don’t have a tennis court or swimming pool–apparently an amazing thing among the Hollywood elite. Having visited there last month, I can say that Encino is no longer remote, certainly, but that at least the house still remains private.

Read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive.