{New Article} 2001: A Man’s Man Off the Screen Too

This article is one I found during my recent trip to Los Angeles. It was published in the Los Angeles Times to commemerate Clark Gable’s 100th birthday. I particularly enjoyed this article because it is very casual in style–just the author describing what Clark was like while he talked to him. An interesting glimpse inside the man. Particularly funny is the description of Clark trying to run a simple errand and getting accosted on the street:

A few minutes later he came out of the elevator wearing a double-breasted, camel hair wrap-around coat, a tan, wide-brim fedora hat, and the Gable grin. He was taller and more rugged looking than I had expected, every inch of his 6 feet the movie star. I introduced myself and we shook hands. He headed out the Park Avenue door with me following. I’d expected a limo to be waiting, but he started walking briskly uptown with me alongside. We exchanged some pleasantries about the cold weather. He asked me if I liked guns.

“Not much,” I said. “I had an M1 slung over my shoulder for three years as an infantryman.”

“I was in the Air Corps myself,” he said.

Someone shrieked, “Clark Gable!” Within minutes we had a small crowd following us. By the time we had reached 57^th Street and Madison Avenue, the crowd had become a parade. Gable seemed as unconcerned about them as drum major leading a band.

We entered Abercrombie & Fitch followed by the entourage. A man wearing a green apron over his black suit, obviously expecting Gable, greeted him with a handshake and led us to the elevator. Someone blocked the door to allow us to get in alone. We went up one flight and entered a room furnished like a hunting lodge, which in a way, it was…

While we were stopped for a light at Madison Avenue and 50^th Street, a woman on the corner shrieked, “Clark Gable!” Before the light changed, traffic was stopped and a hysterical mob of women were trying to open the cab doors. Gable managed to lock them. He sat calmly, smiling and waving, until the police arrived and cleared the crowd.

 Somewhere, in some source that can obviously not be trusted, I read that Clark was rude to his fans. That can not possibly be true, as stories like the one above seem to be the norm, not the exception. No matter how crazy the fans got, Clark kept his cool and knew that he was where he was because of them and he always appreciated them.

A few years later, the reporter visited Clark at his home in Encino.

We went into the living room where Martin, his houseman, brought us iced tea in huge highball glasses. I asked Gable what he thought of the continued success of GWTW.

“Those revivals are the only thing that keeps me a big star,” he said. “Every time that picture is re-released, a whole crop of young moviegoers get interested in me.”

“What do you remember about the film’s premiere in Atlanta?” I asked.

“You should have seen the way those Southern belles looked at Carole. She was so damn beautiful.”

“How did the audience react to that first screening?” I asked.

“You’da thought I’d won the second Civil War for the South. The Atlanta papers called it the biggest news event since Sherman.”

I shifted uneasily in my seat as I made notes. “Back problem?” Gable asked. I nodded.

“Me too,” he said. “Let me show you some exercises. First thing is to never get up from a chair without resting your hands on your knees first and pushing up. Don’t just stand up.” He demonstrated some of the exercises he did when his back troubled him. 

The interview ended because his fifth wife, Kay, had returned from grocery shopping and he wanted to help her carry in the “grub.” He stood on the front porch waving goodbye as I drove away.

Awww. I love that he said that about Carole. He could have said anything first, but he said how beautiful Carole was. Clark truly had a love-hate relationship with Gone with the Wind. In many ways he was thankful for it, as it kept him popular. But in others he felt it limited him and also he was rather bitter about not getting a share of the profits.

A few years after that, the reporter meets up with Clark on the set of The Misfits.

Much of the picture was to be shot in the blistering desert 50 miles from Reno, where the temperature sometimes rose to 135 degrees in the afternoon. I went there to report on the filming. When I arrived on the set, Gable was sitting in a director’s chair under an umbrella that afforded little shade from the boiling sun, and waiting impatiently for Monroe to arrive for a scene with him. He was dressed in worn jeans, battered boots and a worn cowboy hat for his role as a middle-aged cowboy although he was then 59. He’d recently lost 30 pounds and he looked fit, although I’d heard he had a heart problem and Parkinson’s. He waved me over and offered me a sip from a bottle of whiskey he was holding. His hand and head were shaking.

“My doctor would kill me if he knew I was drinking in this heat,” he said, “but I’m so goddamned bored hanging around waiting for Marilyn to show up. I know my lines and hers ass-backwards and I’ll bet the farm she doesn’t have a clue about hers when and if she does show.”

“How do you like working with Marilyn?” I asked.

“On or off the record?”

“Off,” I said.

“She’s the rudest, most impossible actress I’ve ever worked with.”

 That’s interesting, what he said about Marilyn. No surprise he felt that way, I am sure most on the set did. He was apparently nice to her in person but that isn’t the first time I have heard him complain about her. Also, this isn’t the first time someone said Clark had Parkinson’s. I have heard several people mention the shaking he had in the last years of his life. If he did have Parkinson’s, it was undiagnosed; it was not listed on his death certificate as a pre-exisiting condition and he wasn’t taking any medication for it. Kay claimed that before his heart attack, he had never been sick the entire time they were together.

Read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive.