Clark Gable and the Almost-Scarlett: Paulette Goddard

In the post-war, post-Carole years, Clark Gable had a full dance card—dating actresses, script girls and socialites. And one former Gone with the Wind hopeful: the spirited Paulette Goddard.

Paulette, blessed with a gorgeous face, was probably best known for comedies, such as the Charlie Chaplin classics Modern Times and The Great Dictator, as well as sparky Miriam in The Women. She had been around Hollywood since the early 1930’s, first as a blonde Goldwyn girl. She proved herself a dramatic force in films such as Kitty and her Academy Award nominated performance in the war drama So Proudly We Hail!. But she could also dance and sing, as she did with Fred Astaire in Second Chorus and Jimmy Stewart in Pot o’Gold.

Late in the casting process, Paulette was a front-runner for Scarlett in Gone with the Wind but producer David Selznick hesitated on signing her because she couldn’t produce a marriage license to prove she was married to her longtime housemate, Charlie Chaplin. He wanted his Scarlett to be “pure.” In swept Vivien Leigh from England and Paulette’s hopes were shattered (In an effort to keep the married Vivien “pure,” he kept her from her married lover, Laurence Olivier, during filming) . It’s been said that after hearing Vivien had been signed that Paulette stayed in bed crying for days. If you watch her audition tapes, she’s really not bad. And her looks fit the part—much, much better than others who were considered, such as Bette Davis, Lana Turner or Lucille Ball!

 By 1949, married or not, the relationship with Chaplin was over and so was her subsequent marriage to Burgess Meredith. Clark was back on the dating scene as well and they had known each other for years and decided to give romance a go. Paulette was very much a brunette, against Clark’s apparent taste for blondes. But she did have that frisky spirit he seemed to enjoy. She seemed to be a lot of fun, which was something Clark needed at this time.

A 1949 article tellingly titled “If She Wants Him, She’ll Get Him!” describes the beginning of their affair: 

Cagey hints at inside information by the columnists would have you believe that Goddard and Gable met last summer at a Hollywood party, and that long warm glances passes across cocktail glasses saying eloquently, “Why haven’t we two met before?” These speculations are off by several years. Clark and Paulette met for the first time ten years ago, in 1939, when Paulette was working at MGM in The Women.  They became friends, but nothing more because both had other commitments at the time. They met again a few years ago, at a party it is true, but under rather dramatic circumstances.

It was a foggy night. Gable was driving through Bentwood on his way home when another car came charging toward him on the wrong side of the road. Clark hit the ditch, skidded across a wide lawn and came to a halt with his front bumper well up on the porch of a large house. A party was in progress, but in thirty seconds the guests were all on the lawn to see what happened. Paulette was one of the guests, and Clark became one immediately. After all, how often does Clark Gable run into the front of your house when you have friends in? Paulette and Clark had a grand time that night, and even though circumstances kept them separated until this summer, they never forgot it.

Then came the Hollywood party the columnists tell you about. It was one of those large affairs that everyone who is anyone in Hollywood attends. Across the cocktail glasses, Gable saw Goddard and Goddard saw Gable. For the first time in ten years there was nothing to stand in the way of their getting together. So they got together. It was as simple as that. Then came the secrecy for which Paulette is so famous. Although rumors of a wild passion filled the town, the only glimpses of the lovers together were occasional and quick flashes of them driving down a quiet road, and that highly publicized picture taken at the airport when Gable saw her off to Mexico. (picture above)

They did frequent restaurants and night clubs, often discreetly. He also cooked for her at the ranch on several occaisons and she praised his culinary talents! They were dubbed “Hollywood’s atomic couple” during their brief romance because they seemed to always be fighting. Clark couldn’t have had much patience for this as he wasn’t the type who liked to hang his dirty laundry in public. At a resort together one time it is reported that they had a big public quarrel by the pool and ended up falling in fully clothed!

The fan magazines were all aflutter at this romance, but I sincerely doubt that either of them considered a marriage; the differences were too great. Paulette was known to be kind of a diva, uppity and rather demanding on set. Ray Milland, her co-star in four films, described her as the most difficult actress he had ever worked with. Clark was the exact opposite, a professional always on set and never puffed himself up as being “the star.” Paulette was known for her secrecy but she also sometimes liked publicity and wasn’t against giving the gossip columnists nuggets here and there, something Clark despised. They got in a fight after he took her to the airport to meet her plane to Mexico because she wanted him to give her a kiss for the photographers and he refused.

 Money was also a big dealbreaker. Paulette had it and liked to spend it. She especially adored jewelry and had several million dollars worth from past lovers and husbands. Clark was notoriously a spendthrift and was not known to buy his women expensive jewelry (five wives and none had engagement rings!). The beginning of the end was Clark’s gift to Paulette: a gold St. Christopher medallion that made her skin turn black when she wore it–signaling that it wasn’t real gold. She kidded him about it and told everyone how cheap he was. That was the final straw for Clark.

 The break-up was not friendly, apparently, with Paulette snickering about Clark’s penny-pinching. Paulette went on to marry German writer Erich Remarque in 1958 and eventually retired to Switzerland, where she died in 1970.

Interesting fact: Around the same time Clark was dating Paulette, she was also seeing his buddy, director John Huston. Huston was married at the time to Evelyn Keyes, who played Suellen in Gone with the Wind.