{New Article} 1939: The Hilarious Friendship of Clark Gable and Andy Devine

Clark Gable wasn’t a glamorous gent. Not in private. This is no more proved than by examining his close friends. No tuxedo-wearing nightclubbers. One of Clark’s close friends was funny-looking, funny-sounding film sidekick Andy Devine. You may not recall the name, but the voice is unmistakable! Peter Lawford referred to it as “an asthmatic vacuum cleaner!”

There exists in all Hollywood no finer, truer friendship
than the tie between Clark Gable and Andy Devine. And certainly no two men in
any country anywhere can testify to more fun and sheer keen enjoyment than
results from that friendship.

It began when Andy rode over to Clark’s place to look at a
colt he’d heard was for sale. Clark saddled a horse and the two rode together
talking over business of the colt. Clark noted that for a man of Andy’s bulk,
he had a perfect seat in the saddle. The talk gradually grew to other sports
they had in common—fishing and hunting—and suddenly into the eyes of the two
men came that gleam that only true sportsmen can understand. From that moment
on Clark Gable knew that he had found the one man who loved all the rugged
outdoor sports as deeply as himself, and Andy knew the same thing. It was Clark
and Andy then, friends for keeps.

Clark, always the man’s man, liked to be surrounded by simple, un-Hollywood types–and Andy Devine was certainly that!

It’s poor Andy who comes in for lectures on neatness and tidiness by Mrs. Devine who
tried hard, heaven knows. “Look at you,” she’ll say, “starting out like that
with Clark neat as a pin.” So Clark and Andy have worked out a scheme. Andyw
ears what he calls his “going away” clothes to please Mrs. Devine, but in
another bag he sneaks the things he really loves to fish in, so Clark will
always stop a safe distance away from the house and say, “All right, Andy, it’s
safe to change your ‘going away’ clothes now.”

A pair of old moccasins with leather soles are the love of Andy’s life for fishing and
no matter where Mrs. Devine hides these beauties, Andy manages to unearth them.

“They’re demoralizing, Andy,” Mrs. Devine was scolding one morning when suddenly Clark
stood in the doorway, and as one their eyes riveted on his feet. He wore a pair
of moccasins identical with Andy’s.

“Gee,”Clark said, “I had to hunt all over town to get a pair like yours, Andy.”

Sometimes Carole Lombard, Clark and the Devines will hie off to a picnic and take in a
fair as they did at Pomona, or go to a special preview of Clark’s or Andy’s or
Carole’s pictures. Clark is always right there to help Mrs. Devine pull a
surprise party on Andy as he did last week by keeping him out on a lake all
day, or maybe the two boys will sit of an evening just listening and cleaning
their guns, while Carole and Mrs. Devine discuss the advisability of new dining
room curtains.

“You’d think,” Andy said, “all the adulation and flattery and all the long years of it
might in just some little way affect Clark. It hasn’t. I’m closer to him I
guess than any fellow in town and I’ve never known a plainer, more honest,
down-to-earth guy. Sometimes when we stop in some little eating joint along the
way a crowd of people will gather to see Clark and it never bothers or fazes
him. He has a ‘How are you’ and ‘Hello’ for everyone, and that’s the end of it.
It just doesn’t penetrate to his vanity. Sometimes passing motorists recognize
him and darned near wreck their cars looking back, so Phil and Tuffy and I take
the bows for him, standing up and bowing all over the place.

“You’d think he’d have the most expensive fishing and hunting equipment in the world,
wouldn’t you? Clark’s is just the same as the other boys’, just a plain old kit
with every necessity, but no silver plated geegaws. Not for Gab!”

I just love thinking of Clark and Carole as having simple get togethers where Andy and Clark talk about duck blinds and Carole and Mrs. Devine talk about curtains!

Sadly, after Carole died, the Devines and Clark drifted apart. Clark separated himself from a lot of the people with whom him and Carole had good memories; it was just too painful for him.
Andy was memorably interviewed about Clark for the 1975 documentary “Clark Gable Remembered.”
He talks about crowds and invasion of privacy “bugging” Clark, what Clark thought would be the pinnacle of his career, how fans always called Clark “Mr. Gable” instead of “Clark,”–and how Carole would scoff at that! Andy says that he didn’t see Clark much after the war because “after Carole was killed, anyone that was really close to them brought back memories that he would just assume do without.”

Andy starts at 4:52:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UWdM49zX_I

Part 2 of Andy’s interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaR5mGx63g4

You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive.