Happy Birthday, Mr. Gable!
If Clark Gable were alive today, he would be 112 years old. Notorious for his humbleness, I have no doubt that he would be shocked that anyone remembers him in 2013.
In honor of Clark’s birthday, here are a collection of quotes from people who knew him, as an appreciation:
“What a man, what a man! He razzes me every minute in hopes of getting my goat—and sometimes he does. In a big hot love scene the other day, he whispered, ‘Jean, you’ve got your eyebrows on upside down.’ So I said I could hardly wait for him to grow old and gray as I was just crazy about Gray Gables. If he will go in for ancient wheezes, I can not only take ‘em—but I can hand ‘em right back…I am never the least bit nervous with him. He is so sure—and dependable. All the time.” ~Jean Harlow, 1933
“He has that God-given thing: a theatrical personality, the ability to communicate with an audience, which all the training in the world can’t give you. Experience helps, but without that other quality there is no such things as the star personality. The public caught it in Gable the first time he walked on the screen.” ~David O. Selznick, 1933
“No man who has ever attained stardom in Hollywood, and I think I have known them all, was ever so little touched by the applause, the idolatry, the fame and fortune, the intrigues and fashions of Hollywood. It isn’t quite accurate to say he remained unchanged. But it is the absolute truth to say that he grew up as normally, as straight, as unaffected by it all as though he had gone on growing up anywhere else. Unless you know Hollywood and have seen what it sometimes does to people you can’t realize how miraculous that is.
“No other star I have ever known has as much courtesy and consideration and real gratitude to the public for its friendship and support. He was always a little shy about it, a little inclined to wonder if it could all be for him, but they were always dear to his heart. He likes people.
“Don’t misunderstand me; Clark Gable was never any angel. He had his love affairs, and some of them were hectic enough, before his happy marriage to Carole Lombard. He was a reasonably good drinking man, but he drank as the old saying goes, ‘Like a gentleman.’ He got into fights occasionally and sometimes he put his ears back like a mule and nobody on earth could move him an inch.
“But you may believe me when I say that I think more of us went to him, in trouble, for his opinion and his advice, than any other man in Hollywood. Spencer Tracy, Ty Power, the producers and directors on the lot—the list would be endless.” ~Adela Rogers St. Johns, 1944
“His favorite escape used to be hunting. Going way off in the back country, where people never saw movies, and nobody cared who he was, as long as he minded his own business. Since has had the farm, he hasn’t been able to go as much. He has to keep his eye on the alfalfa. But he and Carole lit out for the back country down Mexico way a while ago. They went so far back in the hills that there was a rumor they were lost. Somebody got the wrong idea. When Gable disappears, he isn’t after publicity. He’s trying to get away from it. He’s a healthy specimen. He can take care of himself. If that needed any proving, he proved it a few months ago when a hold-up man paid him a visit. Gable took his gun away and sat on him till the police arrived.His contract has two more years to run. After that? He shrugs his shoulders. That’s something to be decided when the time comes. And not by him, but by the fans. As long as they’re willing for him to be in front of the camera, he’s going to be willing to earn his living acting. If they ever say they aren’t willing—Heaven forbid!—I think he’ll try to get behind the camera, be a director. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went on acting the rest of his life. He’s a man with millions of friends. And I’m proud to be one of them.” ~Spencer Tracy, 1940
“Clark is one of the most effective actors in the business—and for a very good reason. No matter how disappointed he is in a scene, he plays it with enthusiasm and vitality. I’ve worked with actors who don’t do this, and it makes all the difference in the world. What you feel when the camera records a scene is what is recorded. I’ll argue that point till Doomsday.To carry off a scene, you have to attack it with authority, and that’s what Clark does every time. It has nothing to do with his being six-feet-one and built in proportion. Between scenes, he likes to talk about anything but acting,” she said. “That’s one way he conserves his energy for his job. Most of us aren’t that smart. He likes to talk about trips—they’re pretty far removed from anything connected with a movie set. He kept flying me back and forth across South America, and into the wilds of Mexico, and up to Vancouver, and across to Boulder Dam. They way he sold those places. With his graphic descriptions, you would have thought he owned stock in a travel agency. Maybe he does.
“He’s a great gadget man. One afternoon they made him shave with an electric razor. (You know, he has to shave twice a day when he’s working, to look the same in mid-afternoon as he did in mid-morning.) ‘I can’t use this thing,’ he said. ‘My beard goes four thousand different ways.’ But after he did use it, he was so enthusiastic about it, that he went out and got himself three different kinds of electric razors, including one for his car. He’s a camera fiend too—a hobby that calls for a million gadgets, more or less.
“One thing I noticed about him: He’s far happier, and he looks as he did six years ago. Every so often, looking at him, I’d find myself thinking, ‘You know what you want from life, and what you can expect—and it isn’t much.”~ Rosalind Russell, 1941
“I guess there isn’t anybody else like him. I don’t mean I want to be like him on the screen, because we’re so different. But I wish I knew how he manages to make every single soul he ever meets think he’s the absolute tops. I wish I knew how he makes newspapermen, every single one of them, think everything he does is just right. Why, that guy can say no, and make people like it better than anyone else can when they say yes. Did you ever hear Spencer Tracy when he calls him Big Moose? They say friendship between men is one of the greatest things in the world. I guess Clark Gable has more men friends that feel about him the way Spencer Tracy sounds when he calls him Big Moose, than any other man I ever heard of. I don’t know him very well, but I think I’d rather get to be his friend than anything else—but I don’t think it’d do any good to study him. It’s just something he has himself that nobody else has ever had, that’s ever been in Hollywood.” ~Tyrone Power, 1939
“[Clark Gable] doesn’t seek out the electrician, the prop man, the humblest worker on his set to chat with between scenes because he wishes to appear a good fellow. Gable likes those men. Wants to be with them because he does like them. They’re his friends. That any gulf lies between Gable, the star, and Joe, the electrician, is so far beyond his comprehension that it’s funny. It’s no condescending gesture on Gable’s part. I know. I’ve watched.
“And let me tell you that’s the rarest thing in this business today. He’s thoughtful of other actors about him. He has the greatest respect for their work. I remember in ‘Possessed’ I had a terrific crying scene to do. I was nervous, worked up, worried over the scene, and kept to my dressing room most of the day. Suddenly I was aware that the set was strangely quiet and had been all day. Only the day before there had been all sorts of clowning and gags going on between Gable and the workmen, and now this strange silence. I opened the door of the dressing room and looked out. There in one corner alone sat Gable. Throwing forbidding glances to anyone who dared raise his voice above a whisper.
“It came over me suddenly that this famous star was sitting over there alone, had been all day, out of respect to the emotional stress I was going through. There was something so sweet, so thoughtful about it; I didn’t need music to bring on that flood of tears.” ~Joan Crawford, 1937
“Who could quarrel with Clark Gable? We got on well. Whenever anyone on the set was tired or depressed, it was Gable who cheered that person up. Then the newspapers began printing the story that Gable and I were not getting on. This was so ridiculous it served only as a joke. From the time on the standard greeting between Clark and myself became, ‘How are you not getting on today?’” ~Vivien Leigh, 1940
“He’s got balance. He’s never late on the set. He’s usually from five to ten minutes early. He can take a gag as easily as he can hand one. He’ll squawk his head off before a picture starts if there’s something he doesn’t like. But you’ll never hear a peep out of him after it’s under way.” ~director Woody Van Dyke, 1937
“And here’s where he’s got it over any actor or yes, any man I ever knew: We all unconsciously put on a little dog or a bit of extra niceness when we meet people the first time. Actors do it instinctively. All but Gable. The Gable you meet the first time is the Gable you meet the second, the tenth, or the hundredth time. Not a bit of extra swank does he ever assume.” ~ director Jack Conway, 1937
3 Comments
Gail Kennedy
Hi, loved reading this article, and yes most would be surprised to be remembered, but that is the impact this great screen legend has left. Clark gable died the year I was born. I first saw him on the screen in Gone With The Wind, when I was about 14 years old, I fell in love, right there & then. I thought he was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. For me he was the best, and still is. Nobody, has ever de throned him as the King of Hollywood. Happy birthday Mr Gable.
coco b
Happy Birthday Mr. G. I know he’s wondering what all the fuss is about and how we still remember him, but what Gail said is true. He was, is, and probably always will be the King. Carole and Kay when you both finish laughing at him for his modesty give hive him a great big kiss on each cheek from all of us. All of you up there are warmly and fondly remembered and still admired.
Margaret pokorny
It’s 2021. Crikey. We had a crazy year! It’s funny to think Clark Gable would have been almost a hundred years older than my daughter! Love this man… Happy Birthday Clark! Gone but definitely not forgotten!