Gossip Friday: Happy Birthday, Myrna Loy! From Kingfish

Today marks the 108th birthday of one of Clark Gable’s dear friends and frequent co-stars, Myrna Loy.

Their friendship was sweet and yes, platonic. At their first meeting at a party in 1933, they danced to “Dancing in the Dark.” She said later in her life that every time she heard that song she thought of him. He made a pass on her that night when he walked her to her front door. She was flabbergasted that he would try anything when his wife (Ria) was in the car at the curb a few feet away and so she pushed him off the porch into the bushes.

Clark turned out to be her next co-star, in Men in White. He was busy flirting with Elizabeth Allan on the set of that film, and didn’t have much to do with Myrna. But as they went on to film Manhattan Melodrama, Parnell, Too Hot to Handle and Test Pilot, they became dear friends. They would celebrate the end of each picture together with champagne and she spoke lovingly in her autobiography of him reading Shakespeare and poetry to her.

Memorably, Clark and Myrna were voted King and Queen of the Movies in 1938 and crowns were presented to them by Ed Sullivan. From then on, Clark called Myrna “Queenie” and would sign things to her “from Kingfish.”

When Myrna’s birthday came around on the set of Too Hot to Handle, Clark presented Myrna with a big cake:

“Hallelujah! To Madame Queen from Kingfish and the Mystic Knights”