{New Article} 1933: Clark Gable’s New Year Resolutions

It’s a new year! And back in 1933, new star Clark Gable was pretty much forced by this female reporter to announce his resolutions to the world. And he said to read more books, be more organized, drink less coffee and get to the gym every once in a while…oh wait, those aren’t his…

This article is fluffy fluff fluff, so take his “resolutions” with a grain of salt, but who could help but swoon at the description of how he arrived to meet the reporter:

Clark Gable came into his dressing room at the noon hour, dusty from the set of “Red Dust.” His shirt was open at the collar. His hair was ruffled. He looked healthy and happy and hard-working and—still—completely unchanged after the fires of fame and fortune that would have burned a lesser man to a papery cinder.

Honest to goodness, moviegoers, he is a swell guy. I mean it. Unaffected, regular, genuine, one of the realest human beings you could ever meet, anywhere, under any circumstances.

Can’t you just see it? Wow. He goes on to list his “resolutions”:

“I lead ‘the Perfect Life.’ A daring statement, which I dare to make. Wait, now I have it—here is my resolution, the big one, covering all the others! I resolve to continue to lead the life that is perfect for me, and to allow nothing in heaven or hell to interfere with it.

“I realize that I am one of about four people in the world who can say what I’ve just said—that I lead the perfect life. I resolve not to forget those millions of others who must cry while I laugh.

“I do believe, though, that there are a great many people who are leading nearly perfect lives and are unaware of it. They don’t realize their own good fortune or they won’t admit it to themselves. There is such a disease as chronic dissatisfaction, and it’s about the most insidious and fatal disease any man or woman can have. So many people do not know until it’s too late how splendid things have been for them.

“It’s like the story of the man who traveled the globe ‘round and ‘round in search of the most beautiful thing in the world. After many years of searching and after great hardships and long after age had settled upon him, he found the most beautiful thing right in his own front yard—his daughter’s eyes. He hadn’t thought to look right under his nose, you see. He hadn’t realized until it was almost too late—

“I resolve never to be blind to the fine and precious things that are mine right now.

“I resolve to keep my eyes open, and my heart, to the things that are with me here and now, today.

“I resolve to pass this particular resolution on to all who will listen to me: Look in your own front yard for beauty and for happiness.

“I resolve to let Tomorrow take care of itself. It always has.”

This all seems way too philosophical for Clark. And I can’t imagine at all him saying he had “the perfect life” here at this early part in his career, or ever, actually. He was far too humble for that.  At this point, he was married unhappily to Ria and was cavorting around town with Joan Crawford. Hardly the perfect life, huh…

“I resolve never to whimper, whine or kick when I begin to take the long toboggan into oblivion. It has, perhaps, begun for me. I know that I am not what I was, or perhaps I should say where I was a year ago. That’s all right. I don’t expect to be. There are those who say that I should never have played the minister role in ‘Polly of the Circus,’ or the white-haired conversational man in ‘Strange Interlude’—but who knows? It’s all experience. Some of it good, some of it not so good, perhaps. Here and now I am concerned only with my resolution—which is to continue to be grateful for what I have had and still have and never to show the white feather about what is to be.”

Yeah, Clark, I am going to agree with those who say you shouldn’t have been in Polly of the Circus or Strange Interlude!

You can read more of Clark’s resolutions in The Article Archive.