1948: The Gable Women
By Dorothy Kilgallen
Modern Screen, October 1948
Gay, charming, beautiful—these are the current crop of Gable women. But can any of them lure Clark into marriage?
A day before he boarded the Queen Mary to join urbane and fascinating Dolly O’Brien in what a considerable portion of New York society was predicting would be a European honeymoon, Clark Gable told a male friend:
“Take it from me—no matter what you hear, I’ll never get married again.”
There was no implication in this that he had given up on romance, of course, and immediately subsequent events proved that anyone who assumed he was eliminating love from his life was a victim of groundless pessimism.
Twenty-four hours later, Manhattan ship news reporters issued the surprising intelligence that it had taken him three hours and thirty-two minutes to kiss elegant divorcee “Slim” Hawks goodbye before the liner pulled away from the pier—and waterfront photographers turned in glistening-eyed pictures of Gable and Mrs. Hawks to prove it.
That was a Friday.
It was too late for some editors to kill Saturday color-section photographs showing Gable hovering with his dynamo smile over beautiful Anita Colby.
The public that studies the amorous vagaries of motion picture stars were left to pay its money and take its choice. The King of Rampant Masculinity had done his bit to give them plenty of choice.
For in the background of what appeared to be an interesting romantic quadrangle—in the chatter of Romanoff’s and the notebooks of the gossip columnists—there loomed a pair of lush Gable-struck beauties, either one of whom might be considered, if they will excuse the expression a dark horse.
There was blonde Virginia Grey, the girl with the perfect disposition. There was also voluptuous Iris Bynum, the girl with the obvious-to-the-naked-eye allure.
They, with Slim and Dolly and Anita, comprise the Gable Women. At the moment of going to press this is how they shape up on the Gable “dope sheet”:
Slim Hawks—Out of Nowhere, a Big Surprise. Could be a mutual gag.
Anita Colby—A Great Friendship. Lots of laughs, not much heat.
Virginia Grey—The Longest Lasting, and always in the running/
Iris Bynum—Blows Hot (Very Hot) And Cold. At the bottom of the list momentarily but is very likely to zoom.
They make an intriguing quintette. Any producer who could capture their personalities and biographical sketches on celluloid would have a screenplay as bright, brittle and in some scenes as acid as anything every tossed off by Clare Booth Luce. Any hostess who could gather them all around one dinner table would be giving the Party of the Year. And although they seem to be widely different types, in aggregate they prove two things:
1—Clark’s eyesight is still in fine shape.
2—He-men like good-natured women.
To millions of feminine minds all over the world, and to comparable numbers of surprisingly unresentful men, Clark Gable more than any other public figure symbolizes supercharged virility. Sinatra fans may come and go, Robert Taylor’s profile may seem the prettiest thing in the world for a season or two, and there will always be garden-club members who worship Nelson Eddy; but Gable owns the largest discernible supply of the magnetism described as animal, and few women breathe with souls so dead who never to themselves have said “Wow!” when that 18-cylinder look of bold insinuation was magnified on the neighborhood movie screen.
It may be reassuring to these myriad females to know that Gable’s sex appeal is not a matter of greasepaint and cinema magic. He has approximately the same effect on Glamour Gertie at ten paces as he has on Fannie the Fan who is separated from him by the measureless distance between Hollywood and the topmost row of the Music Hall balcony.
A case in point is Dolly O’Brien—full moniker: Dolly Hylan Hemingway Fleischman O’Brien Dorelis—who has had a full quota of romance, millions, popularity and glamour in her half century of uninhibited living but who, despite her sophistication, can’t seem to get That Gable Something from under her skin.
Dolly might be described as a mature Southampton Helen of Troy. She is intensely feminine, witty, socially glossy, and rather like Ina Claire in appearance. Her clothes are always superbly chic in an expensive, understated way that no Hollywood producer would accept as authentic in a wealthy society matron; her light hair is short and crisply waved, her smile warm as a tropical sun. The jewelry she wears invariably seems to be set in next year’s designs, as if she wouldn’t be caught in last season’s diamonds, but she never looks blatantly “dressed up.”
She is four-times married; five times a grandmother, but her wealth of experience seems to have touched her only lightly. She is built like a figurine; her manner is gayer than a debutante’s.
Clark’s friends figure that her charm for him is compounded of all these obvious assets plus the not-to-be-underestimated fillip of her social position. Protocol and blue books often have an exotic fascination for graduates of the school of hard knocks. Clark is one of these. He came from a poor family, sweated in oil fields, hopped freight trains and spent nights of his youth in fleabag hotels; he will never get over being impressed by women who know more than he does about finger bowls and footmen and crepe de chine sheets.
Dolly’s life story is a real cinema saga—give it to Bette Davis or Joan Crawford and the audiences would say, “Good picture—but what a plot! All that couldn’t happen to one woman!”
Her first husband, Louis Marshall Hemingway—rich, of course, and the father of her two sons—died a few years after their marriage. Her next husband was Julius Fleischman, the multi-millionaire yeast king, who married her knowing she did not love him but wanting her at all costs. She lived the life of utmost luxury until she fell madly in love with J. Jay O’Brien, a professional dancer and gentleman jockey, and asked Fleischman to release her from their union. He did—giving her $5,000,000 as a farewell settlement.
A few millions, more or less…
But Dolly never seemed to miss the extra millions. She and O’Brien lived in what appeared to be bliss until his death in 1940, and after a period of mourning she began to be linked with other men—always famous, wealthy, interesting or all three. Jimmy Walker, gadabout Mayor of New York, was one of them. Jimmy Cromwell, once married to Doris Duke, was another. Handsome socialite Ronald Balcom, ex-husband of Millicent Rogers (who, incidentally, had a brief whing-ding with Gable) was a third on the list.
Then Dolly met Clark. Perhaps because she had the gift of camaraderie, which he prizes in women, they clicked instantly. He adores women who are amusing, who like to tell—or at least listen to—a bawdy joke, who will drink with him and stay up late and laugh a lot. He likes women to be good-tempered, easygoing, anything but neurotic or demanding.
Dolly filled the bill. Before long they were haunting hideaways to keep the seriousness of their romance from hitting the newspapers, but when they arrived in New York simultaneously and checked into the same hotel, even a cooperative management couldn’t keep the secret from breaking into excited print. From then on, no restaurant was dim enough to hide the fact that they were holding hands.
But Clark—just like in the movies—had a rival. He was Jose Dorelis, a smooth Bulgarian perfume-manufacturer in his forties who wore a monocle in his left eye and could top Clark at that old non-American custom, hand-kissing.
What happened was the thing that could not possibly have happened in the movies: Clark lost.
In the middle of what everyone thought was his big romance with Dolly, she married Dorelis. And to her intimate friends she offered an explanation completely foreign to the Gable legend:
Clark was a wonderful guy, she said. But Jose! Ah!–he was so much more romantic!
It did not seem to occur to her that calling Dorelis more romantic than Clark Gable put him several notches above Superman.
However, Superman lasted only a little over a year. Dolly filed for a friendly divorce, they exchanged extravagant compliments, and she flew back to Gable’s muscular arms.
When she decided to go to Europe this season, Clark decided to take a boat trip, too. There was every indication that he was not going to France just to see the Louvre.
But the experts who had it all doped out that he was sailing to pay court to the fabulous Dolly were completely thrown by the cosiness of the scene when he appeared at the Cunard-White Star pier with Nancy “Slim” Hawks on his arm and proceeded to enact a loving farewell.
Slim is the much-publicized “best-dressed woman” who most of Hollywood thought was going to marry Leland Hayward when his divorce from Margaret Sullavan became final. Her unabashed fondness for Gable in the last hours of his New York stay threw his wisies into complete confusion.
And what of Anita Colby, Hollywood’s most glamourous executive? The fans were asking that one, because of all the Gable dates, she has received the most publicity.
Anita is one of those girls everybody likes. It seems inconceivable that a girl could have pep, personality and perfect features and still be liked by women as well as sighed over by men, but Anita has been doing the trick for years and shows no sign of losing her grip. She is as smart as the well-known steel trap, ambitious as a girl can be, and successful—a combination that generally produces spectacular unpopularity. But her sense of humor, her hearty laugh, her lack of cattiness and her obvious good character have made it possible for her to stay friends with glamor girls, big executives and casual beaux, without anyone resenting her beauty or her steady climb up the movieland ladder.
Her intimates are convinced that if ever Gable had a platonic love, this is it. He loves taking Anita to parties, because she is so pretty and such a good sport, and she loves going with him because he’s a good sport too. He’s also Gable and every other girl in the place is gnawing her nails in envy and the attendant publicity is very good for a girl who’s out to get ahead in the world. But nobody thinks it will end in marriage. They believe Anita’s religious convictions would preclude her marrying a man who had two previous wives still living, and they believe anyway that the romance has never reached the point where it was that serious. It was already more in the newspapers than in her heart.
Some months ago it was rumored that Clark and Iris Bynum had eloped, and he called her up to kid about it. This was, in a way, a natural reaction, because their relationship, while close, has never been particularly sentimental or likely to wind up at a lily-banked altar.
Iris is a black-haired Texas beauty with a widow-peaked forehead, spectacular topography, long lacquered fingernails and an avid look. Her sultry brand of appeal has been appreciated by such connoisseurs of torridity as Tony Martin and George Raft, to give her the highest horrible kudos, and it is obvious to the most naïve observer that when she and Clark share an evening at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs, it’s dynamite meeting TNT.
Their love story has had its ups and downs, and the last time they had parted Iris expressed herself rather loudly on the subject of Clark’s off-hand treatment of the women in his life—particularly her.
“I’m tired of running when he calls up,” she said, in a who-does-he-think-he-is-Clark-Gable tone of voice. “No more!”
The betting among the Hollywood and Vine bookmarkers, however, was that a phone call and the right tone of voice from El Gable would right matters with Iris.
A complete contrast to Iris is Virginia Grey, the girl who has lasted longest in the Gable story. Most students of his biography think she was his first love after Carole Lombard’s death, and he has continued to turn to her for warmth, solace and adventure. She is an actress, in films and on stage, although for the most part her stage work has consisted of nothing more exciting than summer stock, and those who know her say she not only looks like an angel but has the temperament of a saint. Of all the women in his life, she, obviously, loves him the most, however he feels about her, for whenever he tires of a new love, or quarrels with a wild love, she takes him back. She is always waiting. She has never been known to reproach him or criticize him. She is simply there.
She has been quoted as saying: “Whatever happens, he always comes back to me.”
A mutual friend of hers and Clark’s said with amazement: “I’ve never seen anything like it. He has his other girl friends, his other romances, and she never objects, doesn’t say a word. When he calls her, she runs to him like a little girl.”
And there’s the big question mark.
Who will get Gable, of all his women—the sweet one, the one who’s a pal, the sultry one, the experienced one or the unexpected one?
Maybe even Gable doesn’t know the answer to that.