1950: From Now On There’ll Be No Ghosts for Clark and Sylvia (Part 2)

From Now On There’ll Be No Ghosts for Clark ad Sylvia–They’re Madly in Love

by Sheilah Graham

Associated Newspaper Article

January 13, 1950

Hollywood, Calif–Jan. 12–A week before Clark Gale’s atomic elopement with Lady Sylvia Stanley, a columnist printed the story that for seven years, ever since the tragic death of Carole Lombard in a plane crash, Clark had kept her bedroom at their Encino ranch untouched.

Every dress was in the same place. Her perfume was just as it was on the blond-colored dressing table. Gable, when he read the story, hit the roof.

“It’s completely false and ridiculous,” he said.

Everything belonging to Carole, the third and youngest of his four wives, had been sent to her family soon after her death.

Clark isn’t the type to live with a ghost. And, while it took him years to get over the loss of the gay, attractive, tempestuous Carole, he’s too normal a man to entertain his women friends or his new wife surrounded by memories of the movie star he loved so much. That is why I think he will soon sell the ranch.

At any rate, they plan some extensive remodeling immediately after the honeymoon is over.

Maybe now, also, Sylvia will dispose of the fancy beach home in which she was so happy with the late Douglas Fairbanks, the second of her four husbands. Actually, she hasn’t lived in it very much. Since the death of Doug, it has been occupied by her sister, Vera, and her husband, Basil Bleck, and their two children. Sylvia merely stayed there on her short, periodic visits to Hollywood.

One thing is sure. From now on, there will be no ghosts for Clark or Sylvia. They are madly in love. They have known each other casually for 11 years—they met when Sylvia was Mrs. Fairbanks. But the blaze did not get under way until three months ago, at the glossy Mocambo party in Hollywood for Tennessee Williams.

Sylvia, a vision in a white strapless gown, spent most of the evening dancing cheek to cheek with Clark. They made a wonderful looking couple—her blond hair and pale, fragile-looking face snuggling into Clark’s black handsomeness.

Most other gals would have stayed around the consolidate the victory. But not Sylvia. She has never waited for any man in her life, but many men have waited to get her: Millionaire Woollie Donahue, who chased her to Europe last summer; wealthy golfer Robert Sweeney, everyone was sure they would marry; Randolph Churchill, they had quite a picnic in Palm Beach two years ago; Harry Hurt, young Texas millionaire, and Dukes by the dozen of every nationality.

But after kindling the flame in the exclusive Gable heart, Sylvia took off the following week for England. An, as usual, her name was linked with this and that male from border to border and continent to continent.

Gable was not idle either. He called Marilyn Maxwell. “Honey, how about a date at Ciro’s.” “Honey” was delighted. He called Paulette Goddard. “Would you lie to come for a ride, Sugar.” “Sugar” was delighted. He even posed with her at the airport when she took off for Mexico to make a picture. “But I won’t kiss her for the photographers,” insisted Clark, who considers kissing an indoor sport.

Three weeks before the actual elopement, Lady Sylvia returned to town. Clark called on her. It still wasn’t a big conflagration. He was fascinated, though. But that didn’t stop him from meeting blond Producer Joan Harrison when she flew in from England a week after Lady Sylvia’s return. And he sure had me fooled about his romantic intentions, when he drove Miss Harrison to Del Mar for the recent championship racetrack meeting.

“To study for my next role I play a race driver in ‘To Please a Lady,’” said Clark. But he studied Joan’s pretty face much more than the cars.

And a few days before the marriage, Clark took Joan to the sneak preview of his latest picture, “Key to the City,” and we were beginning to think that she had the key to his heart.

On the Thursday and Friday nights before the Tuesday elopement, Clark was dining and wining Miss Harrison at Romanoff’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills. And he actually made a date with her for Wednesday, the day after the marriage. Which I don’t have to tell you he didn’t keep!

I was the first to break the news of the elopement to Clark’s close friend, Charles Feldman. I was at Warners when the flash came from San Luis Obispo, and I dashed to the set of Feldman’s picture, “The Glass Menagerie.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. “Clark and Sylvia are having dinner with me Saturday night. I don’t care what anybody says. I just don’t believe it.”

Very few people will believe that Lady Sylvia, the queen of café society, the toast of the international set, one of the best dressed women in the world, not only does her own marketing but also washes and fixes her hair herself—and always has. She also manicures her nails. And, she’s a terrific cook. Not only all that, but when she loves a man, she’ll do anything for him, even hunting and fishing!

When she was married to Douglas Fairbanks, they spent most of their California time in the great outdoors, because Douglas, unlike Clark in recent years, just couldn’t breathe in the warm air of nightclubs and such. He had to be outdoors to function right. So Sylvia trained herself to get up at 8 am to live his kind of life.

The day I want to see is when she gets up at 4 in the morning, to shoot ducks with duck-hunter Clark! Right now she certainly loves him enough for it, and, in Honolulu, they are swimming, golfing and boating—the latter with the famous surf rider, Duke Kahanomoku, as their teacher.

“Most people know Sylvia as a very chic girl who does nothing except have fun,” her longtime friend, Minna Wallis, told me. “They’d be surprised. All except Clark (whom Minna started in pictures when he first came to Hollywood in “The Last Mile”. He knows what a prize he captured. Sylvia is very home-conscious. She’d just as soon spend an evening at home playing canasta as going to the best party in town.”

Sylvia likes a few people, like the Ronald Colmans and Miss Wallis, and mostly, when she was here, she’d spend night after night at their homes.

One Sunday, when the Robert Douglases were coming to the beach place unexpectedly for lunch, Sylvia dashed to a little fish place in Santa Monica and the international set would have sat back on its heels to see Lady Sylvia picking out haddocks with her own fair hands.

She’s very energetic, always doing something. She can trim bushes, plant flowers, paint pictures—and very well. And she’ll suddenly decide the carpet isn’t green enough, and get out the dyes right away and tint the carpet on the spot. “They’re two of the swellest people in the world,” says Miss Wallis. “And take it from one who knows them better than most people—they really deserve one another.”

Now the question is, how will Clark’s fourth marriage affect his movie career, and where do he and she go from here? I’ll give you my predictions tomorrow.