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Gossip Friday: On the Sick List
From January 1940: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are on the sick list–but in a minor way. Carole is merely overtired from the Atlanta junket, and Clark has lost his voice from the same cause. As a matter of record, Clark found the jaunt much less dangerous than he had anticipated. “I had expected to be torn apart,” he said on his arrival back here. “But the people in the South are ladies and gentlemen–they leave you with your pants.”
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Gossip Friday: Still No Queen
From November 1954: Rumor or No: The King hasn’t chosen his Queen! When Clark Gable made a fast trip to the hospital to pick up his old friend Kay Williams Spreckels who had suffered a slight accident, many people jumped to the conclusion that romance was in the air. Actually, Clark maintains friendship of longstanding with Kay, as with Virginia Grey, and if he ever talked of marriage to either, no one says so. Clark, who will be fifty-three on February 1, has confided to intimates that there is only the slimmest chance that he’ll ever wed again. Furthermore, he is not going to dispose of his ranch on Petit…
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Gossip Friday: Experts Agree
From October 1934: Clifton Webb is the most scrupulously fashionable of acting celebrities; he innovated the lapel red carnation and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. popularized the whimsy. Clark Gable, experts agree, did much to bring back the turtleneck sweater which I see here and there among collegiates, and certainly Katharine Hepburn made America jodhpur-conscious.
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Gossip Friday: No Feud in Cargo
From November 1939: For these many weeks, we’ve been reading items and hearing rumors about Clark Gable and Joan Crawford being so angry at each other the chances are against their ever finishing their current costarring picture. So we dropped by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer today on the theory that maybe we’d see Gable get his face slapped by an outraged Miss Crawford. On stage 26 was Miss Crawford in tatters, as if somebody had gone after her with a pitchfork. There also was Gable, dirty, sweaty, greasy–and snarling at his leading lady. “Don’t tap your heart,” she yelled back at him, “it’ll break your finger.” If ever two movie performers were boiling…
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Gossip Friday: Thanksgiving in the Desert
From December 1959: The Thanksgiving holiday and the Polo Matches at Eldorado attracted many visitors to the Palm Desert area. Clark Gable and Kay Spreckles had lunch on the terrace at Shadow Mountain Club while the children played tennis. Hugh O’Brien escorted pretty redheaded Doris Hurley to the Polo Fields. Also on hand for Thanksgiving were Mr. and Mrs. Walter Lanz. Mr. Lanz is the creator of Woody Woodpecker and his wife is Woody’s voice. They were guests at the Shadow Terrace in Palm Desert.
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Gossip Friday: I’ve Earned It
From November 1956: Mr. Gable is a partner with Jane Russell and Bob Waterfield in “The King and Four Queens.” We asked how it felt to be a freelance actor after 25 years at MGM. “I make my own mistakes now instead of having someone else make them for me,” Mr. Gable said. “I’m still trying to make a good picture so if I appear in a bad one, it’s my fault. “I left MGM because I didn’t want to be tied down and committed to work at such-and-such a time. I think I have made enough pictures now so that instead of taking one month off, I can take…
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For Us, The King Will Never Die
Clark Gable died 62 years ago today at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles. A heart attack claimed The King of Hollywood at age 59. This pictorial layout appeared in Modern Screen magazine after his death: Clark Gable 1901-1960 For us the King will never die A poor boy…a nobody…with big ears and a magnetic charm, a he-man ruggedness…Clark lived his life, said little, and we loved him. lovers: In Clark’s life there were five wives and no scandals. But on the screen his amours were messy–and with the greats of filmland’s Golden Days. Shown in his arms are Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow and Vivien Leigh, the lovely…
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Salute to Heroes
From Movieland magazine in 1943: As you read this, our country will have been at war approximately two years and five months. To no community in our great land, has the war wrought more changes than to Hollywood. To the fight for freedom, Hollywood has given out not only its manpower and its money but its time, its talents, it dreams. The men are in uniform, but the girls have gone to battle in their own way, on bond tours in this country, over the air on Command Performance, out in the mud of the South Pacific, the fiery deserts of North Africa, the snows of Alaska on entertainment tours.…
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Gossip Friday: Spotted
From November 1938: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable spotted stopping at a spot for a corned beef and cabbage dinner. They were joined by Franchot Tone and Pat Di Cicco.
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Gossip Friday: No Copy is Good Copy
From November 1937: There are no more natural people in Hollywood than Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. And of all the people in Hollywood a reporter would expect to be good sports and talk a little about their rom–pardon–their friendship, it would be Clark and Carole. But they won’t. Few people know why, but if they’d ask Carole they’d find out. Shortly after they began appearing together a fan magazine story involving the two was published. The writer had obviously referred to a dated joke book. According to Carole, the “smart sayings” which were put into her mouth and Clark’s were covered in cobwebs. The story also said, right out…
