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Gossip Friday: Don’t Try Too Hard
From December 1934: If you would be successful, don’t woo success too hard. This is the only moral Clark Gable has gained from his astonishing career. “Success–this kind of success-was the last thing in my mind,” the star explained frankly. “I liked acting and wanted to make a living at it, but I never once believed I would accomplish more than that.” Gable made these remarks on the set of “Forsaking All Others,” the new all-star picture in which he shares honors with Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery. The picture, which opens Sunday at the Strand Theatre, was directed by W.S. Van Dyke. “Few professional actors look forward to any…
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{New Article} 1940: Joe Lucky
This 1940 article was in The Saturday Evening Post, whom I’m guessing paid their journalists per word because all their articles are so very bloated. This one is 5,838 words, but who’s counting. Me, the one who typed it, I am the one counting. Anyway. This article is supposed to be about how lucky Clark is and that’s why he is a success. But yet it goes into a rather pointless meandering tale of Clark’s early years working in the oil fields, the lumber camps, as a small time theatre actor–a lot of hard, broke times that eventually led to success. At least the author did indeed interview Clark, so…
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Gossip Friday: His Own Critic
From July 1936: The big show at a Hollywood boulevard movie house the other evening was for that group of people who sat behind Clark Gable and Carole Lombard at a showing of “San Francisco.” But Gable’s conversation about the picture he’s in didn’t go unnoticed. He’d make a good movie critic.
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Happy 100th Birthday, Judy Garland!
Judy Garland, born Frances Gumm on June 10, 1922, would have been 100 years old today! Although Judy and Clark Gable never co-starred together, they were both on the MGM roster and Judy’s big break into stardom was because of her singing her adulation for a certain Mr. Gable. At the beginning of 1937, 14-year-old Judy was contracted to MGM but they didn’t really know what to do with her. She was extremely talented, yes, but was too young to sing romantic songs. Judy was set to appear on the radio show “Ole Maestro,” a radio variety program run by Ben Bernie. The vintage torch song “You Made Me Love…
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Gossip Friday: Sound Your Siren
From January 1940: The boys play too rough on Clark Gable’s sets, Carole Lombard discovered. She visited her husband on the sound stage where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “Strange Cargo” was in production, in time to see Gable watching with great amusement while Lou Smith, his stand-in, and Stanley Campbell, his make-up man, reenacted the fight that is staged by Gable and Albert Dekker for the film. Neither of the combatants saw Miss Lombard until Smith suddenly ducked and Campbell landed a haymaker on Miss Lombard’s cheek. The two retired in great confusion and amid profound apologies, while Gable grinningly warned his wife that “next time you step into this gymnasium, you better…
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Gossip Friday: Earn Respect
From May 1954: “I saw Clark Gable the other night in New York. Now there’ a really great guy. They don’t call him “The King” for nothing. I used to hang around the caddy shack at the club when I was a kid hoping for a chance to pack his bag. Sometimes I got it. If I didn’t, I followed him around. He was always swell to me, always my idol. Still is. So when I saw him in Twenty-One I went right up. He’d been in Europe for a long time but I might have seen him yesterday. He said some pretty nice things about me, said he was…
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{New Article} 1934: What’s Happened, Gable?
The latest article in the Article Archive is a typical one for the period. The MGM publicity machine was very keen on painting Clark Gable as this rebellious rogue who scoffed at fame and stardom and wanted nothing more than to walk away from it all. “The fault lies purely with myself,” [Clark] said. “I thought I wanted something, something I find I don’t want at all. I was not meant to be a motion picture actor—or any actor. But in the beginning I didn’t realize that I thought I wanted acting fame more than anything in the world. How, then, can Hollywood be blamed for giving me what I…
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Gossip Friday: Meet Sonny
From November 1941: Those baby rumors swarming around Clark Gable and Carole Lombard finally paid off–in a way. Carole just bought a colt which she presented to Clark and named Sonny.
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Gossip Friday: Besieged
From September 1941: Clark Gable, Carole Lombard Besieged by Film Fans Here Actor-Couple Signs 150 Autographs Before Hiding in Hotel; On Way to Hunt in Canada Albuquerque, New Mexico–Two old hunting pals spent a few hours in Albuquerque Monday, after their eastbound plane was grounded by bad weather–and Alvarado Hotel employees were almost swamped by a rush of autograph seekers. The reasons: one of the hunters is Clark Gable, motion picture star, who was accompanied by his wife, Carole Lombard of the screen. Gable’s hunting pal is H.H. Fleishman, of MGM Studios, who also was accompanied by his wife. The party was on its way by air to Manitoba, Canada,…
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Gossip Friday: Strange Quartet
From November 1938: A strangely assorted quartet that meets once or twice a week in the valley for rounds of bridge or badminton is composed of Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Mr. and Mrs. Andy Devine. The Devines have many other intimates, but Gable and Lombard keep much to themselves. When they do step out socially, it is invariably over to Andy’s ranch.
