• Gossip

    Gossip Friday: New Collector

    From August 1938: Gable item for the month: Clark’s taken up stamp collecting! One of the prop boys explained the fun you get out of saving stamps of all nations and Gable promptly ordered his secretary to carefully put aside all the stamps that arrive on fan mail. Can you imagine Carole Lombard sitting on her parlor floor, calm as a cucumber, pondering the newest issue from Paraguay?

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: In Her Hands

    From 1941: The most beautiful pair of book ends I ever saw hold a few of Clark Gable’s favorite books on a night stand beside his bed. They represent a pair of exquisitely molded bronzed hands. They are really the hands of Carole Lombard. From a plaster of Paris impression Carole had the arresting bronzes cast so she could feel she was always, personally, holding Clark’s books ready for him to choose. 

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: That Red Dress

    From 1945, Hedda Hopper’s memory of the infamous Mayfair Ball in 1936 (my recap of this incident here): Hollywood first got exclusive at the Little Club in the Ambassador where only the bon ton and the elite could cavort and caper on bathtub gin. But I think Hollywood snootiness flowered much later on at the Mayfair dances. Something happened there I’ll never forget. The Mayfair numbered Hollywood’s ultra-smart set. A Hollywood copy of the London West-Enders, of course, and oh, my dear, so formal. For a time its balls made news all over the world and I doubt if there was ever a more publicized and flash-bulbed Peacock Alley anywhere.…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: On His Arm

    From May 1942, fan letter to magazine: Los Angeles, May 28, 1937. I stood with many thousands at Wrigley Field, as busload of stars pulled in to watch the boxing match that night. I saw a great, handsome man emerge in a tweed coat and trousers, crepe sole shoes, and hat down over one eye, Behind him, his wife, Carole Lombard, dressed almost exactly like him.  “Clark Gable!” I whispered, and he immediately pushed his hat back and grinned like only he can. I grabbed his right arm (Carole was on the other) and buried my head so that the police couldn’t see that I didn’t belong there, and walked…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Don’t Ask

    From February 1937: Interviewers of Carole Lombard are cautioned in advance that they must not mention or ask about Clark Gable. Interviewers of Gable are expected not to mention Miss Lombard. Yet Gable isn’t in the least reticent about telling friends that he hopes to make a picture with Miss Lombard. Not only wants to, but expects to. __ Wants to make ANOTHER picture with Miss Lombard, to be precise. And a shame that never happened.

  • clark gable carole lombard
    Anniversary

    Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s 80th Anniversary

    Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were married 80 years ago today, on March 29, 1939. They were together about three years before they were married and unfortunately never made it to their third wedding anniversary before Carole’s untimely death, but Carole’s impact on Clark’s life can not be overestimated. In 1957, a reporter asked Clark why he doesn’t talk about Carole in interviews. “You may not like my next question,” I said. “Is it true that you don’t like to talk about Carole Lombard because it reminds you of her tragic end and distresses you?” “That isn’t true,” [Clark] said. “My feelings are under better control than that. I have…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Doing a Double Take

    From October 1940: Clark Gable and the Missus are burned up about the story going round that all is not well between them. Those who are spreading the poison should be squelched by the announcement that the pair intend taking a four-month honeymoon-vacation just as soon as Carole completes “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Another muffler for the gossip was provided by Clark just a few days ago when he told the following story about the wonderful Lombard sense of humor. It seems a bad case of poison ivy hit Carole recently and swelled her face until it looked like an automobile tire about to pop. A vainer woman would have…

  • Anniversary

    Goodbye, Carole

    Today marks 77 years since Carole Lombard perished in a plane crash at the young age of 33. Every year I mark this anniversary, and every year I marvel at the fact that she has been dead for such a long time. There is just something timeless about Carole. Carole’s death anniversary over the years: 2010: Memorial poem  2011: Excerpt from “The Story Gable Wouldn’t Tell” 2012: Photo gallery of Carole 2013: Excerpt from “This Was Carole” 2014: Excerpt from “What the Loss of Carole Lombard Means to Clark Gable” 2015: Excerpts from articles about Carole’s death 2016: For the 75th anniversary of her death, I did a day-by-day recap…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: New Aunt and Uncle

    From December 1940: Proudest couple in Hollywood are Clark Gable and Carole Lombard who now answer to Uncle and Aunt. Miss Lombard’s brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Peters, have just become parents of a seven-pound baby boy. Funniest incident at the hospital, where the Gables kept vigil with Peters and another brother of Carole, Stuart Peters, was that when Stuart heard the stork had arrived, he promptly collapsed. Gable had to leave the new father to look out for himself while he carried the overcome uncle to the adjoining room for treatment.    

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: For Clark From Carole

    From December 1938: How would you like to know what Carole Lombard gave Clark Gable [for Christmas?], what Claudette Colbert bought for her husband, Barbara Stanwyck’s gift to Bob Taylor, and vice versa? Well, here goes. Claudette today gave her doctor husband a magnificent new desk set and cuff links. Carole added to the handsome Cabonshon ruby we told you about with a new camera and an outboard motor for Clark.  ___ Okay, it says it would tell you what Barbara Stanwyck bought Robert Taylor, and then it doesn’t say. Huh.