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Gossip Friday: A Letter to Santa
From December 1941 (Truesdell): Santa Gets a Letter Asking Favors for Stars Dear Santa, Answering your wire of this morning, you will find below the report on the little boys and girls that you wanted. Please, Santa, keep this confidential because if it ever leaks out that I’m your Hollywood legman it will spoil our swell association of all these years. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard: It’s not that I’m lazy, but on these couples that I’m hooking together for a combination gift you can be sure that it’s exactly what they both want for the happiest holiday. I suppose you’re thinking that Clark and Carole have everything, and you’re…
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Gossip Friday: Rhett’s Command Performance
From January 1940: When Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, got home from their exciting trip to Atlanta for the premiere festivities of “Gone with the Wind,” Gable sank into his favorite chair, sighed, grinned and exclaimed: “Well, Mrs. G., here we are at home–and isn’t it wonderful? Now I know how kings feel when they finally get into their private suites and pull off their trappings, after reviewing the troops, laying a cornerstone and addressing the populace.” From first to last Gable has been doing a command performance. Frankly, he didn’t want to tackle the role of Rhett Butler. After all, the guy was a Southern renegade, a…
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Gossip Friday: Tossed for a Loop
From January 1938: Two of the presents Clark Gable gave to Carole Lombard were an English sheepdog and a two-seated motor scooter. When she was riding it Christmas night, the thing got out of control and tossed Carole for a loop. Wrecked her evening gown but did no damage to her person. After all those crazy comedies, falling off a scooter is child’s play to the star.
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Gossip Friday: Mrs. G. Says No Beards
From November 1941: In refusing to play a part calling for his wearing a beard, Clark Gable told the producer: “Mrs. G. doesn’t want me to wear a beard in a picture. She says beards are not romantic, women don’t like them.”
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Gossip Friday: No Turkey
From February 1938: Because Carole Lombard does not like turkey and cannot eat it without an expression of disgust, a property man on the “Fools for Scandal” set had to fix up something that looked like a turkey leg, but wasn’t, for a scene of hers. He just stripped a turkey leg, wrapped it with roast beef, and Carole was able to play the scene with required enthusiasm.
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Gossip Friday: Away Down East?
From July 1941: Gables to Live Away Down East Part of The Year Hollywood–Carole Lombard and Clark Gable have bought a farm in Connecticut and will live there in October, November and December of each year. Clark’s contract calls for three pictures between January and the end of September. But because of the lack of good material, Clark has not made more than two films a year on the new deal, but gets paid for three. ___ Well this is hogwash. They never bought a farm in Connecticut or anywhere close.
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Gossip Friday: A Feminine Conspiracy
From March 1941: One of the reasons, admittedly a minor one that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard get along so famously is that both see eye to eye on the matter of “dressing up” and putting on the airs. Farmer Gable goes for those rusty old trousers and sweaters in his real farm life as well as in the still pictures, and Carole, he says, will have no part in that general feminine conspiracy which aims at getting the male into white tie and tails at the slightest provocation.
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Gossip Friday: Quite a Distraction
From February 1941: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard visited the Douglas airplane factory recently and were cordially taken on a thorough tour. Now an order has been issued that no more movie stars are to be shown around the vast plant. Workmen were so distracted by a gander at the Gables that the delicately balanced production routine was thrown out of whack for hours.
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Gossip Friday: Cigar Squabble
From November 1938: The pretty brunette who works the cash register at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby reports, “Clark Gable and Carole Lombard come in, usually arguing about the silliest things. The other night it was about what kind of cigar Clark should have as an after-dinner smoke.”
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Gossip Friday: Hoping to Baffle
From November 1941: Hoping to baffle autograph hunters, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard gave out three destinations–all wrong–for their current hunting trip. Only star with a “hunting clause” in his contract, Gable is due back December 1 to do “Cimarron,” a remake of the pioneer story which revived Richard Dix and rocketed Irene Dunne to a feminine top spot. ____ That’s interesting. Clark never was in a remake of “Cimarron” and it was not remade until 1960!