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Gossip Friday: Very Much All Right
From March 1941: Wouldn’t you think that, after coming 3,000 miles to see Clark Gable (and a few others), and, after rearranging a whole week so as to be able to get out to MGM, when he would be working on a picture–wouldn’t you imagine that we’d have something very serious and important to talk about? Something like the Rhett Butler portrayal which climaxed his career. Or like the shoulder which gave him so much trouble a few months ago. Or like his home life. Or Carole Lombard. Well, we did touch on those subjects, of course, but lightly. No need to say much about Rhett Butler, since Gable put…
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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: Rhett Can Ride
From March 1940: Clark Gable proved that if he ever gets tired of romantic leads he can sign up as a hard-riding western star. Assigned to “sit out” a scene on a spirited black horse, Gable found the animal feeling too good to stand still. So, before the next take was ready, Gable galloped his steed up the road and gave it such a workout that it was glad to take a rest while the picture was being shot. The riding part was that of Rhett Butler in “Gone with the Wind,” David O. Selznick’s Technicolor production starring Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland and currently showing…
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Remembering Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland, one of the very few classic-era actresses still with us, has died at age 104. Her passing will probably only merit two paragraphs in celebrity magazines this week, probably under the title “Gone with the Wind Actress Dies”—a title that makes me, as it would her, wince. Olivia de Havilland played sweet, doomed Melanie in Gone with the Wind, and ironically was the last to die of the principals of the film. But that is hardly the only film she should be remembered for. Olivia won two Oscars (for 1947’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress) and was nominated a total of five times–including her Best…
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Gossip Friday: Rhett on the Radio?
From April 1939: Latest bulletin from the Hollywood Front is that Cecil B. DeMille is dickering to present a radio version of “Gone with the Wind” on his regular Monday drama hour. And, by the way, they do some funny things in Hollywood occasionally. David O. Selznick spent thousands of dollars testing various candidates for the role of Rhett Butler…but Clark Gable, who was the first one signed for the picture, didn’t make one test! __ That never happened. Would have been quite the long radio program!
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Gossip Friday: Runaway Race for Rhett?
From February 1937: ...I note that Joan Crawford is gaining strong support for the role of Scarlett O’Hara, that Melvyn Douglas and Franchot Tone are threatening Leslie Howard’s lead in the race for Ashley’s role and that Clark Gable’s runaway race for the part of Rhett Butler is stirring up determined opposition. Those who want Clark can see nobody else in the role–those who don’t wax pretty savage in their counterblasts. As, for instance: “All I can say is ‘Heaven forbid Gable in the role of Rhett!’ and you can tell the horde who had the stupidity to choose him that they had better read the book over again. Such…
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Gossip Friday: Scarlett O’Hepburn
From November 1938: “Idiot’s Delight” with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable, is pushing toward the finish line and Gable expects to rest over the Christmas holidays in preparation for a prospective start on “Gone with the Wind,” shortly after the first of the year. Gable and others predict that Katharine Hepburn will be announced shortly for the Scarlett O’Hara role. ___ I like Hepburn and all, but it’s hard to imagine that she was seriously considered for the part.
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Gossip Friday: Good Exercise
From May 1940: “Gone with the Wind” [director Victor Fleming] is now directing Clark (Rhett Butler) Gable in “Boom Town”–and thereby hangs a chucklesome anecdote. Seems that Clark, who unmercifully ribbed Fleming during the filming of “Gone” by charging him with slave-driving tactice, has been harping on the same theme during “Boom Town.” The other day, with visitors on the set, he commented loudly on the “cruelty” Fleming displayed by making him carry Vivien Leigh up a flight of stairs 22 times or “GWTW.” “Clark,” retorted the director, “I’ll let you in on a secret–just to prove that ribbing often backfires. The third take was okay–you carried her upstairs the…
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On the Auction Block, November 23
TCM has paired with Bonhams again for another classic-film themed auction, this time called “Treasures from the Dream Factory.” Everything is up for grabs on November 23. There are a few Clark Gable items; some of them I know I have seen sold at auction before, either on Ebay or in the 1996 Estate Auction. Clark’s personal bound screenplay for “The Hucksters.” (est. $3,000-$5,000) Clark Gable bound screenplay of The Hucksters Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1947. Mimeographed manuscript, screenplay by Luther Davis, 135 pp, November 15, 1946 (with revision pages as late as April 2, 1947), housed in yellow Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer wrappers, with Script Department label to upper front cover, stamped “Complete,” with Script Department…
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Gossip Friday: Rhett Butler–A Menace to a Career?
From April 1940: I asked Clark Gable if he felt it dangerous to work so long in a single film such as “Gone with the Wind.” Fans forget easily. Will the role of Rhett Butler, no matter how colorful, be strong enough to hold Clark at the top, to overcome the long months of getting him on celluloid? Gable writes thus: “Rather than being too dangerous to work too long in one picture, I can say from experience that it is of definite value to an actor and makes for a superior film. There is no substitute for adequate and careful preparation. ‘Gone with the Wind’ proves this. From an…
