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Gossip Friday: Clark with Red?
From February 1948, Sheilah Graham’s column: Clark Gable will do a Bob Hope in Red Skelton’s movie, “The Southern Yankee.” Gable will appear suddenly at the end of the picture and drive off with the heroine, Arlene Dahl! _____ Well that didn’t happen.
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Gossip Friday: Seeking Solace
From January 23, 1942: Clark Gable Plans to Seek Solace in Work Hollywood–Clark Gable, turned from a swashbuckling, carefree prankster into a depressed, grief-stricken recluse by the tragic death of Carole Lombard, will seek solace in work. The fun-loving screen star was so anguished by loss of his beautiful blonde wife that he wanted only to be alone. Shielded by studio executives, Gable has been so alone that friends became alarmed at his depressed brooding. Gable hasn’t yet gone to his Encino ranch where he and Carole lived so fully and joyously. He’s in seclusion at a friend’s home. He has left it only twice since he brought Miss Lombard’s…
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Goodbye, Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard Gable died 84 years ago today, when her plane crashed into Mount Potosi outside Las Vegas. She was 33 years old. 84 years is so hard to believe–if you look at the picture above, it could have been taken yesterday. Something about Carole just transcends her era. From the Associated Press: Millions Knew Carole Hollywood, Jan.17–Millions of Americans are going to miss Carole Lombard on the screen. She was killed in a plane crash early today. But she’ll be especially mourned in Hollywood, where she was universally liked because she debunked with that was artificial or insincere. Carol’s name is spelled C-a-r-o-l-e–that final “e” appeared on the screen…
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Gossip Friday: Gable Gets Into a Row
From April 1934: Hollywood, Calif.–A fight that might have been one of the best in Hollywood’s history of fame one-rounders was averted when friends separated Clark Gable and Gilbert Roland just when they had reached the coat-jerking stage in a verbal exchange involving Constance Bennett, it was learned today. The three were attending a party at the home of Samuel Goldwyn. Gable was chatting with Miss Bennett and Roland, Miss Bennett’s escort, was seated nearby playing bridge. Friends professed ignorance as to the draft of Gable’s conversation, but he was interrupted by an angry Roland. “You quit picking on her and pick on me,” Roland suddenly challenged. Gable accepted and…
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Gossip Friday: They’ll Be Back
From January 1958: Clark Gable and his Kay left today on a Caribbean cruise, but they’ll be back here for the Academy Awards and the world premiere of “Teacher’s Pet” the last of March.
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Gossip Friday: Fireside Chat with Clark and Carole
From December 31, 1940: Two Hollywood stars have had a lesson in acting that ought to make them much better performers in 1941. I refer to Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. For what reason, I don’t know, they seemed to be visiting the White House Sunday night, and were included in the small group that watched the President broadcast his address to the nation. Comments on the speech did not mention the reactions if Mr. Gable and wife, but whatever they may have thought of the message itself, as professional actors they must have realized they were sitting in the presence of a master performer. It seemed to this listener…
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Gossip Friday: Unorthodox Presents
From December 1938: The gifts Carole Lombard and Clark Gable have exchanged are even more unorthodox. Whoever heard of a woman in love with a man giving him a gun for Christmas! Or a man, crazy about one of the most glamorous, sophisticated and clever women in the land, hanging a petrol scooter on her Christmas tree! For Clark, Carole stopped, almost overnight, being a Hollywood playgirl. People are expected to change when they get married. The necessary adaptation to a new life and another personality shows up in every bride and groom. All Clark and Carole did was strike up a Hollywood twosome. Nobody said “I do!” Clark Gable…
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Gossip Friday: Praise from Lombard
From December 1938: George King Wins Praise of Miss Lombard For Getting Clark Gable to Learn Dancing Ability as Hoofer Was Required For Role in ‘Idiot’s Delight’ HE LOSES WEIGHT by Robbin Coons Hollywood, Dec. 22–From Carole Lombard to George King: Congratulations. Miss Lombard presented the same to Mr. King because he had accomplished (1) what she had been unable to do and (2) what no movie script had been able to do, and (3) what no woman had been able to do. Mr. King, a business-like young man, had made Clark Gable dance. Mr. Gable, for these many years, had gone through life practically without stepping on a dance…
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Gossip Friday: He Knows They’re Big
From December 1950: It happened to Clark Gable. A news gal, interviewing him, unwittingly mentioned all the gags about his ears, and then she crimsoned over her faux paus. “I don’t mind the kidding about my ears,” Gable reassured her. “I know they’re big.” “They only seem big, Mr. Gable,” was her tactful reply, “because your head isn’t.”
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Gossip Friday: The Waiting Game
From November 1938: Technicalities legal procedure, it appeared today, may prevent Hollywood from hearing Carole Lombard and Clark Gable say “I do” until some time in 1940. The actor’s $286,000 property settlement with his second wife, Maria Langham Gable, has been mutually approved but requires a court’s okay before Mrs. Gable can file suit for divorce. Gable said his wife, from whom he has been separated for three years, would seek a divorce as soon as a ruling is obtained on the legality of the settlement. He did not say he intends to marry the effervescent Lombard, but his friends declared they are sure he will as soon as he…
