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Clark Gable, Loretta Young and Their Daughter Judy Lewis
The story of Clark Gable and Loretta Young’s brief romance on the set of Call of the Wild and subsequent pregnancy is a sad one. Nowadays it is nothing at all, merely the typical day’s news, to read that an unwed celebrity is pregnant. Nobody bats an eye. In 1935, it was exactly the opposite. Clark was married, albeit in name only, to Ria at the time. So not only was unwed Loretta pregnant, she was pregnant with a married man’s baby. I probably get more emails and comments on the site, Facebook and Instagram about this Loretta Young situation than any other Gable topic. “He abandoned his child with…
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Movies of the Week: Call of the Wild (1935) and Key to the City (1950)
This week, we’ve got a Clark Gable and Loretta Young double feature in Call of the Wild (1935) and Key to the City (1950). I’m not going to dive into the whole Loretta Young-got-pregnant-with-Clark-Gable’s-baby-during-filming story. That’s all here. This is about the film. Clark Gable is Jack Thornton, on the hunt for a gold mine through the tundra with his sidekick Shorty (Oakie). As they struggle through the mountains in the bitter cold, they encounter Claire Blake (Young) who is stranded alone after her husband left her to search for food. They discover that Claire and her husband were after the same gold mine. Aided by their trusty dog Buck,…
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Gossip Friday: That’s What You Get
From October 1955: I doubt if anyone can kid Clark Gable as successfully as his bride, Kay. She keeps The King chuckling even about himself. When they returned from their honeymoon, they accepted the invitation of their friends, the Ray Hommes, to go to the Mocambo. As expected, the autograph hounds nearly ruined their evening both outside and inside the nightclub. In the midst of furiously signing menus and what-have-you, Kay leaned over and whispered in Clark’s ear, “See what you got by marrying me?”
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Movie of the Week: Polly of the Circus (1932)
This week, Clark Gable is a preacher in love with sassy acrobat Marion Davies in Polly of the Circus (1932). Clark is Father John Hartley, a small town minister living a peaceful life. The circus comes to town, with its star attraction: trapeze artist Polly Fisher (Davies). She is enraged when her risqué posters are covered up and confronts Hartley, who admits that her posters aren’t appropriate in the town. The crowd mocks her at her next performance, causing her to fall. She recuperates at Hartley’s house at his insistence since he feels guilty. Soon they fall in love. But his parish and bishop uncle (C. Aubrey Smith) don’t support…
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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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Movie of the Week: The King and Four Queens (1956) and Band of Angels (1957)
This week, Clark Gable is in two back-to-back color features, the Western The King and Four Queens (1956) and the Civil War-era drama Band of Angels (1957). In this Cinemascope Western, Gable is Dan Kehoe, a fugitive outlaw on the hunt for gold. In one town, he hears the story of the bandit McDade brothers, who were blown up in an explosion after stealing a huge pot of gold. Three charred, unrecognizable bodies were found, meaning one brother escaped but nobody knows which one. The gold was hidden by their mother, who is guarding it and the sons’ four wives in the deserted town of Wagon Mound. Kehoe makes up a story…
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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.
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Movie of the Week: Hell Divers (1931)
This week, Clark Gable is at odds with Wallace Beery (again) and plays a fearless pilot (again) in Hell Divers (1931). Clark is Steve Nelson, a budding Navy pilot constantly at odds with Windy Riker (Beery), who has been in the service for years and has no patience for newbies. When Windy stages a farce that makes Steve’s girl Ann (Dorothy Jordan) leave him, their relationship becomes hostile. After a drunken brawl, Wally ends up in jail and misses the boat, causing Clark to be promoted to his position. This film is not one of Clark’s best, but it’s interesting to see a young Clark in uniform, battling it out…
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Gossip Friday: Missing a Friend
From December 1955 (Louella Parsons): Mrs. Clark Gable has become so much the wife of The King that she is seeing few of the old friends who were so good to her in the dark days when life was pretty desperate for her. It’s understandable that a married woman must accept her husband’s friends and make his pals hers, but there is one case where I think Kay is remiss–that of a certain actress who was very good to her during the days when other of her friends shied away from the then Mrs. Spreckels for fear of publicity. Of course, I may be wrong and there may be some…
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Movie of the Week: The White Sister (1933) and Night Flight (1933)
This week, we’ve got a Clark Gable-Helen Hayes double feature: The White Sister (1933) and Night Flight (1933). In The White Sister, Clark Gable is Giovanni Severa, a pilot in the Italian Air Force. He meets Angela (Hayes), an aristocratic daughter of a prince (Lewis Stone). Her father opposes their romance but they steal moments together anyway. When Giovanni goes off to fight in the 1914-1918 war, Angela waits for him so they can get married. When she learns he has died in combat, she knows she will never love again and joins a convent. Clark is quite dashing here, in a uniform and all full of romantic prose. It…
