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Gossip Friday: A Rush Job
From March 21, 1939: Carole Lombard has hired twenty-four gardeners to complete a rush job on Clark Gable’s Encino estate. Carole’s mother, Mrs. Peters, has put on record her desire for a church wedding, or a ceremony in a private house performed by a preacher.
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Gossip Friday: Something to Talk About
From February 1936: Did you hear about the [valentine] Carole Lombard sent Clark Gable? She had an old Ford painted white, decorated with huge red hearts and ribbon and had it delivered to Mr. Gable’s hotel with her compliments. All this because of the false reports that have been going around town regarding the fact that she was romantically interested in Clark. Carole says she thought she would give the gossips something real to talk about for a change.
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Gossip Friday: A Mangy Mule
From February 1939: Carole Lombard’s surprise birthday present to Clark Gable was a mangy mule. Andy Devine brought five chickens and another friend, a sack of fertilizer.
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Happy Birthday, Clark Gable
Clark Gable was born William Clarke Gable to William and Adeline Gable in Cadiz, Ohio, 124 years ago today, February 1, 1901. He only lived to be 59 and has been dead longer than he lived, but if this website is any indication, he is not forgotten. 85 years ago, when Clark was turning 39, he had quite the memorable birthday. He and his wife of less than one year, Carole Lombard, had taken off on a hunting trip to Mexico. Shortly after, they caused a media frenzy when it was declared that the two stars were MISSING! The Gables’ personal secretary, Jean Garceau, recalled: “The Gables loved to go…
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{New Article} Hollywood’s Happiest Woman
Below is one of Carole Lombard’s final interviews, printed by the Associated Press in the days following her January 16, 1942 death. Hollywood’s Happiest Woman by Mayme Ober Peak Hollywood-Jan. 17–Sitting in her portable dressing room on the set of “To Be or Not To Be,” only seven weeks ago, Carole Lombard told me she was the happiest woman in Hollywood. I remarked that she was making her first picture in more than a year. She nodded, looked at me a little quizzically, and then said, almost sharply, “I don’t care if I never make another picture.” “No matter what career women tell you,” she said, “you cannot find happiness…
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Gossip Friday: A Different Clark Gable
From January 17, 1942: On the screen Clark Gable is a suave, swashbuckling hero. Nothing ever really upsets him. He has ice water in his veins. But today there is a different Clark Gable, a Clark Gable with disheveled hair and reddened eyes, a Clark Gable who looks like a broken man, a Clark Gable who spent the night nervously pacing a floor, and chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting for word about his wife, the beautiful Carole Lombard, in a TWA airliner which crashed in the Nevada mountains. Gable wanted to join the rescue party going to the scene of the wreckage, but policy persuaded him not to.
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Remembering Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard died 83 years ago today, on January 16, 1942. On a record-setting ward bond selling trip with her mother and Gable friend Otto Winkler, they all perished in a plane crash on Mount Potosi outside Las Vegas. As someone who only started researching Clark Gable and Carole Lombard the past 20 years or so, it is incredible to me that she has been gone 83 years. Carole just oozes a tangible human quality–you can see her walking down the street in 2025 no problem. It’s so sad to think we missed out on an elderly Carole, still in her fur coat and diamond brooches with cigarette in her…
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Gossip Friday: Awaiting the Real Thing
From December 1941: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable: 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 darned near right. There’s no use filling their stocking with fame, riches, happiness together, fine horses, motor cars, or any other gift most movie stars would be crazy about. They already have everything you’ve got in the bag–with on exception. If you can spare a mama-doll, please be sure that Carole gets one. It’s about the only thing…
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Gossip Friday: New Baby
From November 1941: Those baby rumors swarming around Clark Gable and Carole Lombard finally paid off—in a way. Carole just bought a colt which she presented to Clark and named Sonny.
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Gossip Friday: A Fair Enough Exchange
From October 1937: Here’s diversified talent for you. After the Rosenbloom-Nestell fight the other night, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard strolled out to meet Bill Robinson and Joe Louis. Bill introduced the screen stars to the ring champ as the quartet walked over to the parking lot to get their cars. Gable wanted to know how to fight, and Louis, very affable and courteous, said he’d teach him to stay off the floor if Clark would instruct him how to act. Fair enough exchange, that seems. Incidentally, no one paid much attention to them.
