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{In the News} Kay Williams Marries Adolph Spreckels 1945-1951
Picking up with where we left off, Kay and Clark Gable are broken up and so Kay has moved on.. September 7, 1945: Kay Williams Is Bride Hollywood–Blond actress Kay Williams, who last year was reported engaged to Clark Gable, today was honeymooning with sugar heir Adolph Spreckels, Jr., of San Francisco. Same date: Film actress Kay Williams and Adolph Spreckels, Jr., sugar fortune heir, were married last night at the home of a Wickenburg justice of the peace. Adolph Spreckels Jr. was the grandson of Claus Spreckels, founder of the Spreckels sugar company. Now that she married Adolph Jr., you thought that was the last we’d see of her…
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Gossip Friday: Party at Sonja’s
From 1945: It took her a long time to go social, but Sonja Henie finally cracked out with Hollywood’s first post-war party. She gave it the works! There was a buffet supper served inside a huge tent. A dance floor, music, and not coin a phrase, more stars than there are in heaven. Clark Gable was with Anita Colby–not serious (they say) but having such fun together. Joan Fontaine and Mrs. Ronald Colman wore the same “exclusive” gown, which didn’t make Joan too happy. Joan Crawford and Phil Terry arrived early, left early and danced only with each other. They missed the best impromptu floor show pit on by Danny…
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Gossip Friday: Hey There!
From December 1955: Hey There! When I pulled my auto to a stop at a Ventura Boulevard intersection, I noticed a familiar face in the car beside me. Figuring the handsome actor would be embarrassed to see me staring, I casually turned away. But to my amazement, I heard a rambling, nonsensical whistle directed at me. I then realized he was trying to attract my attention in the hope that I would recognize him. I shyly acknowledged Clark Gable’s persistence and in an instant a worried look disappeared from his face and he was smiling and beaming at me! Incidentally, Mr. Gable surely can’t carry a tune! Nancy Wyatt Fresno,…
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{In the News} Kay Williams Dates Clark Gable (For The First Time) 1944-1945
When we last left Kay, she’d been awarded a divorce from her second husband, Argentine millionaire Macoco. Before we get into 1944, I want to address some inconsistencies about when Clark Gable and Kay Williams first got together. In her book, “Clark Gable: A Personal Portrait,” Kay details the following: I turned down the initial invitation to meet [Clark]. It was in 1942, shortly after I arrived in Hollywood. I had a stock contract at MGM, the same studio where Gable was the reigning star. I was living in a small apartment in Westwood when one day I received a call from Benny Thau, an MGM executive and technically, one…
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Gossip Friday: New Gal on His Arm
From January 1955 (Louella Parsons): When Clark Gable allows his picture to be taken again and again with the same girl at social events, it begins to look serious. Well, the King has been photographed many times lately with Kay Williams Spreckels, beautiful blonde ex-wife of sugar millionaire Adolph Spreckels. Kay was terribly in love with Clark before she married Spreckels and apparently he was in love with her. They went together for a long time but then, without a word, Gable walked out of her life. I’d be the last to prophesy that he will marry Kay now. But there’s no telling with Clark, though I do know he…
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Gossip Friday: Quiet Ann
From December 1949: I remember a party when Loretta Young was at the same dinner table with Ann [Sheridan] and Clark Gable. Loretta talked brilliantly. Ann made no attempt to take the spotlight. In fact, she didn’t speak more than half a dozen words. She offered nothing–just laughed loudly when Loretta or someone said something amusing. ____ Kind of an awkward dinner table…
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{In The News} The Later Years of Sylvia Ashley (1955-1977)
We’ve recently explored Clark Gable and Sylvia Ashley’s Divorce Battle (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) and Clark and Sylvia in the two years following their divorce. What happened to Sylvia in the last two decades of her life? When we last left her, it was December 1954 and she had just married Georgian Prince Dmitri Djordjadze. News blurbs pop up less and less about her as the years go on, but here’s what I found. (Note: Some articles spell her husband’s name Dmitri and some Dimitri. I just type them as they are written.) September 22, 1955: (New York) Seen: Sylvia Ashley Fairbanks Gable Djordjadze (once and English…
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Gossip Friday: Fashionably Interested
From April 1950: The invitations to Adrian’s spring fashion show read, “So many men have asked me, ‘Why can’t we come to your fashion show and see what our wives are buying?’–that he invited the gents. Even so, seeing Clark Gable sitting beside his bride, Sylvia, who carefully marked all of Adrian’s best numbers down, was something I thought I’d never live to witness! Yes, there was king Gable, looking as interested as all get-out–and seeing him was worth paying admission for. At first I thought Clark was blushing, but it was only a deep sunburn!
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{In The News} Clark Gable and Sylvia Ashley Post-Divorce, 1952-1954
(Here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series) Soon after the divorce decree was handed down, Clark hit the high seas for Europe. May 7, 1952: Clark Gable Sails for Europe, Denies Romantic Thoughts New York–Clark Gable sailed for Europe Tuesday for six months of picture making. “I’m not thinking of any romantic attachment yet,” Gable said aboard the liner Liberte. “I’m still married.” The screen star explained that the divorce obtained by the former Lady Sylvia Ashley last month at Santa Monica, Cal., does not become final for a year. Here’s a piece that came out around this time about the girl everyone thought would…
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Gossip Friday: 2:00am Evidence
From August 1937: Of course, I’m not one to gossip, but they do say that the Lombard girl waited at the MGM studio till two o’clock the other morning for Clark Gable, who was having a long session in front of the cameras. That, in Hollywood, is love…. The burning question of the moment is, “Will Carole marry Clark?” The Lombard-Gable affair has been a headline romance for some time now. their friendship began back in 1933, when they appeared together in No Man of Her Own. Carole at the time did have a man of her own (she was married to William Powell), and no whisper of romance came…