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Gossip Friday: Elastic Man
From June 1958: The most famous male face in pictures is also the most elastic, according to writer-producer-director George Seaton, twice an Academy Award winner and a veteran who should know what he is talking about. Its owner is Clark Gable, of course, and Seaton, who directed Gable in “Teacher’s Pet,” says he learned a lesson from guiding The King through the Paramount comedy release [currently playing]. “Most people don’t realize, and I certainly didn’t, that Mr. Gable can wordlessly run through the gamut of emotions and register, authentically, just about every reaction in the books,” said Seaton. The screenplay has the kind of salty man-to-man and man-to-woman humor that…
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Gossip Friday: The Next Mrs?
From November 1948: One of the hottest rumors around Hollywood has to do with Anita Colby and Clark Gable. Intimates believe if Clark ever marries again it will be to The Face. She is nothing like Carole Lombard, who was one of the town’s great personalities—off screen as a well has on. Carole had a zest for life. She fitted in a duck blind as well as she did in a drawing room. Colby is a business girl, who has made more than average success in executive positions. But the years have changed Gable too. He has grown into middle age and needs a wife about the house perhaps more…
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Gossip Friday: No Notes
From November 1950: Fan magazine and newspaper feature writers are getting the icy treatment from MGM on articles dealing with the married life of Clark Gable and his Sylvia. One writer who merely wanted Sylvia to make marginal notes on a profile of Clark was turned down.
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Gossip Friday: The Gift of Trees
From June 1939: Mrs. Helen Stuart Sends Prize Trees to New Gable Home Two prize elm trees which will stand on the grounds of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Gable’s new home in Bel-Air are the gift of Mrs. Helen Kimberly Stuart of Neenah, WI to Mr. Gable and and his recent bride, Carole Lombard. Mrs. Stuart, whose aunt is Miss Lombard’s grandmother, is called Aunt Nell by the actress. Jack and James Kimberly of Neenah are also distant relatives of the new Mrs. Gable, as their grandmother was a sister of Mrs. Gable’s grandmother. The elm trees which Mrs. Stuart sent to the newlyweds are offspring of the tree under…
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Happy Anniversary, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard
Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were married 84 years ago today, March 29, 1939, in Kingman, Arizona. It was Clark’s third marriage and her second. Clark was hard at work on a little film called Gone with the Wind at the time. Carole had been known as the “Queen of Screwball” for her zany comedies like Nothing Sacred, My Man Godfrey, True Confession and The Princess Comes Across. After she married Clark, she changed course and decided she wanted to try her hand at drama. Desperate to have a baby, she slowed down her work load and only made six films from 1939 until her untimely death in January 1942.…
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Gossip Friday: Open Season
From October 1941: Carole Lombard went gunning today, not only for birds with feathers on ’em, but also for the radio oracles who claim she’s about to divorce Clark Gable, or die, or both. Miss Lombard will get the ducks when the seasons starts Thursday. On the gossipers she has declared open season. They’re causing her phone to ring so much she’s not getting enough sleep. Last week Miss Lombard and Gable were near Watertown, S.D., hunting pheasants. They went to their cabin after a day’s tramp through the fields and turned on the radio. “And there I was at home in Hollywood in bed, according to the man, about…
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Gossip Friday: Ten Years Later
From March 1941: This is anniversary week for Clark Gable. It marks his tenth year as a recognized screen performer. And he’s celebrating it in the true Gable manner–by doing absolutely nothing about it. Where will Gable be ten years hence? Some say Clark will be directing pictures. Our guess is he’ll be well out of movies and living the life of a rancher on some 50,000-acres (or larger) place in Arizona. He’s fed up on the glitter and tinsel and gossip of Hollywood–has been for a long time. And once he gets away they’ll never drag him back–not even for that proposed sequel to “Gone with the Wind.” Our…
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Gossip Friday: Hammy Hawk Island
From July 1941: Carole Lombard never misses a chance for a laugh on husband Clark Gable, and Henry O’Neill provided her with an opportunity to howl when she visited the set of “Honky Tonk.” From his scrapbook, O’Neill brought out an old theatrical handbill, dated Sept. 17, 1929. It was advertising a play, “Hawk Island,” opening at the Longacre Theater of Hartford, Conn. On the front of the handbill was a picture of the play’s most exciting scene. Standing behind a desk with one hand raised dramatically and the other pointing a gun at the rest of the cast, including O’Neill, was none other than Mr. Gable. Despite his “hammy”…
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Gossip Friday: If You’re Going to the Gables for Dinner…
From April 1941: If Carole Lombard calls you on the phone and tells you that she and Clark Gable would like to have you come up to their San Fernando ranch for dinner, by all means don’t get yourself gussied up. When the Gables are at home, informality is the law. Clark likes to loaf around in gray slacks without any semblance of a press. Carole, while always smartly dressed, still gets a kick out of being garbed like a rancher’s wife. Don’t tell Clark he is a great actor. He’ll think you’re kidding him. Do Suggest seeing his newest car. He’s like a little boy about automobiles and personally…
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Gossip Friday: Patched Up Their Quarrel
From October 1936: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard decided to patch up their quarrel for the sake of the joint box they owned for last week’s Pacific southwest tennis tournament. Another interested observer at the matches was Mrs. Rhea Gable, who spent most of the time looking sadly at the husband from whom she is separated, and his blonde companion.
