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July Movie of the Month: Parnell (1937)
In July, for the month that celebrates the anniversary of this website, I always select an important Clark Gable film–one that is a highlight in his career for one reason or another. This year I don’t think that Clark would agree with my choice! It is his much-maligned effort to portray a soft spoken Irishman in Parnell. In this historical melodrama, Gable is Charles Stewart Parnell, an 1880′s Irish politician dubbed “The Uncrowned King of Ireland” for fighting for Irish freedom from British rule. The British trump up false charges against him to try and keep his efforts down but are unsuccessful. But then Parnell falls in love with Katie O’Shea (Myrna Loy),…
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Gossip Friday: Bets on Garbo
From September 1931: Bets are two ways on Clark Gable, leading man for the Northern Light. There are those who say he will fall for the enigmatic Garbo and those who say he won’t. So far he has not suffered any pulse accelerations from his feminine embraces, including Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow. Garbo, however, is different. Clark wore a white turtle-necked sweater (a favorite type of sports garment with Garbo) into the MGM commissary and three enthusiasts put their money on Garbo to win. During the heat of betting he was busy re-marrying his second wife, to make the wedding valid in California, a minor fact blissfully ignored by…
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We’re Four!
Hard to believe, but this site is four years old today! I feel like I just wrote last year’s anniversary post. There are now over 150 articles on the site, ver 11,000 pictures in the gallery and weeks and weeks of Gossip Fridays! I am forever indebted to the fantastic Clark Gable fans that I interact with on a daily basis. Sometimes, out here on the internet, you wonder if anyone is listening. Sometimes while I’m organizing photos, typing a 3,000 word article, compiling and tagging stacks of fan magazines, I wonder if anyone cares. And it is all of you who tell me that yes, yes you do indeed!…
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{Photos} Play Ball!
While on location filming Strange Cargo on Pismo Beach in 1940, Clark, co-star Ian Hunter and some of the crew played ball with a girls softball team. It’s funny to see him playing all scruffy and unkempt, in his raggedy costume. I’m sure that was a story those girls told for the rest of their lives!
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Gossip Friday: Musings from 1935
From August 1935: Clark Gable has been hunting again–with that grand new rifle of his, which has gold sights and mountings that catch the sunlight and warn any animal within range that he is on its trail. The plan to have his debutante stepdaughter, Georgiana, screentested seems to be in abeyance at the moment. We understand that Clark is wholly in favor of the idea, but wants to take the tests with her and have her gowned by Adrian first. Remember the first time you saw Clark Gable in a picture with Connie Bennett? He played the part of the milkman in “The Easiest Way.” And if you will recall…
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Gossip Friday: Gable, Tracy and Taylor
From January 1940: Prime of the month—came from Robert Taylor, at the expense of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy. Seems the three of them were lunching together, and Gable and Tracy were”riding” Taylor about being in line for the draft if America goes into the war. They razzed him and razzed him, with: “Poor Taylor; you’ll have to go, but we’re lucky. We’re TOO OLD to be called.” “Yeah,” flipped Taylor, ducking; “but it took a war to bring THAT out!”
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82 Years Ago, Clark Marries His Second Wife…For the Second Time?
It was 82 years ago today that 30-year-old Clark Gable married 47-year-old Maria “Ria” Franklin. According to the press at the time, it was a repeat ceremony because the one that had been performed months earlier in New York was suddenly discovered to be invalid in California. Well at least, that’s the way it was spun to the public… In many ways, it was easier to be a star back then. The studio assigned you your films, your co-stars, dictated your schedule; they covered up your affairs, paid off columnists to shoo away divorce rumors and personal scandals, and made sure the pictures of you that were published were…
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June Movie of the Month: Night Nurse (1931)
This month, Clark Gable is ruthless, one-dimensional Nick the chauffeur to Barbara Stanwyck’s plucky young nurse in Night Nurse. A quintessential pre-code, the film centers around Lora Hart (Stanwyck) as she struggles to keep her ideals while getting through nursing school. After she graduates, she is assigned to be a night nurse to two little girls suffering from malnutrition and anemia. Clark does not appear until halfway through the film and only appears for a few minutes, as Nick, the evil brute of a chauffeur. Lora becomes suspicious of the doctor treating the children and of Nick. Nick throws her around, bullies her and the children say they are scared of…
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Gossip Friday: Swell Gesture
From September 1937: Swell Gesture: Hearing a property man bragging about his son, Gable asked if his son had a bike. “Not yet, but when I get the money saved, I’m buying him one,” said the prop man. Next day, Clark wheeled onto the set on a new bike. “How ya like it?” Clark asked he prop man. “Finest bike I ever see,” answered the man., “whose is it? Yours?” Answered Gable: “Nope, it’s your son’s, with my compliments.”
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{New Article} 1932: Around the Clock with Clark Gable
In case you have ever sat and thought to yourself, “I wonder how Clark Gable spent his Saturdays eighty-one years ago?” I have the answer! In this probably-mostly-made-up article from 1932! At this point, Clark’s stardom was exploding and the MGM powers-that-be figured out that they couldn’t paint him as a nightclubbin’ man about town, no matter how hard they tried. So they went with the opposite approach: Here is your hearthrob Clark Gable, a man who woos Joan Crawford and wears tuxedos all week at the glamorous movie studio, but on the weekend schelps around town like an every day Joe! Here is is Saturday schedule: It is…