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Gossip Friday: Tara Lives Again
From December 1958: Some 20 years ago, an acre of real estate in Culver City, Calif. hypnotized millions of movie-goers. It was the site of the mansion Tara in the silver screen epic, “Gone with the Wind.” Hollywood artizans had fashioned a structure that probably out-dazzled any of the real “plantation palaces” which dotted the southern landscape at the time of the Civil War. Two decades later, time has taken its toll on the bleak location. The once brilliant white colonades, where Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and the late Leslie Howard strolled, have become shades of faded gray. Still they stand, majestic and formidable, guarding the entrance to the make-believe…
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Gone with the Wednesday: Merry Christmas from David O. Selznick
Clark Gable and Gone with the Wind producer David O. Selznick didn’t exactly always see eye-to-eye (to put it mildly), but nonetheless David let bygones be bygones and gifted Clark with this gorgeous Tiffany’s cigarette case for Christmas in 1939: “Presented to Clark Gable at the completion of “Gone with the wind” Atlanta–Dec. 25, 1939 David O. Selznick.” I wonder if he gave it to him at the Atlanta premiere, which was just ten days before Christmas? The case went for $20,000 at auction a few years back (complete with the unfiltered cigarettes). Quite a priceless artifact! Here’s hoping maybe it pops up in a museum one day…
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Gone with the Wednesday: Facts for Your Own Gone with the Wind Trivia Game
In 1940, Photoplay magazine supplied its readers with facts on Gone with the Wind so that they could play their own GWTW trivia game… Hollywood can talk of nothing these days but Gone with the Wind. It’s crept into every luncheon and dinner party until hostesses, in despair, have invented a Gone with the Wind game. Pencils and papers with questions to be answered concerning the mighty epic are passed around at every gathering. The one winning the highest score gets the prize. Why not try it at your parties, too? With [us] supplying all the answers to facts and figures, you can make up your own questions. Here goes:…
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September Movie of the Month: Dancing Lady (1933)
In 1933, Clark was in a musical–but no singing and dancing for him…just brooding and yelling. In Dancing Lady, Clark is Patch Gallagher, a short-fused Broadway producer who hires down-on-her-luck ex-burlesque dancer Janie Barlow (Joan Crawford) for the chorus line of his latest show. Janie is constantly pursued by a rich playboy admirer, Tod Newton (Franchot Tone). Patch begins to have feelings for plucky Janie, but grows bitter as it becomes obvious she is wrapped up with Tod. When he promotes her to the lead in the production, Tod becomes impatient (Janie said she’d marry him if the play fell through) and pays off the Broadway powers-that-be to shut the play…
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{Rumor Mill} Clark Gable, George Cukor and Gone with the Wind
It’s no secret that Clark Gable didn’t want to be in Gone with the Wind. Despite the public’s insistence that he was the only one who could play Rhett, he had no desire to step into the shoes of the rebellious blockade runner. “The reason I didn’t want to do Gone with the Wind–here is a novel that is the top seller of all time. Now, people form opinions about characters–they formed an opinion that I was going to play it. They already had a preconcieved idea of what they were going to see. That’s why I didn’t want to play, I said too many people know this character. My God, with…
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{Hollywood} Forest Lawn Glendale: The Great Mausoleum and The Church of the Recessional
Continuing on in Forest Lawn Glendale… Before we venture over to the Great Mausoleum, we have one important pitstop: The Church of the Recessional, where both Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s funerals were held–Clark on November 19, 1960 and Carole (with her mother) on January 21, 1942. Naturally, we tried to see inside but there wasn’t much to see through the windows and all the doors were locked. Here is a photo of the inside, from Forest Lawn’s website: And now…onto the Great Mausoleum. A place I have thought of often and had always hoped to visit. It is absolutely gorgeous to behold in person.The building is huge…
