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Gossip Friday: Early Out
From February 1936: One of the nicest parties of the year was given by Pansy and Nicholas Schenck at Joseph Schenck’s palatial home; many of the guests came on from the Lewis Milestone cocktail party which was a gay and happy affair; after a week of unprecedented gaiety you might think the Schenck party would suffer, but with a good orchestra, grand food and conversation, most of the guests stayed on and on. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable left early because they are working and had to be on the set early; Louis B. Mayer did some fancy dancing with Hope Lighton; Marion Davies stunning in black; Mrs. Jack Warner…
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Gossip Friday: Too Tame
From August 1937: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable seem to have run out of practical jokes to play on one another. They became very circumspect and sent Louis B. Mayer a huge birthday cake with “Happy Birthday” spelled across the top in gardenias and green leaves, but they admit this didn’t run true to form and was unworthy of them. “Too tame,” remarked Carole to one of her friends.
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{Photos} Clark Gable and Carole Lombard on a Picnic
By 1938, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were madly in love, and everyone knew it. The stories of “Will Their Romance Last?” were starting to dissapate and the “When Will Ria Gable Give Clark the Divorce so These Lovebirds Can Marry?” stories were roaring. So, no surprise, Carole was Clark’s date to the annual MGM company picnic that year (I think I am mostly surprised Clark attended at all–maybe Carole convinced him to be a good sport?). The pictures of them from this event are some of my very favorites. Clad casually in sweaters and Carole with very little make-up and her hair pushed off her face, they look like…
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{Hollywood} Sony Pictures (formerly MGM)
I approached this tour rather apprehensively. Metro Goldwyn Mayer is, sadly, no more. The largest studio, the most prestigious studio, the studio that had “more stars than there are in the heavens”, Clark’s home studio for over 20 years, is gone. By the 1970’s, its glory days were nothing but a memory. The MGM name is nothing but really a name anymore, not a place. The former studio is now Sony Pictures and Sony owns Columbia and is much more proud of that than of MGM history. I won’t get into the long, sad story of MGM’s decline here but I highly recommend this book that came out last year,…
