Articles
-
{New Article} 1933: Gable Answers Your Questions!
Early 1930’s fan magazine articles aren’t exactly a pleasure to read, for the most part. In my experience, most articles from this period are so fluffy, drawn-out, pointless and so unbelievably long that you wonder if they had a word count that had to be met in each magazine so they just filled it with junk with the occaisonal hidden gem. That being said, I actually like this article. True to form, it is entirely too long–nearly 4,000 words total! I can’t even imagine PEOPLE magazine or something of that sort printing an interview with a star that is 4,000 words. A few months prior, MOTION PICTURE magazine had an…
-
Ask Clark Gable a Question!
No, I’m not talking about with a Ouija board. The above ad ran in the February 1933 issue of Motion Picture magazine: Here, at last is your chance to find out from your screen favorites, themselves, the things that you have been wanting to know. Here is your chance to ask some of those interesting questions that interviewers have neglected to ask. As a beginning for this unusual series, MOTION PICTURE provides you with the opportunity to get in tuch with the man of the hour, Clark Gable. Read about it–and then rush in your query! Well, don’t rush to fill out the 80 year old query sheet! On Friday, I…
-
These are a Few of His Favorite Things…
Well, as I have lamented in prior years, Clark Gable never made a Christmas movie. There isn’t even a great Christmas scene in any of his films. All we have is the brief scene at the very end of The Easiest Way in which him and Constance Bennett see Anita Page trimming the tree on Christmas Eve. Well, although we have no Christmas scenes to savor this time of year, we can wonder: whatwould Clark have liked for a present? Let’s speculate… Clothes: Clark was very picky about clothes. He liked his clothes to be well made and fit perfectly. Once he found a piece he liked, he kept it for decades. He didn’t…
-
A New Ending for Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind had its world premiere in Atlanta 73 years ago today and ever since, people have pondered if Scarlett would ever get Rhett back. Margaret Mitchell refused to ever answer the question, so everyone was left to their own imaginations. Screen Guide magazine held a contest for their readers to come up with the best new ending for GWTW and published the winner in its September 1940 issue: ___ The fadeout of “Gone with the Wind” whets the curiousity of millions of moviegoers. They watch Scarlett return to Tara alone, deserted by Rhett, and they argue hotly among themselves about what happened afterward. “He’d never go back…
-
{New Article} 1932: “I’m Not So Sure,” Says Clark Gable
This article appeared in Photoplay magazine in January 1932, when Clark Gable was a new star and nobody knew much about him yet. It’s rather funny how nowadays a quick internet search provides anyone with information about virtually anybody, but 80 years ago the journalists were scrambling to separate fact from fiction in Clark’s history. Has he been married twice, three times or four? What is his true background? Every writer in Hollywood is trying to find answers to these questions. Some have printed stories without waiting to get the truth. It’s a very old Hollywood custom. But a custom which Clark, a newcomer, is incapable of understanding. “Why don’t…
-
Veterans Day: Speaking of Heroes
A letter from the editor of Photoplay magazine, November 1942: Speaking of Heroes There isn’t a movie-goer among us who didn’t respond with quick emotion when Clark Gable enlisted as a private in the Air Corps of the United States Army, or who failed to feel a sense of elation reading the news less than three weeks later that Tyrone Power had been sworn in as private in the Marine Corps and that Henry Fonda, without advance word, had enlisted in the Navy. These men gave up adulation, riches and fame to become soldier, marine and sailor without rating. This did not make them heroes, but it did something else.…
-
{New Article} 1932: The Great God Gable
I have had this article for a year; it has been sitting at the top of my “to type” pile. Every time I go to type it, I pass it up for another one because it is just too dang long and not even terribly interesting. In the magazine, it’s 11 pages. Typed and printed, it’s 13 pages and 6,055 words! And I wonder why I am beginning to get carpal tunnel. What also turned me off about it is that it is written by Adela Rogers St. Johns. What, you gasp, how can you not like Adela Rogers St. Johns?! She was an acclaimed female journalist, she wrote…
-
{New Article} 1939: The Hilarious Friendship of Clark Gable and Andy Devine
Clark Gable wasn’t a glamorous gent. Not in private. This is no more proved than by examining his close friends. No tuxedo-wearing nightclubbers. One of Clark’s close friends was funny-looking, funny-sounding film sidekick Andy Devine. You may not recall the name, but the voice is unmistakable! Peter Lawford referred to it as “an asthmatic vacuum cleaner!” There exists in all Hollywood no finer, truer friendship than the tie between Clark Gable and Andy Devine. And certainly no two men in any country anywhere can testify to more fun and sheer keen enjoyment than results from that friendship. It began when Andy rode over to Clark’s place to look at a…
-
{New Article} 1934: Clark Gable Cuts the Apron Strings
As you can see if you peruse the Article Archive here on this site, I have a lot of Clark Gable articles. And I still have a massive stack of articles to type that seems to grow over time rather than deplete. Fan magazines, especially ones from the early 1930’s, can’t be taken to seriously. Studio publicity departments dropped lines to the magazines, feeding them what they wanted printed. And the magazines knew darn well what was fair to print and what was not. Clark and Ria on the outs in 1932 because he has been holed up in Joan Crawford’s dressing room? Nah…let’s put a nice little gossip item about…
-
{New Article} 1937: Clark Gable Answers the Call of the Wild
No, this article from 1937 isn’t rehashing Clark Gable’s hit movie of the same name. It’s all about Clark going hunting for mountain lions. Which I did not find particularly thrilling, to be honest. The one interesting tidbit is the story of how Clark caught that wild mountain lion he gave to Carole Lombard, in his own words. “Our next cat didn’t give us such a long chase. The dogs had him treed and were dancing and howling below him when we arrived. Then I had to laugh. It was a cub, about six months old, and it was trying to put up a ferocious front. “I tried to think…