Articles
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{New Article} The King and I
This new article was syndicated in The America Weekly, which was a Parade-magazine-like insert in newspapers. I actually was very surprised to find this printed in 1957. Clark had a very arms-length relationship with the press. He was usually cooperative but he never let them get TOO close. When they bought the ranch in 1939, Clark and then-wife Carole Lombard immediately instituted an ironclad rule that no pictures were to be taken inside. With the exception of this interview, which I absolutely adore and is as close as we’ll ever get to Clark being on Johnny Carson or the like, Clark’s answers about his personal life were usually guarded. Knowing…
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{New Article} 1936: Gable Returns
When coming upon this article and seeing it’s line under the title: “Clark Escaped the Senoritas of the Argentine Only to Be Captured by a Broadcasting Station”–you would expect an exciting article about Clark Gable’s recent trip to South America. And you would be disappointed. Initially, we are treated to these tidbits about Clark’s trip: Clark, you see, had suddenly taken it into his head to hop off to South America by plane, and his journey, started in Hollywood with so much secrecy at the ungodly hour of four-thirty one cold morning, by degrees took on the semblance of a romantic good-will tour. Everywhere he stopped he was mobbed by…
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{New Article} 1935: The Only Girl on a Gable Location
This piece from 1935 was written by a reporter sent to the Catalina Island set of Mutiny on the Bounty. Oh, to be the lone female reporter hunting down the scoop to the location shoot of the latest Clark Gable picture! Sounds glamorous, right? Apparently not… If you’re going from Hollywood, you ride the film boat from San Pedro wharf direct to the Isthmus, some ten miles across Channel. The boat makes it once a day carrying passengers and supplies. And so, surrounded by eight twenty-gallon gasoline tanks, four cartons of strawberries, two dead sharks, (to be used for Bounty atmosphere), and six milk cans, I started my great expedition.…
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{New Article} 1937: Gable and Taylor Rivals?
This 1937 is purely MGM propaganda–“We have two hot male leads! Look at how great they both are!” A bunch of hogwash to think that because they were both leading men they were instantly rivals. Clark and Bob, in fact, grew to be good friends in the years following. Bob and his wife Barbara Stanwyck had a ranch near Clark and Carole’s and the four of them were often together. Only thing worthwhile in this article is some of the quotes: “I see Mr. Taylor as a rival!” marvels Mr. Gable, spreading his four-square smile. “Never even thought of such a thing. Bob’s a fine boy, a fine-looking boy, a…
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{New Article} A Date with Clark Gable
It’s Valentines Day, so let’s all go on a date with Clark Gable, shall we? Ok, first of all, this really isn’t “a date,” more like just meeting a journalist for a quick lunch, so the title is pretty misleading. Also it is of note that it’s long been Hollywood lore that Clark and the author of this piece, May Mann, had a thing going for a while. Apparently to score her first interview with him, she sat outside his dressing room door in a tight, lowcut dress. From then on she scored several interviews with Clark and they were spotted out on the town together in the late 1940’s,…
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{New Article} 1936: Gable’s Bachelor Dates
New today is an article about the freshly single Mr. Gable. Having separated from his wife Ria, Hollywood’s shiniest star was now available and on the prowl! Or is he… Let’s plunge right into this new private life he’s having for himself and learn All. Maybe your imagination turns riotous at the very idea of his amusement program. Since he’s single again our most popular actor ought to be having a hot time in the swanky Beverly Hills every night. With his appeal, his money, and his screen halo, his leisure divertissements should be just colossal. Oh, no doubt Clark has to pop over to the studio to be glorified.…
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{New Article} 1945: Gable!
This one is a little piece written on the set of Adventure—a period of time when Clark Gable wasn’t offering too many interviews. The article starts out promising, as it appears she is the first to get “the big scoop” on Clark since his return to the screen. In actuality, it’s really just a girl reporter gushing about Clark–rather cutely–and then recapping what he’d been through the last few years since Carole Lombard’s death. Well, says I, here’s the great Gable. Take a good look. Yep, he’s heavier. Betcha he weighs 200 if he weighs a pound. He’s taller than I thought he’d be. He barks when he talks before…
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{New Article} 1935: I’m No Ladies Man, Says Clark Gable
Next up–Clark Gable declares he is no ladies man! (Yeah right) “Most boys learn about women from their mothers,” he says. “They unconsciously form their image of the girl they hope to marry someday by patterning their ideal after the one woman they know best. However, my mother died when I was only seven months old.” Isn’t that rather sad! Actually he was ten months old when his mother died, but whatever… “Naturally, after such a life as mine, I’m more at home with men than I am with women. But I think most men are. They talk the same language. When a man says anything, no matter whether…
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{New Article} 1935: This Belongs to You! This Belongs to Me!
Let’s begin our birthday month article-palooza with this one from 1935. The focus here is that Clark wants a personal life and a professional life and he wants them separate! No matter how pleasant the impression you get from the finished picture, it represents work, hard work, not only on the part of the director, cameraman, author, electrician, prop man and many others, but work on the part of the actor. My feeling, therefore, is that we earn our salaries by our work in pictures, and we shouldn’t have to continue working every minute we are away from the studio. Don’t raise your eyes at that remark and say you…
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Remembering Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard Gable died 73 years ago today, at the young age of 33. Her sudden death in a plane crash shocked the nation, stunned Hollywood and devastated her husband. This article that was published a few months after Carole’s death, appears in the Article Archive, What the Loss of Carole Lombard Means to Clark Gable: Gable was working on that fateful afternoon of January 16, 1942. He felt wonderful about it. He’d had five months lay-off since the production of “Honky Tonk,” the longest vacation he’d experienced since his first real click in 1931. It was swell to be back and he liked the new picture. It was…