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Clark Gable and the Almost-Scarlett: Paulette Goddard
In the post-war, post-Carole years, Clark Gable had a full dance card—dating actresses, script girls and socialites. And one former Gone with the Wind hopeful: the spirited Paulette Goddard. Paulette, blessed with a gorgeous face, was probably best known for comedies, such as the Charlie Chaplin classics Modern Times and The Great Dictator, as well as sparky Miriam in The Women. She had been around Hollywood since the early 1930’s, first as a blonde Goldwyn girl. She proved herself a dramatic force in films such as Kitty and her Academy Award nominated performance in the war drama So Proudly We Hail!. But she could also dance and sing, as she did…
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Gossip Friday: Tennis Can Get You a Gable!
From October 1936: What’s the most necessary requisite for a young actor or actress coming to Hollywood, we are often asked. And here’s our answer, children. Learn to play a cracking good game of tennis. Tennis has broken more ice in Hollywood than a spring thaw. Tennis has been the means of young people breaking into important friendships. Tennis has been the ladder in which young hopefuls have climbed. Albeit, it hasn’t kept them there. Why, believe it or not, it was Carole Lombard’s ability to smack the ball across the net at a certain prankish party that convinced Clark Gable she was the girl. And if tennis can get…
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{New Article} 1940: A Woman’s Lowdown on Clark Gable!
This article is from the Gone with the Wind-publicity period and is supposedly unique because it tells a woman’s perspective on Clark. I don’t know how unique this article is but it is rather gushy. This fellow is unimpressed by all he has acquired; with his importance as a star. Luck, he insists, was with him: “Anyone who has ears and can speak and understand words of one syllable can do it,” he shrugs. “It might have been any other guy; it just happened to me.” Even his bosses are set back on their heels at unexpected moments by his passion for facing facts. In Atlanta, at the super-swank premiere…
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{Gossip Friday} Mr. Gable Excites Miss Stanwyck
From September 1940: Movie stars must have their little jokes. When Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor did “Nothing Sacred” on a radio broadcast recently they arranged it so that several lines of dialogue would read thusly: Bob says: “Is there nothing that will excite you?” Barbara answers: “Yes, put me in a room with Clark Gable.” Bob then says: “What’s the matter with Robert Taylor?” To which Barbara replies: “I never heard of him.”
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{May Movie of the Month} Adventure (1945)
“Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!” You couldn’t tread many places without hearing MGM’s infectious tagline for Adventure. The return of Clark Gable after a three year absence from the screen was heralded high and low. Clark, now a decorated war hero and a widower, was a bit thicker around the middle, a bit grayer around the temples, a bit sadder in the eyes…but was back in the saddle. While Clark had been overseas, British import Greer Garson had become the #1 leading lady at MGM, after such hits as Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest. In the beginning this film has a lot in common with Teacher’s Pet, which would…
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Gossip Friday: Carole Lombard’s Opinion on Whiskers
From March 1937: When it comes to sheer, downright having-fun-out-of-life, you’ve got to hand it to Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. These two have had more amusement out of their romance than most people get out of a whole lifetime. Both are inveterate practical jokers–and never does either let the oppurtunity pass to “gag” the other. Carole’s latest and biggest chance came with all the fuss over whether or not Clark was to raise a set of whiskers to play the role of Parnell. Hardly had the discussion begun at MGM than Gable began to get the works–first, mysterious men with long whiskers would pop up in the most unexpected…
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{Book Review} Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood
When I heard a bio on Myrna Loy was being released, I was very excited. Myrna’s autobiography,Being and Becoming, is hands down the best autobio I have read of a classic star. Honest and refreshingly un-fluffy, the book cemented me as a Myrna Loy fan for life. Unlike a lot of autobios, I felt that Myrna had really covered all the bases so I was intrigued as to what Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood could offer. Well. I can’t say this bio is overflowing with new information. I can’t say at all that I understand Myrna better as a person after reading it. I CAN say that I did…
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{Gossip Friday} If You Had 24 Hours to Live…
From April 1935: What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live? Carole Lombard…wants to gather her friends around her for the last bow. Instead of just a few, she prefers a large gay cocktail gathering in her home. “Because,” she said to me, “I think it would be great to go out with a ring of laughter and music in your ears, don’t you?” Cary Grant: “By cable, telephones, wires and radios I would get in direct communication with the few people I have hurt during my life. With death hovering near, I could explain and ask their forgiveness, a thing that seems too difficult to…
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{New Article} 1955: Clark Gable’s Haunted Love Life
This article is from August 1955 and is all about how Carole Lombard haunts his love life and pretty much dooms all his relationships. It tells what Kay Spreckels must do if she wants to overcome the ghost of Carole and settle down with Clark. By the time this magazine hit newstands, Kay was already Mrs. Gable. Far from doing anything to push Carole from his thoughts, Gable has tenderly preserved every vestige of her influence and presence. Just as one would not violate sacred religious objects, Gable has not tampered with any of the things or people in that household that were part of his life with Carole. The…
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Gossip Friday: Marilyn Monroe won’t be Clark’s “Lady”
From August 1955: Everybody at 20th Century Fox studio has been unhappy about Marilyn [Monroe], including Clark Gable. She was supposed to be his leading lady in “The Lumberjack and The Lady,” and the king was looking forward to playing opposite the Lady of the Calendars. What combo they’d make! ___ First I’ve heard of this project or even the prospect of Clark starring with Marilyn in 1955. Interesting. They’d have to wait five years…