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Snowed in with Clark
Clark Gable never made a Christmas movie. Not even a movie with a legitimate Christmas scene! Surprising but true. So, we’ll have to settle for some shots of Clark in the snow to make things festive around here…
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Gossip Friday: Roughing it
From February 1939: Clark Gable’s hunting paraphernalia is really something to look at. His sleeping bag is made with an extra-thick downy mattress. His gun cases were given to him by Carole Lombard. They are made of hand-carved leather. The deer gun case has hand-carved deer for decoration. The duck gun case is finished off with hand-carved ducks. Clark usually hunts up Bakersfield way and Carole often goes along. She’s such a crack shot, she usually gets the limit a few minutes after her arrival. So she spends the rest of her time playing retriever for Clark. And they used to call this “roughing it!”
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December Movie of the Month: Too Hot to Handle (1938)
Following on the heels of the very successful Test Pilot, Clark and Myrna Loy were teamed again in 1938 for another romantic adventure drama. This film is an interesting look behind the scenes at the now-extinct-thanks-to-television newsreel business. Gable is Chris Hunter, a newsreel cameraman who is always where the action is. Walter Pidgeon is Bill Dennis, a rival newsreel cameraman who is constantly trying to out-scoop Chris. Both of them are bored in Shanghai since they can’t get anywhere near the action of the Chinese-Japanese war. His boss (Walter Connolly) demanding action shots of the war, Chris starts making up fake shots using toy airplanes and sending them in.…
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Gossip Friday: Ria’s Ready for her Closeup
From February 1939: One of the most attractive and popular matrons in Hollywood is Ria Gable. Even though she separated from Clark Gable, all their old friends clung to Ria as a tribute to her. Recently Ria returned from a trip to New York. Hollywood was happy to have her back. And Ria says the highlight of her trip was an afternoon spent in Gloria Swanson’s New York apartment. The decorating scheme and all the furnishings of her Hollywood home have been transferred East by Gloria. The same charm, the same individuality that made Gloria Swanson’s home a showplace in Hollywood, makes her new residence of the really outstanding places…
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{New Article} 2001: A Man’s Man Off the Screen Too
This article is one I found during my recent trip to Los Angeles. It was published in the Los Angeles Times to commemerate Clark Gable’s 100th birthday. I particularly enjoyed this article because it is very casual in style–just the author describing what Clark was like while he talked to him. An interesting glimpse inside the man. Particularly funny is the description of Clark trying to run a simple errand and getting accosted on the street: A few minutes later he came out of the elevator wearing a double-breasted, camel hair wrap-around coat, a tan, wide-brim fedora hat, and the Gable grin. He was taller and more rugged looking than…
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Gossip Friday: Keeping His Promise
From April 1940: Clark Gable and a friend dashed out of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and entered a taxi, on their way to the broadcasting station. Clark was due to go on the air in a national hook-up, and they already were frightfully late. The crowd espied Gable. And that was that. They threatened to overturn the vehicle unless he emerged for all to see, and signed his autograph for then. When he didn’t leave the taxi, and the friend in his excitement shouted to the driver to go through the crowd, the mob actually started to make good their threat. The actor solved the difficulty by leaning out…
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Judy Lewis, 1935-2011
Judy Lewis, the daughter of Clark Gable, and Loretta Young, died Friday, November 25, of cancer in Pennslyvania. Read the New York Times article on her death here. Judy was concieved during the freezing Washington location shoot for Call of the Wild. Loretta maintained that there had not been a big love affair between her and Clark, just that they were mutually attracted to each other and one night her “iron will slipped.” Loretta realized she was pregnant during the filming of her next picture, The Crusades, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. This was crushing news. Not only did she feel ashamed by her actions, she had violated the morals…
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{New Article} 1940: Mr. and Mrs. Gable
Here’s another “look how happy they are and how simple they live” article on Clark and Carole from Ladies Home Journal. I say that like I am sick of that kind of article. But of course I am not! A typical scene between Mr. and Mrs. Gable at home would be at tea or cocktails in Gable’s faintly adolescent gun room with its collection of lethal weapons in a glass case on the wall. Clad in jodhpurs or levis and usually needing a shave, Gable sits back in a large chair. Mrs. Gable starts off by perching decorously enough on a sofa. But soon she is squatting on the floor,…
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Gossip Friday: Turkey Trouble
Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, here’s one from September 1940: Clark Gable and Robert Young both have their troubles with fowl-fancying ventures. Gable had turkey trouble, Young encountered chicken grief… Clark and wife Carole Lombard had been raising two dozen turkeys, for Thanksgiving–both their own Thanksgiving feast and as gifts to friends. BUT the other day, they decided to give something else when November rolls around. Reason: They had sprayed weeds on their ranch with weed-killing poison, and then the turkeys came along and gobbled the weeds. That was when Gable found that weed-killer is turkey-killer, too. As for Robert Young–well, he doesn’t like chicken pie anymore. This is the…
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{For the Boys Blogathon} November Movie of the Month: The Tall Men (1955)
This post is part of The Scarlett Olive’s For the Boys Blogathon. I am, obviously, a Clark Gable completist. I read anything and watch anything Clark related. Whenever I meet men in their 50’s or 60’s, their favorite Gable movies are not usually the 1930’s fluffy comedies or even Gone with the Wind. They always usually say ones that would be near the bottom of my list, such as Soldier of Fortune or Command Decision or this month’s movie of the month, The Tall Men. I am generally not a fan of Westerns, and this one is not the greatest ever made. However, it does have its endearing moments and it is…