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Gossip Friday: Not Inflated Snobs
From January 1940: Judging from the letters pouring in from Atlanta, the down-to-earth good-fellowship displayed by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, there for the premiere of “Gone with the Wind,” scored as great a hit as the picture. Remembering how often our touring celebrities have made exactly the opposite impression in their contacts with John and Jane Public, I think the Academy ought to vote Clark and Carole a special statuette. By simply being “folks,” they’ve probably done the industry more good than has resulted from any one super-production of the year. It’s significant that, as the praise comes marching back from Georgia, Hollywood wears an expression of astonishment. “Imagine!”…
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New Articles!
You’d think considering that Clark Gable has been dead for nearly 62 years that I would run out of material; that one day there would just be no articles left. That day is nowhere in the near future! There are five new articles in the Article Archive today, and I must admit that none of them are especially remarkable. So instead of devoting a post to each, here they are and they are quite diverse and span thirty years! 1933: Is the Future Threatening Gable? This article speculates whether Clark Gable’s fast ascension into super stardom will cause him to flicker out quickly. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t). Leslie Howard, himself,…
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Gossip Friday: Gracious and Friendly
From October 1941: There were lots of stories growing out of that visit to South Dakota by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. But the best one for my money concerns the Sioux Falls people who talked to Clark and Carole in Watertown. Olaf Pederson a Metz baker, and Maxine Dement, his girlfriend, a maid at the W.E. Perrenoud home, were accompanied by another couple as they took a rural school teacher back to Watertown after a visit here. They stopped at a filing station for gasoline. “Well, have you seen Gable and Lombard?” asked the station attendant, just to make conversation. “No,” chorused the Sioux Falls people, “are they in…
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Gossip Friday: Big Foot
From January 1939: Clark Gable was afflicted today with an ailment that brought no romantically sympathetic telegrams from his feminine fans. His 11-C size feet have swollen half a size, after six weeks of hoofing in patent leathers as a song and dance man for “Idiot’s Delight,” his latest motion picture. All his shoes tweak. Dr. H.A. Jones, a chiropodist, who was called in to see if something could be done to shrink the star’s growing feet, suggested Gable soak them in salt water twice a day.
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Gossip Friday: No Time Off
From September 1937: Metro studio offered Clark Gable six weeks more of vacation. The studio messenger found Gable in his dressing room right on the lot, where he had been hiding out for a couple of days. “I don’t want more time off,” Gable said, nearly flattening everybody with astonishment. He had come back to town quietly, gotten a script of his next story, which is “Test Pilot,” and become so interested in it he wanted to go to work.
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Gossip Friday: Prized Possessions
From June 1939: Clark Gable’s Books Are Prized Possessions Akron, Ohio–Many years before he started his film career, Clark Gable read many of the books in the bookcase pictured above and autographed his favorite ones The books and bookcases were given to Mr. and Mrs. Steve Belinsky, Portage county farmers, by W.H. Gable, father of the actor. Mrs. Belinksy is pictured as she looks over one of the books.
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Gossip Friday: How’m I Doin?
From December 1937: Clark Gable likes to “kid” during love scene rehearsals, which results in very natural action on the screen. If he has to kiss a leading lady several times, he will turn to the director with a grin and say, “How’m I doin’?”
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Gossip Friday: Looking for Jack
From October 1937: Clark Gable’s one wish is to find Jack Bates, who probably does not know the screen star is looking for him. In a recent interview, Gable was asked what more he possibly could want after gaining fame, wealth, friends and every luxury. Gable’s somewhat starting reply was: “I want to find Jack Bates. He saved my life once.” Years ago, before anyone had heard of Clark Gable, he was hoboing across the country. On his way to the west coast, he stopped off at Butte, Mont. He was emaciated and his belt was taken up the extra few notches. A stranger walked up to him and said,…
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Gossip Friday: Fed Up
From September 1937: Clark Gable is telling intimates he is “fed up” with his recent roles. And rightly. Those in the know say he is slipping just the tiniest bit at the box office. Well, you can’t always be first.
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Gossip Friday: Mudslide
From March 1941: The weather has been the topic of almost every conversation out here recently. The rain has caused floods, landslides and inconveniences for almost every one, and each land owner has his own problem to discuss. [Clark] Gable’s worry is his driveway. “You see,” he told me, “we have a good many horses on the place, and we can’t have any paved driveways. When cement gets wet, it is slippery, and the horses may fall. So I have crushed granite all over the place, and it does the trick as far as the animals are concerned. But it washes very badly, and each time we have a heavy…
