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Gossip Friday: What Do You Love About Her
From January 1937: Clark Gable speaking of Carole Lombard: “It’s her naturalness. There are no affectations about Carole. She’s honest in what she thinks, says and does.”
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Gossip Friday: In the Dog House
From March 1938: The latest prank played by Carole Lombard on Clark Gable concerns the monstrous sheep dog Clark gave her as a gift. While Clark was in San Diego on location, Carole had a dog house built for her pet and proudly led Gable out to see it when he returned. One look, and Clark almost swooned, for at the windows of the dog house were cream-colored Venetian blinds with organdy drapes. A dotted-swiss draped dressing table set with dainty bottles of flea powder and dog brushes stood in one corner. Taffeta cushions were scattered about while the dog, tied up with pink bows, reclined on a blue rug.…
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Gossip Friday: He Just Wants to Be Alone
From January 1937: I hope for better luck on my New York vacation than Clark Gable had. He went for three weeks and stayed three days. The reason he had to leave was because he couldn’t keep the chambermaids out of his hotel room. Even if the crowds in the streets did knock over a taxi-cab in which he was riding, due to the crush they created in trying to grab a glimpse of him, he did eventually escape. But he couldn’t get away from the chambermaids in his hotel. They bootlegged the keys to his room to one another so that America’s favorite he-man could neither sleep nor take a…
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Gossip Friday: Just Give Up
From June 1951 (Sheilah Graham): No one, not even the columnists who were constantly linking Clark Gable with this girl and that grandmother, really expected him to try marriage again. I knew wife number one, Josephine Dillon, when I first came to Hollywood. It was Jo who nurtured the acting ambitions of young Clark. When talking to me about him, she was kind of detached, like an aunt discussing a favorite but far-away nephew. I was in New York when Clark’s second wife Rhea announced the separation. So was Clark, who sprinted all over Manhattan dodging reporters. The tragic death of wife number three, Carole Lombard, seemed to write “End”…
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Gossip Friday: Speechless
From 1954: Debbie Reynolds: “I’ll never forget the time I was introduced to Clark Gable. I knew I should be saying something. But for awhile–it seemed like a million years–I couldn’t locate the first word. His wonderful friendly manner finally brought back my voice. Pretty soon, I was at ease again…and very thankful for it! It’s a fine occasion when you come to realize that even people who tend to leave you awestruck are actually human.”
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Gossip Friday: Practically Starving
From March 1950: Clark Gable…never forgets his public–or his figure. Before every movie he makes, Clark practically starves himself on one of the strictest diets in Hollywood. Mrs. Gable, however, keeps that shape through pure lack of interest in eating. Lucky lady.
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Gossip Friday: Valentino + Dempsey
From November 1931: Someone asked Lionel Barrymore to describe Clark Gable. He answered promptly: “Rudolph Valentino made up as Jack Dempsey!
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Gossip Friday: We Knew Him When
From January 1932: When Clark Gable walks into the studio lunchroom all the boys and girls “who knew him when” rush to him, pat him on the back and say, “Clark, old boy, old boy, we always knew you could do it.” But they didn’t. They used to think he was a ham actor. And Clark knows that the minute he makes a couple of no-good pictures and the dimples don’t flourish. his fair weather friends will be colder than dead love.
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Gossip Friday: The Man He Surely Is
From January 1938, letter to fan magazine: Being in the business world of Hollywood and meeting the stars every day, I can give this impression of Clark Gable, not as fiction, but as a true fact from everyday life. He called at our place of business one morning dressed in sport clothes. Very businesslike, this Gable. He wandered about the store missing nothing, with our employees giving him little attention. (He prefers that). A little girl seated in a toy automobile glanced about, and suddenly seeing Mr. Gable, called her father’s attention to him. She wanted his autograph. The father spoke to Mr. Gable, and, smiling graciously, Clark walked over…
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Gossip Friday: Pays on Time
From March 1932: Well, well, well, Mrs. Clark Gable certainly pays her bills on time. She was in Magnin’s shortly after the first of January and gave the saleslady a check to take to the accounting department to see if it checked with the store’s figures of what she owed them. She had kept track of her bill and brought in the check before she received an accounting! And was she getting attention! Seven salesladies hovering over her at once. And the customers whispering to each other, “That’s Mrs. Clark Gable.” I couldn’t help but remember Clark’s remark, “And a year ago I could have walked down Hollywood Boulevard munching…
