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Gossip Friday: Sitting Fireside
From December 1940: Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, were Sunday evening guests at the White House and were among the 19 persons who were with President Roosevelt when he delivered his fireside chat. Gable stopped here during the weekend en route to Baltimore where he enters John Hopkins Hospital today for examination of a shoulder injury suffered a long time ago. Mr. Roosevelt usually has no one present during such intimate broadcasts to the nation except the necessary radio announcers and technicians. Last night’s address was broadcast to an estimated 80,000,000 to 100,000,000 persons throughout the world over the three major radio networks in this country and re-broadcast…
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Gossip Friday: Merry Christmas, Louella
From April 1959 (Louella Parsons): My biggest “kick” of the holiday season: Clark Gable (and his Kay, of course) personally coming over to my house to turn on the lights on the very pretty ornamental Christmas tree he and Kay gave me. It’s not everybody who can have The King crawling around on his hands and knees at the light switches!
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Gossip Friday: Kinks in the King
From May 1950: Clark Gable spoils his two hundred percent perfection with his hundred percent streak of stubbornness. Maybe Lady Sylvia, who is where she is today because of flexibility, will smooth over the one kink in the King.
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{New Article} 1952: The Inside Story Behind Clark Gable’s Feuds
This article, published while Clark Gable was in the midst of divorcing his fourth wife, Sylvia Ashley, promises some kind of inside information about juicy feuds involving the King of Hollywood. Not really though. These “feuds” are just between him and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, no big surprise there, and MGM, his home studio of 30+ years. Oh and he also doesn’t like Greer Garson. Not really juicy. The amount of the financial settlement Sylvia Gable is to receive, however, was not decided upon. Certainly, it will be much less than $500,000. The chances are she will settle for $50,000 and legal expenses amounting perhaps to $25,000 more. When Clark was asked…
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Gossip Friday: One Take, Please
From August 1951: Uncertain though their future plans may be, to watch [Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner] together is to fully realize their deep devotion for each other. Following lunch, we sat on the “Lone Star” set and watched Frankie boy’s best beautiful girl being made love to by—Clark Gable! “Any suggestions?” called out the King to the crooner. “Just do it in ONE take!” was the kidding answer.
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Gossip Friday: Buoyant Blondell
From May 1945: While several MGM actresses literally drooled to play the gal who tries to lure Clark Gable away from Greer Garson in “The Strange Adventure,” Joan Blondell was quietly signed for the role. Funny part is Joan is so well liked and so admired by her cinema sisters, they couldn’t say a word. But brother, what they were thinking was really something. Only the buoyant Blondell could get away with it.
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{New Article} 1952: Gable’s Divorce Problem
Well, in a quick turnaround from the article I posted a few days ago, What’s Wrong with the Clark Gables?, it turns out a lot was wrong with the Clark Gables because here they are less than a year later, battling it out in divorce court. On October 4th, Clark Gable filed a divorce complaint against Sylvia Gable in Nevada, charging that, “the defendant has treated the plaintiff with extreme cruelty and has caused him great grievous mental suffering and pain without cause or provocation, and plaintiff’s health was and is thereby and therefrom impaired.” When Lady Sylvia was served with a copy of the complaint she was enraged.…
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Gossip Friday: Wrapped Them Himself
From November 1944 (Louella Parsons): It’s been a month of parties, parties, parties! The little Queen of the Ice, Sonja Henie, certainly looked the part at the big affair she gave at her house….I had the time of my life doing rumba after rumba with Clark Gable! Between numbers–Clark and I sat at one of the bright little tables and had a long talk. Gable has been going to all the parties–perhaps because he wants to forget all that he saw overseas. It is certainly something new for him because he isn’t a party man and enjoys far more being with a crowd of his pals and hunting and fishing.…
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{New Article} 1951: What’s Wrong with the Clark Gables?
This 1951 article is all about how there is indeed nothing wrong with Clark Gable and Sylvia Ashley’s marriage. Okay, sure. Clark and Sylvia had been married just a little over a year and were at this point spending more and more time apart. That Clark is trying to make this marriage his last is very obvious. I nearly fainted when I saw him all dressed up with Sylvia the first night of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. Clark doesn’t know one end of a ballet shoe from the other. He went to please Sylvia, of course. And the fashion shows! It’s fascinating to see Clark at Sylvia’s side, hob-nobbing with…
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Goodbye, Mr. Gable
Clark Gable died fifty-nine years ago today, on November 16, 1960. He was fifty-nine years old. He has now been gone for as long as he lived, which is rather startling to realize. Married to Kay with a baby on the way and proud of his recent performance in The Misfits, Clark was very content and not ready to go. But such is life. From Life magazine in January 1961: Thirty years ago, Clark Gable slapped Norma Shearer’s aristocratic face in A Free Soul and launched his own personal era of heroes who take no nonsense from women. In his heyday, he was lusty, challenging, unsophisticated. He grew more stolid…
