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Gossip Friday: New Collector
From August 1938: Gable item for the month: Clark’s taken up stamp collecting! One of the prop boys explained the fun you get out of saving stamps of all nations and Gable promptly ordered his secretary to carefully put aside all the stamps that arrive on fan mail. Can you imagine Carole Lombard sitting on her parlor floor, calm as a cucumber, pondering the newest issue from Paraguay?
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{Photos} August 4, 1942: Clark Gable Gives a Command Performance
On August 4, 1942, just a few days before he enlisted in the Army, recently widowed Clark Gable came out of hiding for a good cause: to appear on the radio program “Command Performance.” From “Stardom” magazine: Clark Gable’s Command Performance For the first time since Carole Lombard’s death, Clark consents to make a public appearance “Anything that will make our men overseas a little nearer to home, I’m willing to do,” said Clark Gable when he was requested to appear on “Command Performance,” the short wave program broadcast for America’s armed forces abroad. And a brief smile lighted his face when he was told that soldiers “over there”…
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{New Article} 1952: Gable’s in Love Again!
Here is a silly little article, not unlike a lot of the silly articles from the time period before he married Kay. I thought perhaps this one might have some real nuggets in it until this part in the beginning: You know what happens to women—practically all women—every time Clark Gable’s name is mentioned. It would be futile for me to deny that my own reactions follow the pattern. When I arrived in Paris this year and heard Clark was in town, prior to going to London to make his first picture there, I wanted to see him as soon as possible. Naturally, then, when Anita Loos phoned me one…
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Gossip Friday: Roland vs. Gable
From August 1934: A fist fight almost marred Samuel Goldwyn’s bridge party when Gilbert Roland misunderstood a remark made to his escort, charming Constance Bennett, by Clark Gable. Connie and Clark were playing at the same table when the latter uttered the words that so aroused Gilbert, seated nearby, and caused him to leap from his chair, remove his coat, and shout at Gable, “You quit picking on her and pick on me!” But all’s well that ends well!
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{New Article} 1941: Things I Don’t Like About Myself
Well, this website is ten years old and I’ve got well over ten years’ worth of Clark Gable stuff clogging up my laptop, external hard drive and office. Since my Movie of the Week feature ended, I’m trying to organize things better; in particular the pictures on my laptop are nightmare. When you have 75,000+ pictures, what is the best way to organize them? By date? By subject? By subject, then by date? It makes one’s head explode. Which might just happen soon. But before it does, I’m also digging through my articles. This is less of a feat although the sheer volume of articles I have to type might…
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{New Article} 1960: How Does It Feel To Die
I like finding articles from the 1950’s and early 1960’s about Clark, mainly because the “fluff” of the 1930’s has dissipated and you are more likely to find real interviews with real quotes, not fussy, gushy, studio-directed pieces. Well, this one not so much. The full title of it is “How Does It Feel to Die, Clark Gable: The Strangest Story Story Ever Told” and I have no idea why it was titled this. The article is completely about when Kay miscarried their baby in 1955 and Kay’s subsequent heart problems. There is nothing about how it feels to die and there is nothing strange about the story other than…
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Gossip Friday: Things That May Never Happen?
From October 1932: Things that may never happen: That threatened Constance Bennett retirement. That Clark Gable divorce. A movie comeback for Alice White. A wolf at Charlie Chaplin’s door. ___ Well. Constance Bennett didn’t retire from the screen until 1966. Clark and second wife Ria divorced in 1939. Alice White worked pretty steadily through the 1930’s, puttered out in the 40’s. And I don’t know what they mean by the Charlie Chaplin comment. Might be about the fact he was reluctant to do talkies….which we all know he eventually did.
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{New Article} 1935: Behind the Scenes with Joan, Clark and Bob
Here is one of those articles that is utterly pointless and serves only as a publicity piece from MGM for Forsaking All Others. I don’t think there was ever any real concern that there was going to be a battle royale for star status between Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery but nonetheless: When Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery were announced as the stars of “Forsaking All Others,” under the ace direction of “Woody” Van Dyke, the local gossip columnists assumed their favorite cat-that-ate-the-canary expression and sat back and waited for the worst to happen… …of course, there was that fascinating angle of Mr. Clark (star) Gable…
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Gossip Friday: Flustered by a Fan
From February 1957: Never thought I’d live to see the day, or night, when Clark Gable, that big he-man, would literally look scared out of his wits because of a mere female. But that’s exactly what happened at the Hollywood premiere of “The Ten Commandments.” Clark and his beautiful Kay were about the last to arrive, probably hoping they might slip into the theater without a lot of fanfare. That’s what they hoped! Instead, just as he stepped from his limousine, a large, middle-aged woman ducked under the restraining rope and literally tackled Gable! She flung herself at him headlong, grabbing his knees, pawing and clawing him–and if the police…
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Gossip Friday: The Legs Have It
From September 1940: On the set of Boom Town: The last time Claudette [Colbert] co-starred with Clark Gable was in “It Happened One Night.” It gave both of them Academy Awards, made both of them famous. The most memorable scene was the one in which, after Clark unsuccessfully tried to thumb a ride from passing motorists, Claudette stepped to the side of the road and stopped the first motorist who came along by showing a super-generous expanse of leg. We asked Claudette how she felt about that being her best-remembered scene. She laughed. “It was a nice little joke on me that the thing I had fought against all my…
