• Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Frequent Vistor

    From November 1941: The career question is no longer hot among the older, more established star marriages. The Robert Taylors rarely visit each other’s set, but Carole Lombard is a constant guest while Clark Gable is shooting, and at his express request. And if Miss Lombard ever wants really to tease the redoubtable Gable all she has to do is make a thoroughly professional crack–“Remember Parnell!” (That film is a sore subject with Clark–he wanted to do the part and it was his least successful!)

  • Anniversary

    Remembering Clark Gable

    Today, November 16, marks 56 years since Clark Gable passed away at the age of 59. You can read about his death and funeral here. Below are the past years memorial tributes: 2015: Marilyn Monroe and John Huston Remember Clark Gable 2014: Goodbye, Mr. Gable (Clark’s final days, as told by his widow) 2013: In Memory 2012: Goodbye, Mr. Gable (Time Magazine) 2011: Hollywood Loses Its King 2010: In Tribute 2009: Rest in Peace   This newspaper article ran across the country on November 17: Gable is Gone–And There is No One to Replace Him by Vernon Scott News of the death late Wednesday of Clark Gable, 59-year-old idol of…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Laughing Visitor

    From June 1941: There is one laugh in Hollywood you can never mistake–Carole Lombard’s.  I hear it when I come onto the “Honky Tonk” set at MGM, and sure enough, there is Carole howling at Clark Gable’s get-up for his gambler’s role in the Alaskan melodrama. Unperturbed, Gable takes her by the shoulders and kisses her upon the tip of her nose.  “How are you, sweetie pie?” he asks. Director Jack Conway and the roughly dressed actors in the saloon scene look on and grin appreciatively.  “Papa,” says Carole, “I hear you really were hamming it up a few minutes ago.” “Yeah,” says Clark. “You could smell the corn clear…

  • Rumors

    Carole Lombard, Clark Gable and The Baby That Never Was

    After they were married in 1939 and Carole Lombard had proficiently decorated and furnished their cozy Encino abode to suit her and her “moose” of a husband, Clark Gable, she set her sights on her next goal: motherhood. Unfortunately for the Gables, this was a wish that would remain unfulfilled. The consensus these days seems to be that Carole had some sort of medical problem that prevented her from becoming pregnant. Nowadays, a doctor would have told her first and foremost that she needed to stop the chain-smoking and perhaps dial down the coffee and Coca-Cola chugging. Clark fathered a daughter with Loretta Young and later on a son with…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Mittens for Lombard

    From January 1942: Mittens will soon be coming of age.  One of the smartest innovations in accessories will be seen on the screen, when Carole Lombard wears mittens with sophisticated street clothes.  The ever-original Irene has designed several woolen costumes for the glamorous star to wear in Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not to Be” and, in colors to match, simple little mitts of very fine knitted wool.

  • Photos

    {Photos} Gone Hunting

    Much to the surprise of her friends, when Carole Lombard fell in love with Clark Gable she traded in her high heels and fur coats for rubber boots and shotguns. There was the glamorous movie star Carole Lombard, wading through swamps and crouching in duck blinds. Here are the Gables in their very finest: The screenshots from the infamous “duck dance” home video are adorable (if you ignore the poor dead ducks hanging around them):   And…my favorite:

  • Articles

    {New Article} 1942: Gable’s “Hermit Wife”

      Here is a short little article that appeared in the February 1942 edition of Screen Guide magazine. Sadly, by the time this issue hit newsstands, the spirited subject of the article would be dead. “Hermit” is a word that conjured up pictures of wizened characters with long white beards, living solitary lives in caves or tree-tops. Carole Lombard is blonde and beautiful; her “cave” is a 22-acre ranch in San Fernando Valley; and far from being alone, Carole is married to Clark Gable. But when you consider the sort of person Carole used to be, her present life does seem like complete seclusion. She used to make headlines on…