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Gossip Friday: The Toughest
From 1962: Joan Blondell says Hollywood should give her a “heart of gold” award when she celebrates her fiftieth year in show business. “I’ve given back more men to leading ladies than anybody else in the world,” laughed Joan. “The toughest was handing Clark Gable back to Greer Garson.”
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Gossip Friday: Such is Fame
From June 1933: Clark Gable may be a big shot in the world of the silver screen but he looks like a dollar a day man in Jackson Hole. When Fred Deyo, local game warden was selling licenses at Moran the other day, he was approached by a man who said he wanted a license to hunt bear. The warden, immediately suspicious that a non-resident was about to tackle him for a resident license, looked him over and inquired, “Are you one of these reforestation army guys?” Accosted thus, the famous star turned to a companion and said, “I don’t think so, are we Doc?” He then informed the warden…
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Goodbye to John Barrymore
From June 2, 1942: 1,000 Honor Barrymore at Simple, 12-Minute Rites Hollywood–June 2: John Barrymore was buried today with a brief ceremony that contrasted with his career as the most spectacular member of America’s royal family of the theater. Fewer than 70 friends and relatives crowded the dim little chapel at Calvary Cemetery, but lined among the 200 steps leading to the chapel and in front of the building were 1,000 other persons gathered to pay tribute to the veteran actor who died Friday night. Father John O’Donnell of Immaculate Heart Church, the priest who received Barrymore back into the Catholic church and administered extreme unction before his death, conducted…
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Gossip Friday: Not a Lawyer
From May 1933: It looks as if Clark Gable might be doing a portrayal of a lawyer some time soon. And who hasn’t? “Penthouse,” a story by Arthur Somers Roche, has been purchased by MGM, and there is a possibility that Gable may be elected for the title role, which is that of a hero who goes socially berserk by deciding to become a criminal instead of a corporation lawyer. That is, the girl who is affianced to him considers him to be berserking and she regards a criminal attorney as out of their social realm. There are two strong feminine roles in the picture, for the hero indulges a…
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Gossip Friday: Best Dressed
From May 1933: Clark Gable says that the well-dressed man is the man who is never conscious of his clothes. He should be unconcerned and at his ease. Clark, who originated the turtleneck sweater, spent days selecting an aviator’s uniform for a picture he is now making. His choice for the best-dressed men in the world includes the King of Spain, Howard Hawks, Leslie Howard, Michael Farmer, Douglas Fairbanks and Bert Taylor.
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Gossip Friday: Keeping it Refined
From May 1952: Mrs. Clark Gable’s furnishings are selling at auction today–but the auctioneer bemoaned that the event is the quietest in Hollywood history because “she wants to keep it refined.” The former Lady Sylvia Ashley decided to auction off $250,000 worth of her antique furnishings, paintings and dishes after she bid farewell to Gable in a divorce court. Every night for two weeks, collectors and dealers will jam the American art galleries to bid happily on such items as an English mahogany washstand and an antique Georgian solid silver kettle. But the disappointed curiosity seekers found only a handful of Lady Sylvia’s mementoes from her string of famous husbands,…
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Gossip Friday: He’s in Business
From November 1939: When Clark Gable started raising ring-tailed and Mongolian pheasants on his Encino ranch, he thought it was a hobby Now, with the State’s help, he finds it’s a business. First, he was informed the Fish and Game Commission required him to obtain a license. He did. Now he learns he must keep a record of each bird and chick, whether he eats it, sells it, or gives it to a friend. And with each egg, even if he tosses it at a heckler.
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Gossip Friday: Ranch Life
From July 1940: Gable Considers Ranch Life Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, who have 20 acres in fruit trees near Hollywood, are going into ranching in a big way. They returned from Prescott, Ariz. carrying a 30-day option on a tract of 48,000 acres, which Mr. Gable this week said he would purchase, If so, he will stock it with thoroughbred cattle and point to it as a retirement site when he and Carole decide to quit pictures–which many believe may come much sooner than the expiration of Clark’s contract in 1945. ___ Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.
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Gossip Friday: Ode to The Queen
From October 1938: To her husband she’s Minnie. To her public she is Myrna Loy, but to Clark Gable, she is The Queen. They first met during the making of “Night Flight.” That was five years ago and she wasn’t a star then, but Gabe says she has not changed a whit since. They were together also in “Manhattan Melodrama,” “Wife vs. Secretary,” “Parnell,” “Men in White,” and “Test Pilot.” They are at it again in “Too Hot to Handle,” which is flashed on the screen at theatres [soon]. “At first I was a little afraid of her,” Gable admitted. “I thought she was mysterious but I soon learned tha…
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Gossip Friday: Elastic Man
From June 1958: The most famous male face in pictures is also the most elastic, according to writer-producer-director George Seaton, twice an Academy Award winner and a veteran who should know what he is talking about. Its owner is Clark Gable, of course, and Seaton, who directed Gable in “Teacher’s Pet,” says he learned a lesson from guiding The King through the Paramount comedy release [currently playing]. “Most people don’t realize, and I certainly didn’t, that Mr. Gable can wordlessly run through the gamut of emotions and register, authentically, just about every reaction in the books,” said Seaton. The screenplay has the kind of salty man-to-man and man-to-woman humor that…
