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{New Article} 1932: “I’m Not So Sure,” Says Clark Gable
This article appeared in Photoplay magazine in January 1932, when Clark Gable was a new star and nobody knew much about him yet. It’s rather funny how nowadays a quick internet search provides anyone with information about virtually anybody, but 80 years ago the journalists were scrambling to separate fact from fiction in Clark’s history. Has he been married twice, three times or four? What is his true background? Every writer in Hollywood is trying to find answers to these questions. Some have printed stories without waiting to get the truth. It’s a very old Hollywood custom. But a custom which Clark, a newcomer, is incapable of understanding. “Why don’t…
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December Movie of the Month: Honky Tonk (1941)
This month, it’s Clark Gable conning and scamming a small town as a ruthless gambler in Honky Tonk. Clark is fugitive con artist Candy Johnson, who stumbles upon the small town of Yellow Creek while on the run. He quickly takes advantage of the town’s lack of law and order. He also steals the heart of Elizabeth (Lana Turner), a Boston-bred girl with a crooked father (Frank Morgan). Although he insists he can’t be tied down, she manipulates him into marrying her and he becomes the most respected man in Yellow Creek. Her father doesn’t trust him, however, and sets out to destroy his reputation in town. The beginning of…
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Gossip Friday: Mrs. Clark Gable Pays Her Bill
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…
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Prepare for Turkey Day with Lots of Rhett and Scarlett
American Movie Classics, or AMC, used to be a top contender with TCM as the place on the tube to view classic films. As the years have worn on, commericals have entered their fold, their classic film expert commentators disappeared, and the movies became more recent and more undesirable. Now, the channel is more known for its award winning television programs, such as “Breaking Bad” and (my personal favorite) “Mad Men”. Not tomorrow! Because frankly my dear, AMC is going back to its classic roots and showing Gone with the Wind for 24 hours tomorrow! With commericals (ugh), it’s five hours long! They are showing it at 8:00am, 3:00pm, 8:00pm…
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Goodbye, Mr. Gable
Fifty two years ago today, Clark Gable died in Los Angeles at age 59. Described by many as a man they thought would live forever, his death came as a great shock to his friends, family and fans. The obituary piece that ran in the following week’s TIME magazine: A Hero’s Exit Time Magazine, November 28, 1960 “I’ve laughed about my so-called death before,” he said last year, when his health seemed excellent and he smilingly scotched the sort of morbid rumor that forever comes up in the career of an aging giant. Of course he was not dead. The lines of his face had deepened and the skin had…
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Veterans Day: Speaking of Heroes
A letter from the editor of Photoplay magazine, November 1942: Speaking of Heroes There isn’t a movie-goer among us who didn’t respond with quick emotion when Clark Gable enlisted as a private in the Air Corps of the United States Army, or who failed to feel a sense of elation reading the news less than three weeks later that Tyrone Power had been sworn in as private in the Marine Corps and that Henry Fonda, without advance word, had enlisted in the Navy. These men gave up adulation, riches and fame to become soldier, marine and sailor without rating. This did not make them heroes, but it did something else.…
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Gossip Friday: Too Many Dance Partners
From July 1934: Clark Gable was at the recent Spinsters’ Ball, exclusive social soiree of Los Angeles. At the Spinsters, girls cut in on the men. Five hundred eager debutantes! For Clark, the evening was something like a game of rugby. No sooner would one cooing, little, starry-eyed girl snuggle into his arms than a smack at her elbow would jerk her away and another was in her place. It went on until six the next morning.
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November Movie of the Month: Mogambo (1953)
This month’s film is the 1953 jungle romance-adventure Mogambo. The most interesting thing about this film is that it is a remake of Red Dust, with Clark reprising his role. What man could reprise the leading role of the jungle Lothario twenty years later? Only Clark Gable, of course. Gable is Victor Marswell, who earns his living in Africa by trapping wild animals for zoos and carnivals. His no-nonsense way of life is interrupted by the arrival of Eloise “Honey Bear” Kelly (Ava Gardner), a sassy showgirl from New York who is stranded there. They clash at first but soon are bedfellows. Just as Honey Bear leaves, anthropologist Donald Nordley…
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Gossip Friday: Gone with the Wind Chatter
From May 1937: You wouldn’t think that Willie Powell’s walking out on a production called “The Emperor’s Candlesticks” would have an influence on Clark Gable’s playing the role of Rhett Butler in “Gone with the Wind” now, would you? But that’s Hollywood for you. It did have–for Willie has a mind of his own, and one of the very best in the acting profession it is too, and he realized that another not-so-hot to follow “Mrs. Cheyney” would endanger all that terrific advance his career has made since his lucky accident of being cast in the original “Thin Man.” Hence he went on his own sit-down strike in the desert…
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Carole Lombard and Clark Gable
In my humble experience with Clark Gable fans, there are two things that are the most popular topics: His role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind and his tragic marriage to Carole Lombard. Sadly, Clark wouldn’t probably want to be remembered for either of those things. Rhett Butler left a bitter taste in his mouth and Carole, well…Carole was a touchy subject. Once, on a classic movie fan board years ago, I came across a discussion on the most romantic classic filmdom couples. Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, James Stewart and Gloria Stewart…these were the names that topped the lists. I found it…