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Gossip Friday: Boom Town Pranks
From August 1940: You may have read about Clark Gable getting a split lip in a fight scene for “Boom Town” and how the studio had to give him a few days to let it heal. Here’s the sequel to the story, which contains a typical Hollywood chuckle. Gable was called on for the closeups after the fight some time later, and after a fake blow at close quarters, when the scene was in the can, he grinned and carelessly spit out a tooth! Everyone saw the blank space in his front row of teeth and consternation reigned. When Clark had enjoyed his joke, he revealed that he had painted…
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Gossip Friday: Summer Entertaining with Clark and Carole
From August 1941: Informality’s the role on the Gable farm. Clark and Carole love to have company drift in around dinner time and stay for a feed-providing they help prepare it themselves. And if it’s a July night, hot and breathless, you’ll find the Gables out beneath the stars. Supper is served picnic style on the porch. The makings are spread out colorfully, lavsihly. From then on each guest is his own chef with no food combinations barred. Count on Clark to set the mood with a superman three-decker: alternate layers of sliced tomatoes mixed with thin crisp bacon, sliced breast of chicken and slices of roast beef–mounted on toasted…
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Movie of the Month: Never Let Me Go
This month, we’re skipping ahead to 1953… Never Let Me Go pairs aging Gable with one of the top stars of the late 1940’s/early 1950’s, Gene Tierney. A simple, rather old-hat storyline: Gable is an American newsman stationed in Russia. He pursues and falls in love with Marya (Tierney), a Russian ballerina. American/Russian relations being what they were in those days, their marriage is frowned upon. Even more frowned upon? Gable’s idea of taking Marya home to the U.S. Efforts to get her passport are stalled and then altogether stopped. Gable is tricked into getting on a plane without her and is refused admission back into Russia. Back in the States, he…
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Gossip Friday: What’s Myrna Knitting?
Since this week (August 2) marked the 105th birthday of one of Clark’s costars, friends and an all-around classy lady, Miss Myrna Loy, here’s some gossip about her. From February 1937: With Joan Crawford set for the lead in “Parnell” opposite Clark Gable, she was suddenly switched to “The Last of Mrs. Cheyney” which Myrna Loy was to do, and Miss Loy was given the Crawford part in “Parnell”. There are those who say Joan preferred the “Last of Mrs. Cheyney” role, and there are those who say director John Stahl preferred not having La Crawford in “Parnell.” First day on the “Last of Mrs. Cheyney” set, before she switched…
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Gossip Friday: Seeing Red
Date unknown: Clark Gable told us red is his favorite color. He likes to achieve, to take life by the horns. He enjoys competition and relentless hard work. Lovers of red thrive on action. They like dramatic effects, surprising, spectacular ways of doing things; they are not too patient and can take it on the chin. They are courageous, fearless and independent. They believe in themselves because they know that to believe in one’s self is the first law of successful doing. Clark had no relatives in the theater, no pull, no magic carpet to climb upon. He succeeded because he had the ability to work and had confidence in…
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Gossip Friday: Signed by Carole
From November 1937: Bank clerks used to have fifty million fits trying to figure out whether or not Carole Lombard’s checks were forgeries or the real thing. Carole, it seems, never writes her name twice in the same manner, and you can readily see how it might be a trifle confusing to the boys in the cages. But Fieldsie, her secretary manager, finally came to their rescue and devised a plan whereby every Lombard check must have a special notation on it before a bank clerk is to honor it. New this week: Hundreds of new pictures in the gallery, including new Clark and Carole candids and interior pictures of…
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Movie of the Month: Wife vs. Secretary
This month, fittingly our one year anniversary, I am starting a new blog feature. I am going to be featuring one of Clark’s films every month, as the “Movie of the Month”. In no particular order really. Hopefully it will showcase some movies that Clark fans have yet to see and will pique their interest. So, for the inaugural month, I am selecting one of my very favorites: Wife vs. Secretary, from 1936. This film is pretty much everything you would want from a fluffy 1930’s comedy/drama. The cast is stellar: Clark, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, May Robson and a young Jimmy Stewart in a supporting role. 1936 begins what I…
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It’s Our First Anniversary!
My, how time flies! Hard to believe but today marks the first anniversary of the day I launched this site! I never tire of researching and finding new Gable stuff and I have enjoyed corresponding with fellow Gable fans. I started out with 25 film pages and now there are 56! And I’ve added about a thousand pictures to the gallery over the past year, not to mention many new radio shows and sections. It is my hope that I can keep this site alive and thriving with new information. I’ve got a lot of new stuff coming this month, but to start there is a film page for Command…
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Gossip Friday: Pampered Husband
From November 1935: …Clark Gable, who has all the girls going pitter patter, really has a very even disposition about everything, but he does like to be the one to open the morning paper first. He wants the sports section to be just where the sports section should be and not way over there in the society section. He’s very nice about it to first offenders, but sooner or later you get the idea in the Gable household that the head of the house is to be the one to remove the rubber band. And no matter how much Mrs. Gable wants to know what Cholly Angeleno had to say…
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“It Happened” at the Movies
I recently saw Sex and the City 2 and imagine my surprise to see Clark on the big screen with Chris Noth and Sarah Jessica Parker–I literally almost choked on my popcorn! “Carrie” and “Big” are in bed in their hotel room trying to find something to watch on TV. Big changes the channel and, lo and behold, It Happened One Night appears– the famous hitch hiking scene. He exclaims, “Here we go!” Carrie seems uninterested but comments that Claudette Colbert is pretty. Big tells her what a classic the film is and she says, “Oh, so you saw it when it was originally released?” The scene ends with them…