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Gossip Friday: Crooner’s Union
From June 1945: Clark Gable and Cary Grant have been served notice to join the “Crooner’s Union” or suffer the consequences. The threat comes red hot from Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Andy Russell. Cary is going to warble several Cole Porter numbers in “Night and Day.” Clarkie-boy whips off a few bars of “The Trolley Song” in “This Strange Adventure.” If they can possibly arrange it, the day these numbers are recorded, Bing, Frank and Andy are going to sneak on the set and give out with a few Bronx cheers.
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{New Article} 1934: Gable Gets a New Deal
“Clark Gable Gets a New Deal” is this writer’s way of saying that he is no longer second fiddle to MGM’s stable of female stars and can charge ahead on his own. He’s got an “optimistic grip of his career” now, it seems. After playing subordinate roles for two years, working four without a vacation, and being seriously ill for months, Clark gets a new deal, a new kind of role, a new contract! And a vacation in New York with a fresh, optimistic lease on life, as well as a firmer grip on his career. Everyone is pleased about it, if one is to judge by the proud but…
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Gossip Friday: Not a New Big Romance
From February 1954: The most absurd publicity stunt of the month: the wire service which released a photograph of Marilyn Monroe dancing with Clark Gable and captioned it: THE NEW, BIG ROMANCE OF HOLLYWOOD. Clark was seated at her table at a party and invited Marilyn to twirl around the floor with him, the one and only meeting they ever had.
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{New Article} 1933: Lost–The Gable Wallop
This is one of those early 1930’s “interviews” with Clark Gable that seems utterly pointless but kept the Gable-crazed fans satiated, I suppose. We know we’re in for a real fluff piece when it starts out with: Clark sits up through the night and thinks about himself. Has too much introspection robbed him of his force and punch? Oh boy. “The other night when I came home from a party, I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I got up and pulled on a dressing gown and went out on the porch. It was about two o’clock in the morning, and there was no traffic on the road in…
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Gossip Friday: Hello? You There?
From 1944: Until recently, the romance between Captain Clark Gable and lovely Kay Williams has progressed only through the good offices of one of Kay’s neighbors. She has been unable to secure a telephone, so Clark–in calling her–had to dial the number of an MGM employee, who would then have Clark hold the wire while the neighbor or his wife rushed around the corner to fetch Kay to answer.
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Gossip Friday: No Strange Cats on Strange Cargo
From March 1940: Disappointment smacked down all the let’s-be-there-when-it-happens gang, who under one pretext or another managed to clutter up the sound stage on the first day of shooting for MGM’s Strange Cargo. That’s the picture in which, you know, Joan Crawford and Clark Gable share top billing. And for weeks, the rumor has hottened Hollywood, that Joan and Clark were about as friendly as a couple of strange cats, and that when they got together, the temperamental fur would fly all over the set. So what happened? So Joan smiled at Clark, and Clark smiled at Joan, and it remained for Joan’s famous dachshund “Puppchen” to provide the only…
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{New Article} 1946: My Hollywood Friends
This little article was written by actress Susan Peters. Susan, a promising young actress who was nominated for an Academy Award for 1942’s Random Harvest, was tragically paralyzed when her shotgun accidentally went off and a bullet lodged in her spine on January 1, 1945. She started a column in Photoplay and “interviewed” celebrities, although I wouldn’t say this is technically an interview: It’s fascinating to observe the effect of his entrance into such a blasé room as the studio commissary. Stars by the gross walk in every day and nary a head turns, but when Mr. Gable arrives it’s an epidemic. Everyone turns to look at him. I’ll tell…
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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…
