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Gossip Friday: Keeping Spirits Up
From December 1941: Through these tense days, Carole Lombard has certainly kept the crew and cast on the stage of “To Be Or Not To Be”in a howling good humor with all her gags. When I asked her what she’d do if she caught a Japanese parachutist landing on her ranch, she said, “Let ’em come! Pappy and I haven’t been banging away at ducks and skeets all these years for nothing. We’ve put the ranch on a wartime basis, sold a couple of horses, and growing vegetables instead of alfalfa.” Atta girl, Carole! And very soon, too, you’ll be seeing Carole and Clark stumping the country, selling war bonds.…
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Gossip Friday: A Tooth for a Shoulder
From January 1941: Baltimore–Dr. Louis Hamman said today Clark Gable would have a tooth extracted in an effort to cure a shoulder ailment that actor has suffered since 1937. Gable, who arrived Monday with Carole Lombard, said “present plans call for us to fly back to Hollywood Saturday or Sunday.” __ Tooth extraction to cure a shoulder ailment?!
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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!)
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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…
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Gossip Friday: Serious Farmers
From May 1941: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are taking their farming more seriously than ever. They’re looking for a ranch in Oregon now.
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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…
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Gossip Friday: No Buffalo
From January 1942: Solicitous cowboy friends keep sending Carole Lombard buffalo steaks. She hates ’em.
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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…
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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.
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{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: