Clark Gable

Opinions on his career or personal life? Just watched "It Happened One Night" and he was so brilliant and sexy!

Love him.
dabbled in the homo sex.
Rod%20La%20Rocque
Wore clothes well. He LOOKED like a fit dude when dressed,but when producers had him take his shirt off for a Taran screen test they were disappointed. He just didnt have the build. Johnny Wiessmuller (sp) got the gig.
I read that he was quite neglectful about oral hygeine and eventually had to wear dentures. I can't imagine doing kissing scenes with someone like that. Also read in one of Joan Crawford's biographies that he wasn't averse to getting the occasional blow job from another man. Apparently he was friends with Franklin Roosevelt as he sometimes visited him in the White House.
Anonymous
Beautiful coloring.
The legend is he dabbled in the homo sex to get ahead when he was starting out but was homophobic (whether he got Cukor fired from GWTW is still debated -- Cukor allegedly knew about Gable's casting couch work and Gable resented him for it -- but I think it's more likely that Selznick thought Cukor was taking too much time and wanted somebody he could control). He was the "image" of masculinity in the 1930s, but I think his look is rather unappealing. He was an ok actor -- he's fine in "It Happened One Night" but his best performance was his last, in "The Misfits."
Carole Lombard cracked, "Gable's no Gable..."
He NEVER dabbled in gay sex.
I heard he was a dud in bed. Prefered to sleep with hookers. I recently saw IHON and I loved it too OP.
When the drunken reporters are escorting the even drunker Gable through the bus station, he looks so goofy he's adorable.
True love was Carole Lombard. She died in that famous plane crash trying to get back to Clark from a war bond tour. She was jealous of Lana Turner, who was starring with Clark in the ironically entitled "Somewhere I'll Find You." Had false teeth. Was the King of Hollywood. Married an older woman, Rhia Langham, who helped him with his career. Didn't get along with George Cukor on set of Gone With the Wind because Cukor, gay, knew he had furthered his career years before by way of the male casting couch. Allegedly made him uncomfortable with Cukor so he had him replaced with macho director Victor Fleming. Folklore, anyway. More likely that Cukor was a "womens' director" and paid more attention to them. Gable was insecure as hell over his portrayal of Rhett Butler, thinking that he could not live up to America's expectations. He did not want a director who was not in his corner. Had big affair with Joan Crawford that lasted many years, off and on. Went off to war and said he "didn't care if he died" since he had lost Carole. First film after war, Adventure, was with Greer Garson. Slogan: "Gable's back and Garson's got him." Did his own stunts in The Misfits and was exasperated over Marilyn Monroe's tardiness. Stress of it all brought on fatal heart attack. Only son, John Clark Gable was born after his death to his widow, Kay Spreckles, who vaguely resembled Carole Lombard.
Check him out in Dancing Lady with Joan Crawford and Red Dust with Jean Harlow. He's still quite young in those wonderful films and impossibly hot. For me, he lost had lost his sex appeal before the 1930s were over, including as Rhett Butler.
Yes It's true. CL wouldn't have died had she not been so obsessed over a man.
Bullshit, Gable smoked two packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, had an unhealthy diet, and a young wife he was probably fucking day and night, and would regularly hit the casinos in Reno. The "stress" of working with Marilyn was nothing, he knew she'd be late and his contract paid him $10,000 PER DAY 1960 money for every day over schedule.
Don't forget the bastard child he had with Loretta Young, R11. I believe Lombard also joked that if Gable was an inch shorter (where it matters), he'd be the queen of Hollywood.
No R14, He did have stress due to Marilyn tardiness and retakes. She was out of it. His lifestyle certainly did help but neither did MM.
If it was one inch shorter,he'd be queen of Hollywood!
Carole%20Lombard
MM's onset behavior was well-known in Hollywood, he actually said lovely things about her and his wife invited Marilyn to their son's christening after Gable died. Gable wasn't dumb, he knew what he was getting into with The Misfits. Another myth is that he did his own stunts, a stunt double was used for all but the closeup which was shot in a Hollywood studio.
Although not bad looking, he somehow doesn't strike the sexual nerve with me as he apparently had with others, especially in the 1930s. R11, are you sure you aren't thinking of Josephine Dillon? I believe she was his first wife but married him more to promote him in the movies; I think she had something to do with training actors in Hollywood; why she married him one can't understand. Supposedly she did alot to smooth his rough edges--he had done a variety of jobs while also doing stock, including being a roustabout in the oil fields in Oklahoma. Read somewhere that while filming "The Misfits" he jokingly told Marilyn Monroe that if she continued being late for the set he would put her over his knee and spank her. Supposedly she found this not a bad offer. I thought he and Montgomery Clift had a great rappore/chemistry in that movie but as movies go it seemed rather tepid, something Arthur Miller turned out so Marilyn could freak out in every other scene. Interesting to note that Clark Gable (d. 1960), Marilyn Monroe (d. 1962) and Montgomery Clift (d. 1965) all were dead within 5 years of making that movie.
Anonymous
No insurance company underwriting the production of any film in those days would have allowed Gable to do his own stunts.
Gable was a gentleman and would not say unkind things about another star to the media. One can "admire" a star and still be stressed all to hell by his/her behavior. George Cukor understood Garland's genius, for instance, but vowed never to work with her again after ASIB. William Wyler adored Bette Davis and directed some of the best work out of her. Had an affair with her, even. After Mr. Skeffington? DONE. He could not take her ego anymore. It is well documented that Clark Gable was patient and kind to MM during the shoot. But the incessant waiting, waiting, waiting in that hot Nevada sun was a major stresser. Sitting around doing nothing took a toll. It might not have been THE thing that brought on his heart attack but she sure didn't help things. It was a difficult shoot at best, made MORE difficult by MM and Montgomery Clift's mental problems.
Correction: Montgomery Clift died 1966.
R19
"When the drunken reporters are escorting the even drunker Gable through the bus station, he looks so goofy he's adorable." I love that scene. It's injured pride and soldiering on and a bunch of other things I don't know how to describe but it made me realize what a great actor he was. My favorite scene in the movie; I like it much better than the famous how-to-undress one.
He was not exasperated with Marilyn Monroe during The Misfits. He was calm, patient, and supportive. If anything bored. Kept himself away a little big but he was not a exasperated man. I was there 5 days - 3 of which Clark Gable waited in the shade, on a flat bed of a big truck, on the edge of town and all the extra's milling about. Not pacing, not asking for the time. Just watching everybody else pretty much. Everybody left him alone. The one day she did show up in the afternoon, he hugged her, and made her feel welcome. Saw it myself. The only person who was totally exasperated was John Houston who kept yelling into his megaphone about the late Miss Monroe. And the day I saw Arthur Miller -he was nasty, snarly and treated her like a dog.
Misfit%20Girl
R24 are you for real?
A
I have read that he was a callboy before he made it big in Hollywood, not just doing the male casting couch. Cukor reminded him of those times and men and knew about, I guess.
r24, I have seen your posts before. You spoke with Marilyn, too, didn't you? And said she was sweet and sad? You posted a long story about your time there watching the filming. Fascinating and poignant.
His daughter by Loretta Young said her mom told her the first thing he said when she told him she was pregnant was, "What do you plan to do about it?". Loretta wrote the relationship off after that.
Yes- I'm for real. I have posted about it here before. Spent two different times talking with Marilyn Monroe. (One day all by myself. I was about 11 years old.)She was wonderful to me-gave me her full attention, asked me lots of questions. It's a long story about both encounters. I remember so much of it. And I posted a nice story about Clark Gable watching me play hopscotch. He was maybe 25 feet away, up on that flatbed truck, I was down on the dirt road off to the side of him - bored and hot -when I scratched out a hopscotch in the dirt and played it. He watched me the whole time. When I was done, I looked up at him. He lifted off his straw cowboy hat and tipped it at me and grinned. Sounds silly but it was special. My mother watched the whole thing and was very tickled. It was because of her and my aunt wanting to see Clark Gable that we made this trip every day that week anyway. She never guessed that because of me she would meet Marilyn and be invited into her trailer. I wonder if those old posts would still be here? I posted a couple different times years ago.
Misfit%20Girl
Thanks Misfits Girl! What wonderful memories. So sad that Arthur Miller was cruel to Marilyn...
R25
I found his contemporary William Powell MUCH more handsome, charasmatic and a FAR better actor(an even better dramatic actor despite Powell's penchant for comedies; suffice it to say, it takes a great deal of talent to effectively and effortlessly pull off a comedic performance)
Myrna
Gable and Garbo, just hanging out like two bros on a fishing trip. This was years before "Brokeback Mountain":
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DUlnnsh92ry0
It's fascinating to me how Gable was signed by MGM at the beginning of the 1930s but kept in supporting roles for the first couple of ears, mostly just playing the romantic interest of their leading ladies Garbo, Shearer and Crawford. The bigger male stars on their roster then were the likes of William Haines and Robert Montgomery, who were far more suave and gentlemanly. Macho types played vilains (George Raft) or low comics (Wallace Beery). Gable quickly caused a sensation with audiences as the first rugged male sex symbol, establishing that prototype for the rest of film history.
Misfit Girl is real. She put up some of the best DL posts of all time several years ago.
Gable caused a national sensation in It Happened One Night by removing his shirt in a scene and revealing that he did not wear an undershirt (the character, anyway.) The urban myth that undershirt sales plummeted in the country for a time after that has survived ever since, despite no actual facts to support it. He was very very popular and set THE standard for masculinity in the United States for a few decades, at least. John Wayne did too, but he was too polarizing, too much of an extreme caricature of "manhood" for most men to relate to. Back then, Gable was "the fella you could have a beer with," that you understood, that was just one of the guys. Wayne represented some sort of male ideal of a stalwart "strong, silent" type. The fact that neither of these men could live up to these images was irrelevant. Wayne never did any military service, despite starring in many war and western pictures. Like Cary Grant, Gable BECAME his image over the years.
Gable is the weak link in GWTW. Leigh and Howard provided the humanity.
R36, really? Humanity? "Oh Melly, are you HEPPY? Are you really, really HEPPY?" Leslie Howard was a bit hamfisted. He didn't even try to disquise his Brit accent and did not care for the part. He never even read the novel! He only DID the part to get his Intermezzo producing gig, which O'Selznick promised him. Gable, although ALSO sans accent, was the ONLY choice for Rhett. America said so. Margaret Mitchell said so. O'Selznick said so. And the viewing public forgave any shortcomings he brought to the role. There were some. He is the only one of the major players not to get any acting nods or awards, though, that is true. He had MAJOR challenges with his crying scene, after Bonnie's death. Image "issues." After Parnell (1937), in which he played a sensitive Irishman and which bombed royally at the box office, he was terrified to play anything showing vulnerability or tenderness. He feared the public would reject him. That scene might be the only "true" scene for him in the film.
I thought Gable did a good job of playing Rhett Butler overall, but I never thought of him as a great actor or particularly great in the part, though there were some moments. I thought he played the scenes well at the end, where he left her. He did seem tired, though the character seemed a bit too healthy looking compared to how Mitchell described his physical disintegration after the death of the child. I also remember the first time I saw Gone with the Wind, in my teens, that he scared the shit out of me at the dining room table after Scarlett gets caught with Ashley. 'Observe my hands, my dear... I'll smash your skull between them like a walnut.' It was the thirties. Direction had a different vibe. I'd love to see GWTW remade today as a real drama, but you couldn't because it romanticizes the Old South.
Dear me r37 - it appears you've been brainwashed rather than form your own opinion about the performances. Howard had something called gravitas - ever heard of it?
I remember reading that somebody said as they worked through the casting process and Katherine Hepburn was under consideration for Scarlett (to what extent I don't know): With a cast full of Hepburns and Howards we can have a lovely picture for release eight years ago.
Dear ME, R39, opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one. Howard did okay. His stalwart gravitas is in evidence so you can stop flapping your petticoats. The backstory on him is that he hated his costumes ("Don't make me look like the fag doorman at the Beverly Wilshire") and that he had a lot of dye and spackle on him to make him appear younger. He was 48 during filming. And looked it. Gable was 37 during filming and at the height of his beauty. Leigh was 26. Howard was a marvelous actor, to be sure. But I think HE was the weakest link in the cast. And still a pretty strong weak link! I still love the film, own it, and can talk about it for hours.
R40, that last line is from a memo that O'Selznick sent out during the casting process. The screen tests are available on youtube.
Howard is underrated and profound. The reality of the world is all over his face. Gable just grins like an imbecile with her sparkling white dentures. So get over it r41.
Sounds like Selznick. There was a book called Memo from David O. Selznick. I know he was a prolific dictator of memos. Don't know if the book was just a compilation or that was just the title but he'd be good reading. I think his papers are all archived with some university in Texas, of all places.
Also, dear 37, Selznick was Jewish, not Irish. The "O" was his middle initial. But hey, whatever sells tickets.
Nothing's as much fun as when we get battling over the arcane! This thread is going all Anderson Cooper now!
Leslie Howard was preoccupied with the coming war in Europe during shooting of GWTW. That world weariness, that depression, that sense of impending darkness and mass murder across the continent of Europe made his performance as Ashley the second most prized jewel of the film, with Vivien's fighting "tomorrow IS another day" spirit being the most life affirming and dazzling hymn to life - she simply refuses to be slain. Vivien and Leslie are the yin and yang of this film. They are absolutely magnificent.
You can count on it r46. I am fucking sick and tired of hearing people repeat things they heard of their grandma's knee about how Gable "WAS" Rhett Butler and how Howard was "wrong" for Ashley. That hand-me-down shit ends right here. It's time people started forming their own opinions and this is mine.
R44, I own the book. O'Selznick was an amphetamine addict and many of his memos were furiously composed while he was "up." Fascinating the intensity with which he worked, some of it genius and some of it pills. He was maddening with his attention to detail. He micromanaged GWTW to death and yet, in the end, look what he got! He quit making movies in 1948, burnt out from years of trying to top Gone With the Wind. He only GOT Gable for Rhett after he negotiated a distribution deal with MGM. Gable did not, initially, want the part at all. Vivien had an urgency to her performance because Larry Olivier was in New York appearing in a play and she wanted to get to him as soon as filming wrapped. She also adored Cukor and was devastated when Fleming came onboard. But he whipped the performances into shape with his authoritative style. Everyone respected him. He and Gable were buddies. Olivia wanted Melanie BADLY but Warners would not, initially, let her jump studios at ALL. She was a $$$ for her home studio. She finagled a deal with Jack Warner to let her have the role, eventually, and she explains it all in an extra on one of the GWTW anniversary DVD editions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DvIvuqYXfHeM%26NR%3D1%26feature%3Dendscreen
I just think O'Selznick is funny, as a sort of wink to him for changing his name and adding that phantom "O" so that he would appear "less Jewish" or "more important" or whatever. He thought it added something to his cache. So, I just make him Irish. :)
Clark Gable was very hot in such pre codes as A Free Soul opposite Norma Shearer and Red Dust and Hold YOur Man opposite Jean Harlow. He was still roguishy charming after the code started to be enforced and up to WWII. Due to aging, the war and Lombard's death, he did lose something after WWII. And Gable could become quite disinterested when paired opposite a starchy leading lady like Greer Garson, Jeannette MacDonald or Norma Shearer in the second half of Idiot's Delight when the Widow Thalberg puts on a blonde wig and starts acting all grand.
Judy Lewis, Gable's secret daughter with Loretta Young, looked exactly like him. There was no question Gable was her biological father. Lewis died a while back.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kuih-uytzfs/TtZxLL9ujsI/AAAAAAAANtw/VnN_qmDtoAU/s1600/JudyLewis2.jpg
^ Phew... when you say Clark Gable's daughter looks exactly like him, you don't expect an attractive woman like in the link!
Never warmed to Gable, and never found his attractive. Gary Cooper on the other hand...
Hepburn never deigned to screen test for Scarlett.
[quote]Leslie Howard was preoccupied with the coming war in Europe during shooting of GWTW. That world weariness, that depression, that sense of impending darkness and mass murder across the continent of Europe made his performance as Ashley the second most prized jewel of the film Mary! How were you able to knit, type and swill gin all at the same time? If you liked Howard's performance, I recoil in contemplation of the affectations that gild your life.
Loretta had her baby Judy Lewis have surgery on her ears -she had them pinned back. Before that, all pictures of her were in a bonnet.
All that world-weariness is fine, but there's no changing the fact the Howard is too old by 20 years to be playing Ashley. It's very distracting. Back to Gable: did he have an affair with Lana Turner? She seems like his type -- blond and loved to party -- and she's one of his few leading ladies with whom he had genuine chemistry.
His most frequent (and some would say best) costar was none other than DL Fave Joan Crawford!
Could this thread GET any GAYER?
I love Leslie Howard. I found out about him a few months ago. I only recently watched GWTW (I'm only 20) but I agree R41. Again, I love Leslie Howard but he was too old and the weakest link in the film.
Supposedly he was somewhat an anti-semite but yet, he nearly bailed on attending the GWTW Atlanta premier out of protest that Hattie McDaniel and the other black cast members were excluded from the festivities.
To be honest, Leigh, Howard and de Havilland were all too old for their parts. When the book opens, Scarlett is 16, Ashley is 17 and Melly is even younger.
Let's see, R63, Scarlett and Melanie were supposed to age from late teens to late twenties, and were played by actresses in their twenties. Rhett was supposed to age from his early thirties to his forties, and was played by an actor in his late thirties. Ashley was supposed to age from (approximately) age twenty to thirtyish, and was played by an actor of nearly FIFTY. Which of these things is not like the others?
Sixty-four posts and no mention of the fact that Gable killed someone in a hit and run? I think he was drunk at the time. The studio covered it up.
He did? Really?
[quote]Didn't get along with George Cukor on set of Gone With the Wind because Cukor, gay, knew he had furthered his career years before by way of the male casting couch. Allegedly made him uncomfortable with Cukor so he had him replaced with macho director Victor Fleming. In the play about the making of GWTW, "Moonlight and Magnolias," one of the characters mentions Gable and Cukor getting it on in a men's room.
Gable was probably one of the most well-liked actors in Hollywood. He was the "King of Hollywood", but in real life he was a very unassuming man who got along well with just about everybody and was a consummate professional. A NICE guy. Arthur Miller called him "the man who did not know how to hate."
[quote]he was a very unassuming man who got along well with just about everybody and was a consummate professional. A NICE guy. Except when it came to sharing. He was terminally "frugal" and never shared.
Didn't Joan Crawford say Clark was the only man who didn't talk shit about her. Didn't kiss and tell like others tended to do.
He was very right wing. When he died his absentee ballot was for Nixon.
I have been reading that it was actually Billy Haines who fucked and sucked Clark in some rest room. Cukor allegedly admitted to having some gay for pay sex with Clark too. I also read that the real reason Clark had Cukor removed from GWTW was that Haines would be on the set from time to time visiting with his good friend Cukor and Gable was very uncomfortable with those two tricks watching him work. Joan Crawford was asked by Merv Griffin what she remembered most about Clark and she was bleeped when she obviously said: "He had balls!"
I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned that Gable is very sexy in Mutiny on the Bounty where his bare chest was in better shape than it was in It Happned One Night. Supposedly, he was very unhappy about having to go without his customary mustache as Fletcher Christian as it was inappropriate for men of the 18th century. But I think he looked just fine without it.
here's Miss Melly receiving a FIVE MINUTE standing ovation!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dqu4dXpNwhlo
You all need to stop praising GONE WITH THE WIND, which is second only to THE BIRTH OF A NATION in the annals of racist propaganda. It's a bad film, too. Every print should be destroyed. R21, jackass, William Wyler did not direct MR. SKEFFINGTON. Vincent Sherman did.
Dude was not a nice guy. Dude got Loretta Young pregnant and then never acknowledged his own daughter. Dude was an ASSHOLE.
I've enjoyed some of his performances (GWTW, IHON, Red Dust, Mogambo, etc.), and he seemed to be a very personable and charismatic leading man, but he never struck me as particularly hot or sexy in the way that his contemporaries like Errol Flynn or Cary Grant did.
r56 - it's called breeding. Some of us have retained the standards of our ancestors, others have not. Even in the gutter, manners maketh man.
Strange that the name Clark never became a favorite for baby boys born in the US in the 1930s, 40s or 50s. Same with Cary and Spencer but not Gary. James and John (of course) have been favorites forever. Why is that?
I went to high school with a Rhett Butler
Its a shame his later films in the second half of the 50s are not better. Teachers Pet with Doris was popular and I love It Started In Naples with Sophia (30 years younger than him) and he still looked good then - but he had suddenly aged when back in America for The Misfits - a good one to go out on, by Arthur Miller and Huston. But Not For Me is also amusing in 1959 with Lilli Palmer and Carroll Baker. But like Gary Cooper he had aged a lot, no doubt all that boozing and smoking and hard living took its toll. He and Cooper were both gone by the start of the 60s. Cary Grant and James Stewart were luckier, and healthier - working well into the 1960s and they each did 4 for Hitchcock which are always on show somewhere, so they seem more timeless stars than Gable or Cooper now. Coop's last films are very routine - westerns and a few thrillers. He is far too old with Audrey Hepburn in that Wilder misfire Love In The Afternoon, and with Suzy Parker in 10 North Frederick. Man of the West and The Hanging Tree are tough westerns, but not as good as Friendly Persuasion - his last good one in 1956. The Wreck of the Mary Deare is so-so with Heston, and The Naked Edge a dull thriller with Deborah Kerr, where he is obviously unwell.
His work hosting "Cheaters" is stunning.
Anonymous
I watched Mutiny On the Bounty a few years ago and Gable was smokin' hot in it. He was around 35ish and I think he looked better without his trademark mustache.
[quote]Some of us have retained the standards of our ancestors The standards of our ancestors? Like women need to stay home? Black people are for owning? Its perfectly fine to send children to work in coal mines?
"Dude was not a nice guy. Dude got Loretta Young pregnant and then never acknowledged his own daughter. Dude was an ASSHOLE." Dude, you are clueless. Dude, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Dude, you are an IDIOT. Both Gable and Young knew that if it came out they had a love child their careers would be finished. So it was decided that Young would hide out in Europe for a while, have the baby, and then come back to the U.S. with her "adopted" child. No doubt both of them knew that it would be best for the child not to know the circumstances of her birth and for Gable to keep his distance, lest it be found out that he and Young were her actual parents. They both wanted to keep the affair and the child resulting from it completely under wraps and who could blame them? Back then, if something like that had gotten out they both would have been reviled and their careers destroyed. The kid would not have had an easy time of it either if she were revealed to be the bastard child of an illicit union (that's what people would have thought in those days). They did what they thought was right, under the circumstances. I can't say I blame them one bit.
"You all need to stop praising GONE WITH THE WIND, which is second only to THE BIRTH OF A NATION in the annals of racist propaganda. It's a bad film, too. Every print should be destroyed." Sorry to have to tell you, but GWTW will always be revered as a great film, and so will BOAN. Isn't it time you took your meds?
R84, I'm not who you're quoting but I'd say no to the first two and yes to the third. R66, yes - it's true. He was the "King of Hollywood" and there was no way he was going to jail or even be accused of a drunk driving hit and run. I Googled it just now to find a cite and evidently it's come up here before. It's in a 600 post thread about what studio publicists have covered up. The story that person heard was that it was a ten year old kid. I remember hearing it was a young mother. I don't know know for sure and obviously the evidence disappeared a long time ago.
http://www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/ajax.html%3Ft%3D10294679%23page:showThread%2C10294679
The funny thing about the people who scream "Gone with the Wind is racist!" is that if you actually watch the film, you cant help but realize that the only people who have any morals, have dignity, any sense of honor or heroism, any real values and are not stumbling around with blinders on are the black characters. The white characters are either driven by greed or are stunningly self absorbed or are stuck in the past losers.
"...if you actually watch the film {GWTW}, you cant help but realize that the only people who have any morals, have dignity, any sense of honor or heroism, any real values and are not stumbling around with blinders on are the black characters. " Not true. Rhett Butler, the "bad" man who defies all of society's rules, is quite honorable and heroic. He defies all of high society's hypocritical rules, the ones Scarlett lives by, and tells off anyone who mouths the idiotic popular opinions of the day. And he desperately tries to win Mammy's favor, because he recognizes she's a person of worth and wisdom. "Dude got Loretta Young pregnant and then never acknowledged his own daughter. Dude was an ASSHOLE." Publicly admitting that Judy was his would have ruined his and Loretta's careers, and it would have been difficult for a child of that era, if it had been known she was illegitimate. Keeping his yap shut in public was the honorable thing to do, by the standards of the day. Tell me, does anyone know if he ever spoke to Judy Lewis as a father? She would have been an adult when he died, old enough to understand the situation.
Judy Lewis wrote in her book that she met Gable only once when she was 15. He was over at Loretta's house and she (Judy) and Gable had a brief conversation about nothing in particular and then he left. That was it. I wonder if Judy had been a boy if Gable would have shown an interest in her.
Yeah, r88, if the "real values" you're talking about are complete and utter devotion to the service of whites, both before and after emancipation. GONE WITH THE WIND doesn't portray blacks as sub-human or anything like that, but I think it's disingenuous to pretend there's not an inherent racism to it. It clearly portrays Mammy as a woman of admirable qualities, BUT she's a woman whose entire raison d'etre in life is to serve the O'Haras (rather than to have any identity or life of her own) - and the book and movie clearly think that's pretty much the way it should be. The blacks who don't continue serving their slaveowners after emancipation are at best, trash, and at worst, rapists. I'm saying this as an enormous GONE WITH THE WIND fan, who loves all the amazing things about it, but can still recognize that it's based on a worldview that thinks whites as masters and blacks as slaves/servants is the best situation for everybody. (As a side note, I think your post doesn't take into account Melanie as a white character who is supposed to embody all the things you mention.)
"yes - it's true. He was the "King of Hollywood" and there was no way he was going to jail or even be accused of a drunk driving hit and run. I Googled it just now to find a cite and evidently it's come up here before. It's in a 600 post thread about what studio publicists have covered up. The story that person heard was that it was a ten year old kid. I remember hearing it was a young mother. I don't know know for sure and obviously the evidence disappeared a long time ago." NO. It's NOT true. Snopes.com clears up the "Gable killed a pedestrian while drunk and the studio covered it up" rumor once and for all. Look it up. It's very interesting in that it shows how rumors and gossip that have no basis in fact is frequently accepted as the truth.
I considered him to be one of the sexiest Hollywood stars of all time. However, I don't think he was handsome. Hard to explain.
What a man!! They don't make 'em like that anymore!
GWTW was no better or no worse than ANY other Golden Age (pre-1960s) Hollywood film in portraying the situation of black people during the Civil War. End of story.
I don't understand why people call GWTW racist. Slavery was inherently racist. The movie, although a work of fiction and "glamorized," raises slavery to a place that is better than what it actually WAS, for chrissake. How could you make a movie about an historical period, "pretty it up" even, and then call it racist? What about the movie was historically inaccurate, apart from the liberties taken with the costumes and the make-up, perhaps? It was ABOUT slavery and they showed, surprise, SLAVES. None of them were beaten or raped. Prissy got slapped but she deserved it, no matter what color she was. None were hanged. Big Sam saved Scarlett's life. Mammy was the smartest of them all. You can damn well bet that there is NO way that the bleeding hearts would like ANY version of a movie about the deep South at that time. If they had made slaves completely "equal" to the whites, writing revisionist history, for instance, some people would squawk that "It was not that way. Slaves had it much worse than that." And people also don't seem to get that many slaves knew NO OTHER LIFE than life on the plantation. It might have been a "shame" that Mammy had no other purpose or goals other than to "serve" the O'Hara's, that she wasn't just dying to pack a bag and take off for secretarial college or something, but that was her socialization, her "world." She knew no differently. It was a world in a snowglobe. A civilation oh, I don't know, GONE WITH THE WIND. The squawkers say that the message of the movie is that slavery was the desired state of affairs and that the war "ruined" it. Well, DUH! The entire movie is told through the prism of SOUTHERNERS. It was not a propaganda fucking movie.
Mammy was the only woman in this film who talked back to the white men and didn't let them boss her around. She didn't take any shit from anyone. I don't know how anyone could call that racist.
Mammy is believable as written. She's like the butler in "Remains of the Day", an upper servant whose self-image is based on close identification with her aristocratic masters. Such people can be bigger snobs than their employers, and can be so absorbed in being the #1 servant that they forget the rest of the world thinks of them as inferiors. And like the guy in "Remains of the Day", Mammy gives up her personal life without realizing what she's lost. No, it's the other servants and slaves who aren't believable. The cheerful slaves in the field who love working for the O'Haras, Big Sam continuing to act like Scarlett's loyal servant after he's been free for years, etc. It's an openly racist book and film, but Margaret Mitchell definitely had mixed feelings about the Old South. She has Rhett voice her feelings about the idiocy of starting the war, and Mammy rip the old aristocracy a few new ones.
I remember being a kid (I was born in 1980 for a reference point) and the three "old time" actors that I knew before I even realized I knew them were: Clark Gable, James Dean and Cary Grant. To me, those three men are the three Kings of Hollywood. I have no idea why I'm sharing this.
Jan. 17, 1942: Carole Lombard, who was returning from a campaign to sell defense bonds; her mother, Elizabeth K. Peters; and MGM publicist Otto Winkler are among 22 killed when a TWA Douglas Skycub slams into the side of Olcott Mountain 35 miles southwest of Las Vegas. Her husband, Clark Gable, who had been waiting at the Lockheed Air Terminal, immediately chartered a plane to Las Vegas. The next day, The Times reported that Gable “vainly sought to make his way torturously up the cactus-strewn trail to the scene of his wife’s death. He was finally persuaded to return to Las Vegas, where he received the news that all aboard the plane had perished.”
http://ladailymirror.com/2012/01/17/carole-lombard-among-22-dead-in-crash-gable-charters-plane-for-las-vegas/
Gable had no chest hair, so yawn.
He looked so much better without mustache
http://images.sodahead.com/slideshows/000004777/156356612_dddd_35784115380-35784505570_xlarge.jpeg
[quote]Mammy is believable as written. She's like the butler in "Remains of the Day", an upper servant whose self-image is based on close identification with her aristocratic masters. Such people can be bigger snobs than their employers, and can be so absorbed in being the #1 servant that they forget the rest of the world thinks of them as inferiors. And like the guy in "Remains of the Day", Mammy gives up her personal life without realizing what she's lost. There's a great scene in the book that describes how she "manages" the O'Haras. Since she is a slave (and knows this better than anyone) when she is unhappy with something, she knows she can't just come out and say it. Instead, she goes out into the hall and starts to clean, and audibly "pray" about her problem. She asks for God to give her the strength to bear whatever it is, and continues to do so for hours. Since the O'Haras are rich and white, they cannot acknowledge hearing her pray, nor can they tell her to stop because they are not supposed to be listening to her from their lofty heights, but by the time the hall is clean, they know exactly how Mammy feels, and what she needs to correct it. [quote]No, it's the other servants and slaves who aren't believable. The cheerful slaves in the field who love working for the O'Haras, The house servants had a little in a land of nothing so wanted to keep it -- they were cheerful about lording it over the other slaves and wanted to maintain the status quo. [quote]Big Sam continuing to act like Scarlett's loyal servant after he's been free for years, etc. Big Sam lived in the North for a while and saw how the Yankees really viewed black men as big and scary, and any "kindnesses" they showed were born out of fear.
He is so sexy in this photo *faints
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l254vkSs4O1qazanuo1_500.jpg
Sorry, i forgot to mention that the previous photo is from 'Red Dust' (1932). Clark Gable with Mary Astor
R104