Talks... by ELEANOR HARRIS

The “King” Talks... BY ELEANOR HARRIS from Director Raoul Walsh some eight years ago. He raises chickens, oranges, a cow, cottage cheese and two dogs. He has a In a rare interview, Clark swimming pool. But not the usual Holly- Gable a few off gets things wood type, shaped like a clover leaf (Ginny his chest, and tells why he Simms), or like the Black Sea (Nazimova), or like a mountain pool with fake boulders hates his latest role and fake bronze deer sipping from the water (many others). Nor is it enormous like Marion Davies’ pool, which is 75 feet by 40. Gable is sore. He thinks “Adven- “It’s just a little one, forty by twenty. Clarkture,” his comeback film, was “the I want to see the shore when I strike out,” lousiest picture ever made.” He refused to he explains. in “The play Hucksters” until they com- His house, too, is simple: eight rooms, pletely rewrote the hero’s part, because white brick on the outside, cool eggshell- “I don’t like playing heels.” white inside. There are plenty of guns and And M-G-M, from Louis B. Mayer to the huge fieldstone fireplaces. It is immaculately lowest errand has been boy, paying sharp groomed by three servants. Ilis pretty notice. Clark Gable is still “The King.” blond secretary, Jean Carceau, works not? For 16 he has Why years been one in an office right off his living room, of M-G-M’s stars. biggest He has acted in handles appointments and mail. But no 40 earned pictures, millions of dollars for complicated financial deals. Gable is one of his His employers. own salary still runs the few stars who doesn’t own a sports close to a half-million dollars a year. arena, a football team or a string of horses. For more a than decade, indignant women He just collects his salary and banks it. have put their hapless males in place with Six-Suit Wardrobe the simple retort: “Who do you think you are — Clark Gable?” When he entertains, his guests are almost Today, at 45, Gable is still Gable. Six- always the same people: Gary Cooper and feet-one, broad-shouldered, virile and self- wife. Mr. and Mrs. Howard Hawks, Norris he can confident, turn almost any female’s GofT (he’s Abner in “Lum ’n’ Abner”) and knees to aspic. His black hair is salted with wife, Director Walter I^ang, Writer John gray, but his grin is infectious, cocky and Lee Mahin, Actress Virginia Grey. are (women convinced) insinuating. The fact that he’s often been named as Operators listen in shamelessly when he one of the “World’s Ten Best-Dressed Men” makes a telephone call. Once when he amuses him, since he owns only six suits. a in phoned girl New Orleans, an unex- “I blow my money on just three things,” pected feminine cough broke in. he says. “And those are fancy luggage, “I the think operator is listening in on handmade British shoes and flashy cars.” us, Clark,” the young lady said. Right now his garage is jammed with a said "Nonsense,” Gable. Chrysler station wagon, a dark gray Packard I Yes, am listening,” cut in a strange convertible and a pint-sized Studebaker. voice, “but please, please let me, He is no great reader. When Mr. Gable.” he does read he unconsciously Gable has ■ been married three looks for a Gable role. Once he times: to Josephine Dillon (six was on a train heading for New years), to Ria Langham (^ven York City. At Albuquerque he to blond years), actress Carole picked up a book someone had Lombard (three years). shoved in his hand as the train Miss Lombard Although was left Los Angeles. It was “The killed in a plane crash in 1942, Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand. her name still dominates his con- By the time he reached Chi- versation. “Carole decorated this house he her- cago had also reached Page 299 and a he tells self," the visitor to his home. Or, high state of excitement. He leaped off the “This is a — bachelor's house now quiet as train, ran for the nearest telephone booth, a grave. You should have been here when called M-G-M in California. Carole was alive. Phones ringing, flowers “I’ve got it!” he yelled. “Howard Roark in all over arriving, people the joint. It was ’The Fountainhead.’ Buy it for me! Hurry!” It was pandemonium. swell!” The voice at the other end was calm. “Umph,” it said. Simple Social Life Ultimately Warner Brothers bought the Since Carole's death, Gable’s social life book. That’s one of the things Gable is sore has been simple and devoid of excitement. about. That and “Adventure.” His favorite entertainment is running off “I don’t care how much money ’Adven- double features in M-G-M’s projection ture’ made at the box office. It was lousy. rooms. He seldom goes to movie theaters, How could I tell? I had to work hard. A good restaurants or clubs. But night he will drive picture is easy, just flows along by itself. miles to hear a good boogie-woogie band. Everyone has a swell time, nobody strains, He’s a six-months-on, six-months-off golfer, and it comes out fine. With a bad picture, and an inveterate hunter. everyone works like hell, and nothing comes "Only place I go without a gun is New off.” York he City,” grins. “And I should take That’s the Gable philosophy — and it ITYMIE FINK one there.” works all right for him. After all, he’s GABLE:“A is With a bad works like hell" Gable lives on a good picture easy. picture, everyone 20-acre ranch he bought “The King.” The End .

Load more