Stills That Speak #7

 

STS: Clark Gable Captures

From files long dormant, here are Gable images some of which may be unfamiliar. Another group will go up for STS #8, whenever that comes round.

IF NOT MARY PHILIPS WITH GABLE, WHO? --- This is a very old still from Gable’s career on the stage. I’m pretty sure he is posed with Mary Philips. She was married to Humphrey Bogart around this time, which I’d judge to be the late twenties. Broadway search sites did not reveal the name of the play wherein Philips and Gable appeared together. It may have been off-Broadway or a traveling performance. Were portraits so carefully composed for plays not done on Broadway? Philips’ name is scrawled on the back, but oddly not Gable’s. No question of course that it’s him. Mary Philips can be readily identified by her nose, which was prominent. She did sound movies and often played mothers. Her age and Bogart’s were close. The two stayed friends after their ten-year marriage. They split because of his emerging career in films and her wanting to stay East where work was. But for that, their union might have lasted. Gable learned his business over years with stock and performing all over. Josephine Dillon taught him lots before and during their marriage. She helped develop the low voice that became his trademark. Would Gable have made it had there not been Josephine Dillon in his life? By the time he entered talking pictures, Gable was well seasoned and ready for anything, being forceful right from a start on screens. A lot of dynamic players crossed country to enter talkies. Gable among these was exceptional but needed luck to crack lock that was stardom. He never kidded himself or anyone to the contrary, stayed humble as to how he got where he was. I looked around for record of any appearance Gable made with Mary Philips but am so far stumped. Maybe someone more versed in stage history can put us straight.

YOUTH MEETS EXPERIENCE AT MGM? --- I caption thus on one hand, then recall these sprites had been in films near as long as Clark Gable, Rooney in fact a star (in shorts anyway) before CG got prominent. No one no matter who was going to teach Mickey and Judy about performing, while Shirley, without realizing it perhaps, was outclassed and would stay so to Leo’s reckoning. Again, what could she do that Garland and Rooney couldn’t, and leagues better. Metro music and dance staff let her know it, not with tact, and if proof was needed, watch Miss Annie Rooney, done after she flaked out at Metro. Selznick’s was a life raft for Shirley, but did he want her mostly for publicity value of owning Shirley Temple? He surely made hay of her wedding, bought John Agar for a chaser. Garland knew all others at song were behind her pace, was intimidated however by glamour sorts as Lana Turner and Lamarr, but that I suspect was more on personal rather than performing level. Rooney could act, and brilliantly, between calls to his bookmaker. He’d have laughed, probably did, at mention of the Method. To be born instinctively brilliant at anything … must be marvelous. Gable is here to fulfill studio expectation. We have some idea how the youngsters viewed him, Temple perhaps excepted. She would have had little opportunity to know the King, being with Leo so short a time. Gable in any case would wing off to war. Rooney saw him as a sartorial model, probably asked Gable where to shop for or order clothes. Garland was less impressed until Gable told her in the late forties how sick he got of her singing to him every birthday. For “leveling” with her, she grew to like him. Shirley was clearly still in “Junior Miss” category, hence the moppet socks, would play an adolescent in Kathleen, her only MGM vehicle, then radio duty as Corliss Archer, where my former band teacher Priscilla Lyon worked with her, later telling me Shirley was OK but no brain trust.

BELIEVE THIS OR DON’T --- Back captions were no more arbiters of accuracy than what fan magazines poured out monthly, but here was one that, if fiction, was specific enough to at least seem real, but where was it I read that Gable was faking tonsilitis stay-at-home when actually he was sitting out work to show Metro brass a thing or three. Him being absent obliged bosses to contrive something … that is, something believable … to explain truancy. Tonsil trouble was often a fallback for conditions that needed to be blurry, that or appendix, even removal of same where hospital stay was extended. There were some stars who had their appendix out four or five times. What was in California water to make the things grow back? Jean Harlow is here visiting the patient and Mrs. Gable (Rhea). Jean was said to have brought along “Marie Dressler’s projection machine and a print of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, Tugboat Annie.” Mary Astor although not pictured joined the merry group. Who sent that starburst arrangement of flowers? Imagine how they’ll shed on the floor after a week or so. I’d like knowing if Miss Dressler’s machine was 35mm. If so, they would need an operator from the lot to assure a smooth presentation (or invite Babe Hardy, as he after all was once a projectionist). The date stamped is August 21, 1933. Gable and Harlow had by this time co-starred in Red Dust and Hold Your Man. It was generally understood they’d again be a team whenever suitable material was found, which upcoming China Seas and Wife vs. Secretary proved to be. Gable would also be there for Harlow’s last, Saratoga, a virtual eyewitness to her decline and death. He never much liked reminiscing about past films and co-workers, but I assume more than a few asked him to share impressions of Harlow, as fascination for her never abetted, at least not in what remained of Gable’s lifetime. So far as I know at least, he never spoke publicly about her.

DRIVING TO WORK EVEN AS YOU AND I --- Let us say daily commute through Culver City took you past the entrance to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. You’d have seen same faces shlepping to jobs each morning on the Lion lot, over time enough to render them commonplace. You might in fact know them by their transport. “I saw your car the other day” is not untypical a greeting in my parts, advantage (or not?) of living in a small town. Culver City too was small, in past times nearly rural when compared with beehive that was downtowns elsewhere. I routinely pass places where clocks could be set by who enters and when. Here was case if more so for biggest stars out of Leo’s den, many arriving before cock crow to get made up and costumed for another grueling day. Imagine being put to that to make your living. Picture also an intersection and here you are beside Clark Gable waiting for the signal to change. He’s in a sporty convertible, Jaguar’s 1952 XK120 which he had customized to his liking. Think of it ... your vehicle but feet away from that … and him. Would a cheery Good Morning be returned? Let’s say the stop lasts thirty seconds at least, time enough to lean out and complement “Nice wheels” Mr. Gable is driving. Would he say thanks and yours aren’t so bad either? This or something similar on weekly or more basis. After a while, you feel as though you know the guy. “What’s doing today, Clark … finished Lone Star yet?” Neighbors that happen to be film magnets were common Culver currency from silent times when you’d walk streets and all of sudden Laurel/Hardy come running round a corner with a goat in pursuit. You can stand on same streets today and almost picture it happening. Clark Gable was regular guy enough to disdain being driven to work. Besides, he liked showing off whatever he drove and was handy under the hood. Joe Hyams came to interview him once at the Encino ranch and Gable, recognizing carburetor trouble promptly got his tools and fixed Joe’s ride. Watch To Please a Lady sometime for CG doing what he off-the-clock liked best. Wonder who owns this sport number now. It was rediscovered after years in storage, auctioned in 2020 for $276K, then again 2022 where the hammer fell for $311,111. Gable cars are out there and in fair number, as he had many over the years. Imagine owning one, like the Jag for instance. Wish it were mine, but then I'd finally have to learn to drive a straight gear.