Hollywood Studio Magazine (October 1972)

By Teet Carle f When the fifty thousand dollar puncb landed in Clark Gable’s mouth, I was Standing only a few feet away. It happened on a vast, nearly-empty sound stage at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios early one uncomfortable morning in 1940. A man whose name I purposely never tried to obtain threw the right which knocked the King of the Screen to his haunches. The blow set the production schedule on “Boom Town” back two weeks and crimped the budget by fifty grand. The loss was sustained because only a few days of shooting remained to be done on this all-star epic and Gable was booked to work in every unfinished scene. That wallop split the star’s lip and created considerable dental damage. Gable could not be photographed until the cut healed, the swelling subsided and the tooth repair let him speak properly. This mishap was an uncomfortable climax to a joyous few months for me as a publicist on a picture that starred Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Morgan and marked the screen debut of a delightful character named Chili Wills. The picture was pure action; it concerned wildcat oil drilling. When a movie demands a brawl involving big stars or other dangerous action, the hazardous shooting days are scheduled late in the production. Then, if a biggie gets scratched - but the reader already has gotten the point. The plot of “Boom Town” had Tracy’s girl friend, Miss Colbert, coming to an oil town to marry him. Instead, she encounters Gable, who is Tracy’s wildcatting partner. He doesn’t know she is his pal’s girl friend, and vice versa. As they say in synopses, love sweeps them off their feet and they marry. This splits a fine business arrangement. Later, in New York, Tracy comes visiting his old flame and learns that Gable is playing patty-cake with sultry Hedy Lamarr. So Tracy goes to Gable’s swank Manhattan Offices to kick his teeth in. For two days, a pair of Stuntmen doubled for the stars and smashed up a lot of furniture. There remained only close-ups of Gable and Tracy taking and receiving punches to intercut with the violence. On a cold morning, these pick-up shots started. The huge stage seemed almost empty as the crew lined up for the first shot — over the shoulder of Tracy’s “double” as a punch was thrown intö Gable’s mouth. For some reason, Tracy’s stand-in was used instead of a trained Stuntman. Maybe it seemed simple to director Jack Conway. The stand-in was nervous to start with. The director’s cries for more realistic action got him excited. Try after try was made. Suddenly, disaster came. Gable stepped in too far. The stand-in punched too far. Maybe there was a slip of the foot. Wham! Gable granted: “Ug!” and was felled. The accident stunned everyone on the stage. The punch-thrower moved away, dazed. He was scowled at for hours and hours. A lot of “biggies” such as directors got hysterical. Tracy kept mumbling, “He deliberately slugged Clark.” Gable, alone, was calm. He tried to stop the flow of blood, and hurried to his portable dressing room to find facial tissue. Within minutes, I was in that dressing room taking Orders, mostly from Tracy, who had assumed command. An appointment was made for Gable with a specialist at facial surgery and he was preparing to head for that aid. It was decided that I should race to the Publicity department and set up ways to suppress the story that Hollywood’s top he-man star had had some teeth bent in a simple movie fight. Bad image! Hurt by the knuckles of a stand-in! I ran. I pounded up the stairs leading to the offices occupied by those specialists known as “planters.” These guys disseminate news and fill the requests of the press. As I huffed into the office, Otto Winkler was on the telephone. Otto was Gable’s close friend and, before two years had past, was to die in that plane crash with Carole Lombard. He had accompanied the glamorous Mrs. Gable on a bond-selling tour as a favor to The King. Otto saw me, and said into the telephone: “Here’s Teet coming in from the set.” Then to me: “Associated Press wants to know about Gable getting knocked cold in a fight scene.” How fast news travelled about big stars in those days. How impossible to suppress anything about a star like Gable. How full Hollywood always has been of tipsters who want to “feed” newspapers with news and rumors. These unofficial “reporters” have made publicists’ lives miserable for years. Of course, Gable got Turn to Page 21 7