Pauline Frederick : on and off the stage (1940)

142 Pauline Frederick he was from the immaculate screen lover of today! He was just a big " husky " from Ohio, wearing a tweed suit that somehow seemed to be almost yellow! But the same frankness and the same disarming smile were there. This boy from the Oklahoma oil fields had had a hard row to hoe, but with the fever of acting burning in his blood he had persevered. Not very long back he had changed his name from Billy Gable to Clark Gable. When he came to play in " Madame X " some of the sparkle in him was lacking for he had just been bitterly disillusioned. Before he boarded the train for the West Coast he and his wife, Josephine Dillon, came to the parting of the ways. They had somehow outgrown each other and life together had become impossible. He was a small boy who had been bitterly hurt — hurt the more intensely because it didn't seem to be his fault and it wasn't Josephine's. It was just one of those things that happen to people in life. He and Josephine had worked and struggled together and these things form a bond between people who are made of the right material. Josephine had been lovely and gracious, a few years older than he, and she had always been such a good sport when times were hard. Now though, it was inevitable that they should both go their separate ways. Pauline had a way of seeing beneath the outer surface of people and she sensed that something was troubling this boy in her company. She was forty-four, he was twenty-six. She had been married three times and had suffered; she was a famous star; he was a struggling actor. She summed up Gable and knew that he was not the kind of chap who would fall foolishly in love with her and make trouble for them both. She had had too much of that with young men, had been deeply hurt by the results, but instinctively she felt that Gable would not be foolish. Moreover,