Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1942)

hoped for the maternity she could not know. Perhaps that was why Carole always laughed so much, laughed to hide this deep sorrow of hers. Perhaps it was why, in the last few years, she had sought for deeper meanings in her films, even essayed tragedy in "Vigil In The Night" and "They Knew What They Wanted." The last couple of years she had taken the most faithful care of her health, but it had not improved. Always precarious, it was made more delicate by the continual recurrence of one of those persistent fevers travelers frequently pick up in Mexico and which Carole had contracted when down there on a hunting trip with Clark. Motherhood was the only thing she had ever wanted in her thrill-packed thirtytwo years that was denied her. She got her way about everything else. She even got it about returning to Hollywood by plane. Otto Winkler tried to talk her out of it, begging her to go by train. She finally tossed a coin with him and Otto lost. Her mother tried to talk her out of it. Otto had offered good sound reasons against flying in winter; her mother had admitted she was merely superstitious. She had good reason to be, for on Monday, the day they had left Hollywood, she and Carole had decided to call upon a fortuneteller they often consulted, just for the fun of it. The psychic read Mrs. Peters' hand, then read Carole's. She shook her head. "Keep out of planes in 1942," she ordered. There is danger in them for you." On January 15 in Indianapolis, eager to get home, Carole never thought of that remark. T HE memory of it, however, haunts ' Gable. When, finally, Saturday, and Sunday he had to accept his heart's devastation, he shut himself up alone in his hotel bungalow. Spencer Tracy drove out the three hundred miles from Hollywood to try to comfort him. A doctor stood by wanting to prescribe sleeping tablets. All the M-G-M group stayed close, wanting desperately to do anything from working miracles merely to getting meals for him. But Gable stayed alone, appearing only once in a long while, on the bungalow porch, striding grimly back Editor's Note: If hen Carole Lombard met ghastly and sudden death on a mountain top in Nevada, millions of us thought "Another brave American soldier has died." Everyone knew that Carole Lombard had taken the trip to sell two million dollars' worth of defense bonds to us. Psychologists say that the way to give value to our emotions is to turn them into action. All of us who felt sincerely sorrowful about Carole Lombard should now turn that emotion into an action for which she died: the purchase of United States Defense Bonds. We can write a worthy epitaph if millions more of us go immediately to our post offices and banks to buy as many stamps or bonds as we can afford — in memory of Carole Lombard. —E .V.H. and forth. To all the solicitous attentions, he had only one answer. "I don't want to go back to an empty house in Encino. If I had gone with Carole on this trip all this might have been avoided." Even when the broken bodies were finally brought down from the mountain, he could hardly be persuaded to leave. It was not until the following Wednesday at the burial service for his wife and his mother-by-marriage and his dear friend that he finally seemed able to gain some strength and courage to go on with life from the very heroism of Carole's death. It was only then that he comprehended the shrine in the world's memory that she will forever occupy, this laughing tomboy, this Sennett bathing beauty who rose to make the highest salary any girl star ever earned, who married and divorced Bill Powell and then married the most sought-after man on earth, this girl who, through death, became the first heroine of the Second World War. She was all flame and passion and generosity, this Lombard girl, and she died as she had lived, gallantly, heroically, doing her duty by her country. Meanwhile the Encino house is up for sale. Jessie, the cook, whom Carole hed had for years, Miss Garseau, the seer tary, are devastated. The little gag presents have all been destroyed and even the very horses in their stalls and the hand-groomed cows and the cackling chickens seem to sense that desolation has enveloped them. Shooting on "Somewhere I'll Find You" has been suspended indefinitely. At M-G-M and in Hollywood you w .11 find those who say there will be no tying Clark down to acting now, that he will insist upon going into direct war service. In Hollywood they are talking about "The Carole Lombard Memorial Bom Drive" and some argue that Gable wi go on tour, selling bonds in her name. But the other half of Hollywood, the who know Clark best, argue that he w do both, war work and his own wor and I, personally, side with them. Clark has long been very aware of his duty to his public and in this loss he will be doubly conscious of the loss in millions of homes today. He will be conscious than that one plane which destroyed his heart's! security and rent asunder twenty-' DC other families, is only one small incident in days that are darkened with the me:n ory of Pearl Harbor, and Manila, am the siege of Singapore and the blood otj the snows of Russia. Clark Gable has in him the power make people forget these things for little while. That is his responsibility— and his cure. He will, I am convinced, go on with it after a little while, go on with his handsome head held high and with Carole'.'; beautiful, heroic image locked within hi.heart. And may God bless him and keep him while he walks this lonely road. The End. (Continued from page 31) There is only despair that that which was no longer is or ever will be again. It's as simple and as heartbreaking as that. Over the telephone on the day after the break John sounded like a man who had run for days and had left no breath for words. But even then I wasn't prepared to see the pain in his eyes and his voice, pain that was heightened by his quiet, dignified bearing, his straightforwardness in speech and sincere, honest strivings to be fair. There were no false gestures, no heroics. John, dressed in tan corduroy for his role in "To The Shores Of Tripoli" sat in a chair before us and talked. He began: "This is the truth. Truth is best. The 'sins of omission rather than commission have caused our separation. For twelve months I've been working steadily, working my head off with no time for layoffs. I forgot to be an attentive husband, forgot the flowers on the right dates. I'd go home dogged tired and flop into bed. But, please, stress this point: Anne did not leave me because I was working hard and had little time to give to our home life. She's much too understanding and wise in the ways of motion-picture 70 Love, Honor and Good-by demands for that. Besides, our trouble began a year ago. Where it started, how it began, seems blurred and vague. It began like a cloud over our sun. We seemed to grow apart. "Anne kept telling me she was unhappy. I failed to realize it. I couldn't believe anything could happen to our marriage." | REMEMBERED Anne's statement, "I I have studied our situation and things cannot work out happily with both of us under the same roof. I only know there can be no reconciliation. "This is no silly, mad quarrel," she had gone on. "It is something to which we have given deep consideration and I will do nothing to hurt John, who is a fine young man." I reminded John of this. "It is true we had several long, serious talks about it but I still couldn't believe it would come to pass." So, day by day, John went to his work at Twentieth Century-Fox making such pictures as "Week End In Havana," "Remember The Day" and other hits that lifted him nearer and nearer to stardom. Anne daily reported to RKO Studios for "All That Money Can Buy," "Four Jack^ And A Jill." "The Mayor Of 44th St.' and others. Both were successful in theii" work; John, if anything, spurting torward at a faster pace than Anne who'j at the time of their marriage, was much] the bigger name. "John," I asked candidly, "could thi trouble have arisen from fluctuatini careers?" He scoffed. "It never occurred to eithe. of us. That part of our life was neve* considered. The status of our caiver. was never given initial consideration, s^ why should it arise as a problem lai on?" Then he said something that gave me i clue to the problem that seems to puzzl* the six foot, three inch star. "I don't think I'm any different tr any other guy, no harder to get alfl with; but, you see, Anne's special, married an angel, really. That's why^ ask you if there's to be any blame at please put it on me. This Holly\v< is a tough racket and Anne can't treated in a hard-fisted manner. She') special." My mind traveled back over the liv of these two. John, born in Roanoke photoplay combined with Mora mibbo'