Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1944)

Gable at his Army job: He sits behind his gun in an American bomber somewhere in England, exchanging some Gable-ized stories with another ace At left: Gable, tl^ gunner (center, rear row). He had t'ust completed his fifth •ombing over enemy territory Gable at his Hollywood job: Editing a U. S. Army film p m M They came on in and said hello. They stayed and talked hunting and fishing and horses and the next day they made their report to me. Summed up, it was that Clark Gable was a great guy, he was just as great a guy off the screen as he was on. I remember another day at Malibu, a raw and gusty day, with a cold wind coming in off the ocean and the breakers as high as the houses. They may call it Pacific, but in the spring it can be a brutally cold and unpleasant ocean. But the kids never seemed to know the difference and they went swimming just the same, turning slightly blue in the process but apparently enjoying themselves mightily. Clark had driven down and the kids found out he was there and then — why, then, of course, he must come swimming with them. No adult in his right senses, heman or otherwise, wanted to go swimming that day. But Clark Gable took a look at the expectation in the boys’ eyes — and went swimming with them and thereby consolidated an adoration that never failed. You see, that’s one of the reasons I owe him so much as a friend. It’s one thing to keep the adoration and respect of those who see a man only on the screen, playing great parts. It is something else again to keep it when boys, with their clear young eyes and uncompromising standards, see you around in a familiar way. It is something to remember that Clark Gable never saw familiarity breed contempt but always respect and affection and admiration. This is important to me now because later on, when war had struck, my oldest son, wearing the Air Force blue uniform of the RCAF, and Clark Gable, in the tan of the USAAF, met in England. Gable wasn’t a movie star any longer, surrounded by all the fame and prestige and glamour of that position. He was a man like other men in wartime, and Pilot Officer St. Johns and Captain Gable shook hands as man to man and the boy’s heart was warmed because they were both doing the same tough job up there in the skies. The Big Moose hadn’t let him down. His idol was intact.* yHESE days, it’s very good to have ' a friend as simple and direct as Gable; it’s very good for all of us who have been lucky enough to be his friends either in person or on the screen. Because when you come right down to it. Gable is a representative American. We used to call him the Dutchman around the studio — he comes of sturdy Holland Dutch ancestry and has all the essential stubborn determination of his forebears. But he grew up on a farm, he climbed telephone poles and fixed wires as a linesman, he sort of drifted into being an actor, perhaps because his adventurous spirit had nowhere else to go then but into the realm of make-believe. I can’t remember the name of the picture, but I do remember very well that in one of his first important screen roles he had to learn to * On September 3, 1943, Pilot Officer St. Johns, returning from a raid over Germany, was killed in landing his crew arid flaming plane on British soil. ride horseback like a cowboy. Up to that time, he explained, his only association with horses had been from behind a plow. “They look different,” he said, with a grin. For days he limped around with a rueful coimtenance and ate his meals off the mantel, as it were. But the cowboy who taught him told me later that he never saw anything like the stick-to-itiveness of that guy Gable. “I never thought any man could do it,” he said, “and I gave him the works, all right.” When the picture came out the fans had every reason to think that Clark Gable had been born on a horse. No man who has ever attained stardom in Hollywood, and I think I have known them all, was ever so little touched by the applause, the idolatry, the fame and the fortune, the intrigues and fashions of Hollywood. It isn’t quite accurate to say he remained unchanged. But it is the absolute truth to say that he grew up as normally, as straight, as unaffected by it all as though he had gone on growing up anywhere else. Unless you know Hollywood and have seen what it sometimes does to people you can’t realize (Continued on page 79)