Gable & Lombard: A Biography by Warren G. Harris

Author:Warren G. Harris [Harris, Warren G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, ebook
Publisher: Graymalkin Media
Published: 2016-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

An Easy Elopement

Marriage plans finally started taking shape in December 1938, when Gable and Lombard found themselves involved in what promised to become one of Hollywood's biggest scandals. Photoplay, the most influential and widely read movie magazine of that time, came out with an article entitled “Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives,” which dealt with the unconventional living arrangements of Gable and Lombard, Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, Constance Bennett and Gilbert Roland, and George Raft and Virginia Pine.

“Unwed couples they might be termed,” the article said. “But they go everywhere together; do everything in pairs. No hostess would think of inviting them separately or pairing them with another. They solve one another's problems, handle each other's business affairs. They build houses near each other, buy land in bunches, take up each other's hobbies, father or mother each other's children—even correct each other's clothes—each other's personalities. Yet to the world, their official status is ‘just friends.’ No more.”

When it got around to Gable and Lombard, the article noted that “For Clark, Carole stopped, almost overnight, being a Hollywood playgirl. People are expected to change when they get married. The necessary adaptation to a new life and another personality shows up in every bride and groom. All Clark and Carole did was strike up a Hollywood twosome. Nobody said ‘I do!’ … Yes, Carole Lombard is a changed woman since she tied up with Clark Gable. But her name is still Carole Lombard. The altar record, in fact, among Hollywood's popular twosomes is surprisingly slim. Usually something formidable stands in the way of a marriage certificate when Hollywood stars pair up minus a preacher. In Clark and Carole's case, of course, there is a very sound legal barrier. Clark's still officially a married man. Every now and then negotiations for a divorce are started, but, until something happens in court, Ria Gable is still the only wife the law of the land allows Clark Gable.”

Although its points were made almost entirely through innuendo, “Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives” was considered the most outspoken article about the private lives of the stars ever published up until that time. The piece was apparently written to test the stiff restrictions placed on the fan magazines by the movie industry's self-governing censorship organization. If that was its purpose, the article failed. Photoplay was forced to run a public apology the next month, and the studios clamped down more stringently than ever on the fan magazines.

That January 1939 issue of Photoplay sold out within hours after it hit the newsstands in the second week of December 1938. Newspapers quoted bits and pieces of “Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives” out of context, blowing it up into a national sensation. Will Hays, the movies' censorship “Czar,” was bombarded with complaints from members of outraged groups like the National Catholic Legion of Decency, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Legion and the Knights of Columbus, all sounding

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