Talk:Clark Gable

Trivia

Some of the trivia sound like romantic urban legends and really need to be substantiated. Since I'm no authority on Gable, I haven't removed them -- but someone with the knowhow might want to take a look at them. Particularly the ones about the Greta Garbo fued, the Adolph Hitler bounty and the tombstone quote seem fishy to me. 195.184.109.162 23:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Estate

His former estate in Encino, California was carved up to make several homes in the 1970s.

I just deleted a reference to somebody purchasing his house in 1989.I'm sure it was bought and sold before and since but this info is not relevant to Clark Gable.76.166.245.241 (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

---

The article Judy Lewis says that Clark Gable and Loretta Young had a child. I asked my grandmother and she said that it was never proven. Is she correct? If so, it needs to be removed from Judy Lewis. I'm going to post it on her article, too. Mike H 00:53, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

• My understanding is that Judy Lewis has stated this on a number of occasions,and for many years it was a rumour, but I'm sure that Loretta Young towards the end of her life, supported her story. It needs to be checked somehow before removing it. Rossrs 13:16, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • • I don't know if anyone has verified this yet, but Loretta said she indeed became pregnant by Clark Gable and give birth to Judy in the book "Forever Young."Chandler75 04:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Crash incident

I have removed the following:

In September 1942 a Dakota took off from Pershore Airfield, Worcestershire, England with an American Film crew on board starting to make an air gunnery film. Experiencing engine trouble they made an emergency landing on Perdiswell Airfield, Worcester's grass field.The plane slid across the wet grass and crashed through the boundary fence onto the Bilford Road and into the Cities rubbish tip, damaging the landing gear and one engine.

On board was General Spaatz, the senior American in Europe, who broke his ankle. He was heard to grumble "I didn't cross the Atlantic to land in the towns trash heap". In the Co-Pilots seat was a very shaken Film Star Clark Gable who was helped out by the RAF police on gate duty.According to official records he was on flight training in Texas, but had actually taken leave and hitched a lift with Spaatz and the film crew across the Atlantic.They were all taken to the RAF Officers mess in Perdiswell Hall for a little drop of something for shock.

The plane blocked the road for some days until it was dismantled and loaded onto an RAF 'Queen Mary' long trailer.

I have tried without success to trace what happened to the plane "Idiots Delight" named after one of Gables pre-war films. Is there any official record of this interesting incident? Did any of the film taken survive? I would be grateful for any information to help completethe record. I was only twelve at the time but remember the Flying Instuctor pilots who were billeted with us telling my motherall about the handsome Gable.

Photographs of "Idiots Delight" are available. Max

Until the incident is verified by official record and/or a first-hand account, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article. Certainly statesments like, "I would be grateful for any information to help completethe [sic] record" don't belong in the article. — Walloon 19:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC) First Hand Account. I have a letter dated 1988 from the Sergeant who helped Gable from the plane and then lived in Northern Ireland. He was suffering from severe arthritis and is probably not alive now. I was also present when Flying Officer Davies, Senior Pediswell Instructor and Flying Officer Medland told my parents about the incident. Coupled with the photographs of "Idiots Delight" lying in the 'trash tip' surely the incident deserves its place in history. Max Sinclair All I would like to know is did "Idiots Delight" survive the war. American records have proved hopeless. Max

Drunk driving

I have removed:

Gable was once involved in a traffic accident while intoxicated. A pedestrian was killed. Supposedly, Mayer used his influence to get the incident hushed up. [source: CJAD Radio, May 14/ 06]

This it too serious an allegation — homicide — to rely on something someone once heard on the radio. The recent book Clark Gable: A Biography, by Warren G. Morris, discusses Gable's drunk driving accident on p. 279:

In March [1945], Gable's heavy drinking finally caught up with him. While driving home from a party celebrating the America victory on Iwo Jima, he lost control of the car as he passed through Bristol Circle, a dense tree-filled traffic island on Sunset Boulevard in residential Brentwood in West Los Angeles. . . .

Howard Strickling [MGM's publicity manager] later claimed that Gable crashed into a tree on the front lawn of the home of Harry Friedman, a talent agent for MCA. According to Strickling, Friedman knew enough about the industry's penchant for secrecy to phone MGM instead of the cops.

"It wouldn't have been good if a photographer arrived and snapped Clark Gable lying on the lawn covered with blood and his car all cracked up," Strickling said. After a studio doctor arrived to patch up Gable, he was taken to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, and the wrecked car was quickly towed away.

Morris interviewed Strickling on this circa 1972, long after Gable was dead. Strickling is quoted candidly on Gable, good and bad, elsewhere throughout the book. — Walloon 01:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The picture??

The picture looks misrable. In all fairness, he was quite good looking. I think this picture isn't a good representation. How about changing it to something else - like this one?

http://members.lycos.nl/petrabr/tara/reth.jpg —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.181.222.89 (talk) 07:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

A picture like his imdb headshot would be a good idea. (DaveyJones1968 17:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC))

You're going to have a lot of problems finding a picture that isn't copyrighted. The one in the article is from an uncopyrighted trailer, but I'd guess that all publicity stills and other photographs are owned by someone. Good luck, but remember that Wikipedia policy is that copyright is more important that quality. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The Postal Service - Clark Gable [Song]

any relation to the person?

No relation. It makes sense to reference Clark Gable from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Up article, but not really the other way around. Theoretically you could tie it in as evidence of his postmortem impact on our culture, but there is better evidence available. This evinces only that a very few (admittedly well known) people were influenced to write & produce the song.

GA Fail

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I came to this review, excited at the chance to pass Clark Gable as a Good Article. Unfortunately, at the current time, there are too many problems with the article for it to be passed as a Good Article at this time. Here are just some of the most pressing concerns:

1. The lead needs to conform to WP:LEAD. Specifically, it must summarize all the major points/headings made in the article. Currently, it does not even come close to doing this.
2. All one-two sentence paragraphs must be either expanded or merged with the surrounding paragraphs, as they cannot stand alone.
3. There is far too much uncited material in this article to allow it to pass. Examples include:

   Various bits and pieces in the "Early life" (as a general, although not strict, rule of thumb, each paragraph at least should end with a citation)

   Ditto for the "Hollywood" section

   Statements that purport to get into Gable's head: "She thought he was a wooden actor while he considered her a snob." (Hollywood) for example

   Potentially controversial claims, such as "Throughout most of the 1930s and 1940s, he was arguably the world's biggest movie star."

   Much of the unfortunately titled (see below) "Most famous roles," especially those parts that deal with the problems mentioned above

   Much of "Marriage to Carole Lombard"

   Much of "After World War II"

   The ENTIRE children section, especially since it's not exactly standard material.

   Addressing the "citation needed" tags under "Death" would be very crucial as well.

4. In addition, I think that there is a significant problem with tone in this article that contributes to my questioning of how neutral this article is. For one thing, it focus very heavily on information obtained from a single biography and at times reads more like a casual biography of the subject than an encyclopedic article. For example, the following is lovely for a book about Gable, but is not very encyclopedic in tone:

   ""His ears are too big and he looks like an ape." So said Warner Bros. executive Darryl F. Zanuck about Clark Gable after testing him for the lead in Warner's gangster drama Little Caesar (1931).[10] After several failed screen tests for Barrymore and Zanuck, Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He became a client of agent Minna Wallis, well-connected sister of producer Hal Wallis and very close friend of Norma Shearer."

   Even worse, it is insufficiently cited. A statement such as "After moving to California, they were married again in 1931, possibly due to differences in state legal requirements" is purely speculative without a citation.

5. A heading such as "Most famous roles" is completely subjective and non-neutral. Articles and headings are to avoid direct references to notability and instead establish it through the prose itself. Maybe you can call it "high profile roles" or something, but "Most famous" is completely unacceptable.

Overall, the article does not read like a well-written encyclopedic listing of Clark Gable and, furthermore, is only sparsely cited. Normally, when a review encounters a small number of problems, the article is put on hold to allow for changes to be made. In this case, however, the need for better citations and improved tone is too critical to merit a hold. I suggest that, before renomination, that biographies of FA actors and actresses are reviewed to get a sense of an appropriate tone for Wikipedia. It's difficult for me to describe exactly what's wrong with the tone, but it should become clear by looking at Featured Biographies. If you feel that this review is in error, you may take to good article reassessment. Cheers, CP 04:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

LGBT?

An editor has added the LGBT project banner to this article. Do the two sentences about one writers assertions really justify adding it to the project? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the project banner until/unless someone comes up with a reason for it to be there :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Another (IP) editor removed the following text. I'm inclined to leave it out until someone can actually look at the book and see if there are good secondary sources. A biographer talking about events in the 1940s needs to have some good primary sources, and - judging at least by the Amazon.com reviews - the veracity of the book is questionable.

David Bret's book Clark Gable: Tormented Star claims that Gable had relationships with openly homosexual men and was "gay for pay" in his early career. It claims that Gable was branded a "sissy" by his father as a child, prompting him to adopt a macho image and denounce homosexuality. The book reported Gable's first two wives turned a blind eye towards his affairs with men, such as Johnny Mack Brown, William Haines, Earl Larimore and Rod LaRocque - Gable outed them to the press to prevent himself from being outed. After 1942, ending his affair with the journalist Ben Maddox, Gable seems to have 'gone straight'. It also recounts that his wartime "heroics" were no more than an elaborate publicity stunt which subsequently embarrassed the U.S. government. He was promoted through the ranks from private to major in less than a year. According to David Bret, Gable was suffering from phimosis, an inability to retract the foreskin of his uncircumcised penis.<ref>[http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1906217041 ''Clark Gable: Tormented Star''] David Bret, JR Books, 2007</ref>

-- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand Wikipedia. Per WP:NOT, we don't include things simply because they "exist". We only cite reliable sources. If the book is filled with errors (as reviews seems to say), then it is not reliable. If the book itself is controversial, then we can cite a reliable source (for example, a review in the New York Times) that says the book exists and is controversial. But we don't mention non-notable books; otherwise, Wikipedia would become (essentially) a dumping ground of book summaries.

What I recommended was for someone to discuss whether there are good sources indicating what the removed paragraph say is, in fact, true. This has nothing to do with what I think about Clark Gable (in fact, I'm pretty indifferent) or what I think about gay or bisexual folks (in fact, I have absolutely no problems with them, their behavior, or their being allowed to marry). It has to do with the truth. Biographers of dead people are free to say things that would be libelous if their subjects are still alive - libel is only relevant to the living. Scandalous bios sell better than non-scandalous ones. Given those two facts, it behooves us to look for other sources (or, same thing, look to see what sources are cited in footnotes and endnotes in the book).

Plus the paragraph was way too long, given the rest of what was in the section; that's an WP:NPOV violation (to much space; not enough balance). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't use "rumors" as sources unless the rumors are reported in a reliable source. As for statements by Cukor and others, source please? And if (as you say in the edit summary) that the book "hasn't been "universally panned" at all, please provide a source. I looked, for example, at amazon.com; I've rarely seen such comments about how inaccurate a book is. I'll be happy to agree to *some* book info back in IF you can provide sources.

Also, you've not responded to the point that the length of the paragraph makes it a WP:NPOV violation (space and balance); please address that issue here before reposting. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It would seem that the article would be best served by the involved editors of the page arriving at a consensus for whether or not the disputed material should be included. If a consensus is reached that the material is unreliable, then omit it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The current two sentences seem to sum it up nicely. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 04:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Typical. The two sentences that say Clark Gable was gay are at the end of his biography. Some people in their straight supremacist fervor downplay or deny gay people's relationships unless they don't like them then they emphasize and distort until they are blue. Clark Gable like many gay people got married because of overwhelming social pressure to conform to the straight supremacist ideology (that everyone is or should be straight) which is beaten into every person from childhood until death. Because of that overwhelming social pressure gay people who dared BE THEMSELVES hid their relationships. So you are not going to find children or marriage certificates or newspaper articles or any of the obvious and publicized information that you see with opposite-sex relationships.

WP:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers priority assessment

Per debate and discussion re: assessment of the approximate 100 top priority articles of the project, this article has been included as a top priority article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Edits from Banned User HC and IPs

Wikipedia's banning policy states that "Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. As the banned user is not authorized to make those edits, there is no need to discuss them prior to reversion."

1) HarveyCarter (talk · contribs) and all of his sockpuppets are EXPRESSLY banned for life.

2) Be on the look out for any edits from these IP addresses:

AOL NetRange: 92.8.0.0 - 92.225.255.255

AOL NetRange: 172.128.0.0 - 172.209.255.255

AOL NetRange: 195.93.0.0 - 195.93.255.255

Gable's Additional Involvement In World War II

Though it is noted that Capt. William Clark Gable became involved as a USSAF Bomber Pilot, little is known of "Other Assignments" that he was asked to do. Serving under the 356th. Fighter Group, it has been strongly alledged at times that he participated in Aero RECON-Intelligence with his film crew, who was doing training and publicity films for the Army Air Corps. In a candid photograph, a displeased Capt. Gable was caught at a canteen drinking a cup of coffee, in the background, there were two fellow officers beside a Jeep. One of these officers was none other than fighter pilot, Lieut. Col. Norman Cota, Jr., the Son of Maj. General, Norman Cota, Sr. of Normandy Invasion-Omaha Beach fame. It is alledged that both Gable and Cota were associated during some of these RECON-Intelligence assignments. It later has been discovered that Lieut. Col. Cota, Jr., was a distant cousin to actress, Jane Alice Peters (aka: Carole Lombard), Spouse of Capt. Gable.

Aedwardmoch (talk) 03:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)AedwardmochAedwardmoch (talk) 03:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Tourette's?

Is it true that he suffered from Tourette's syndrome? If so, it should be added to the article. Zazaban (talk) 07:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Politics

What source did you find stating that Gable was a "conservative Republican all his life"? I've been looking for more info about this claim and can't find anything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.1.9 (talk) 20:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

He wore a Hoover badge during the 1932 election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.220.42 (talk) 13:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Politics

Although the biography currently includes a whole section on Gable and politics, he was not a very political person. Ancestry.com has placed on-line the Los Angeles County voter registration records for every biennial election from 1916 through 1960. Gable does not appear in any voter registration in that period. — Walloon (talk) 22:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Gables teeth

The late Hedda Hoppa claimed that Clark Gable, while on the film set, daily white-washed his teeth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 09:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Gables teeth,

Sorry, spelling mistake, I meant Hedda Hopper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 09:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)