Clark Gable

I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me.

William Clark Gable (1 February 1901 – 16 November 1960) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor. His best remembered role was in Gone with the Wind (1939) with Vivien Leigh. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at No. 7.

Quotes

The only reason they come to see me is that I know that life is great — and they know I know it.

• The only reason they come to see me is that I know that life is great — and they know I know it.
  • As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 3

• You know, this "King" stuff is pure bullshit. I eat and sleep and go to the bathroom just like anyone else. There's no special light that shines inside me and makes me a star. I'm just a lucky slob from Ohio who happened to be in the right place at the right time and I had a lot of smart guys helping me—that's all.
  • Speaking with author Bill Davidson (c. October 1960), as cited in Davidson's The Real and the Unreal (1961), p. 95

• My father could never get it through his head that acting was honorable work for a man. Even when I was making $7,500 a week, he stubbornly kept saying, "What kind of a job is that for a fellow six feet tall, weighs 195 pounds?"
  • Speaking with author Bill Davidson (c. October 1960), as cited in Davidson's The Real and the Unreal (1961), p. 104

• I used to go over to Howard's house on Sunday mornings for breakfast and it was unusual when he didn't get at least three phone calls while we ate, asking him to keep catastrophes of the night before out of the papers. One star would be picked up drunk in the street, another would have been caught in a raid on a marijuana party, another would have wrapped his car around a tree with someone else's wife in the seat alongside him. The next day I would always look in the papers to see if anything sneaked through. Nothing ever did. That Howard, he sure is a genius.
  • On MGM's 'nonpublicist' par excellence, Howard Strickling speaking with author Bill Davidson (c. October 1960), as cited in Davidson's The Real and the Unreal (1961), p. 164

• I worked like a son of a bitch to learn a few tricks and I fight like a steer to avoid getting stuck with parts I can't play.
  • On his acting ability, as quoted in James Robert Parish The Hollywood Book of Scandals: The Shocking, Often Disgraceful Deeds and Affairs of More than 100 American Movie and TV idols (2004), p. 67

Quotes about Gable

• He used to claim he was very dull in bed.
  • Eve Arden, speaking with reporter Ron Cohen a few weeks prior to the infamous one-night run of Moose Murders; as quoted in "Arts and People: 'Our Miss Brooks' Back on Broadway" by Cohen, Women's Wear Daily (February 1, 1983), p. 24

• The best ears of our lives.
  • Milton Berle, as quoted in The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1974) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 79

• I had no idea what effect this would have on American men. I simply wanted to show off Gable's torso, but it created a panic in the underwear industry. Overnight, no one wanted to wear undershirts anymore. Until the T-shirt became popular some years later, haberdashers were stuck with piles of undershirts they couldn't sell.
  • Frank Capra, on the unforeseen sartorial ramifications of It Happened One Night; as quoted in The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Bill Davidson; p. 102

• The real movie stars were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift. How could I put myself in the same category as Clark Gable? Tom Cruise is a great movie star. Do I consider myself a movie star? I consider myself a guy with a good job, an interesting job.
  • Johnny Depp, Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)

• His ears made him look like a taxicab with both doors open.
  • Howard Hughes, as quoted in The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1974) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 79

• Clark Gable was the only real he-man I've ever known, of all the actors I've met.
  • John Huston, as quoted in The Hollywood Book of Scandals : The Shocking, Often Disgraceful Deeds and Affairs of More than 100 American Movie and TV idols (2004) by James Robert Parish, p. 66

• Howard and I played a hunch. We figured that the era of the poetic Rudolph Valentino types was over and that with the newspaper headlines about Capone and the mobs and the G-men—all symbols of violence—the public would be more interested in tough guys who wooed their women with their fists and their cynicism rather than aesthetics. I don't want to take anything away from Clark, but—as he himself says—it was just his luck that he happened to be in the right place at the right time when this decision was made. It could have been any one of a dozen other actors, all of whom have long ago faded into obscurity.
  • Louis B. Mayer, on the post-production shift of emphasis from Shearer toward Gable prior to the release of A Free Soul (1931); as quoted in The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Davidson; pp. 114–115

• It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America.
  • Govindini Murty, “Hey, Conservatives: It's Safe to Go to the Movies Again”, The Atlantic, (Oct. 12, 2011).

• If only Mr. Gable had stayed a little longer. Everything else was such an anticlimax after he left.
  • Elizabeth Taylor, speaking with Bill Davidson in December 1959 at Chasen's, shortly after Gable's early departure from the post-premiere party for Suddenly, Last Summer; as quoted in The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Davidson; p. 98

See also

• Gone with the Wind