I kind of missed the boat on this blogathon, as my entry was due two weeks ago. Well better late than never, right? I thought I would write my entry even if ultimately it doesn’t end up as part of the official blogathon event. I will be better with my future events. I think I also over-commit because everything sounds so great!
Without further ado…
Joan Crawford and Clark Gable starred in eight, count ’em, eight films together: Dance, Fools, Dance, Laughing Sinners, Possessed (all in 1931), Dancing Lady (1933), Forsaking All Others and Chained (both in 1934), Love on the Run (1936) and Strange Cargo (1940). Prior to that, both appeared as extras (uncredited) in 1925’s The Merry Widow.
By the time the early 1931 rolled around, Crawford had become MGM’s top star and Gable had just been signed a short term one year contract by Irving Thalberg, MGM’s top producer who was famed for his youth and ability to select good scripts and find new stars. Gable’s first role at MGM was a small part as a villain in Crawford’s Dance, Fools, Dance. Thalberg, sensing that he had something special with Gable, ordered that the script be re-written and Gable be given some steamy scenes with Crawford. During their first clinch, sparks flew.
After Dance, Fools, Dance, Crawford and Gable made two more films together and many films apart. By the end of 1931, during the filming of Possessed, Crawford and Gable were involved in a full-fledged steamy affair. However, Crawford was married to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. at the time and Gable was married to Maria Langham. Both couples’ marriages were stormy, but due to morality standards of the time, it was imperative that Crawford and Gable kept their relationship on the down low.
Crawford and Gable mostly kept their relationship contained to working hours. They’d arrive to work early and stay late. They rendezvoused in Crawford’s fancy trailer, which incidentally was a gift from her husband, Fairbanks Jr. He was still even making payments on it! They also occasionally lunched together in the commissary, but only a couple times a week as to not arouse suspicion among their co-workers. Any breaks Crawford and Gable received were spent in the bed of a local hotel room. As we all know, the more a couple attempts to hide their relationship, the more people that know about it. Despite Crawford and Gable’s attempts at discretion, their steamy affair was a well known secret around the studio.
Louis B. Mayer got wind of Crawford and Gable’s torrid romance and threatened their careers if they carried on. Gable was to have made Letty Lynton with Crawford, but was removed when news of their affair broke. He was replaced with Robert Montgomery. Crawford and Gable kept apart for awhile but still managed to appear in five more films together. They continued their romance despite being married to other people. Crawford divorced Fairbanks Jr. in 1933. She remarried to Franchot Tone in 1935. Gable remained married to Langham until 1939, when Gable fell in love with Carole Lombard and was forced to pay Langham a pretty penny in order for her to agree to divorce him so that he could marry Lombard. Apparently, Crawford was jealous of Lombard’s relationship with Gable (whom everyone said was the love of her life and vice versa). During the filming of Strange Cargo in 1940, Crawford would continually whisper things to Gable, presumably about Lombard, that irritated him. However, in 1942 when Lombard was tragically killed in a plane crash, Crawford and Gable seemed to bury the hatchet. Crawford was one of Gable’s closest confidants during his mourning.
After Gable’s marriage to Lombard, and even after her passing, his relationship with Crawford carried on, but was never as steamy as it had once been. They were good friends, perhaps “friends with benefits.” Both Crawford and Gable remarried to other people. They carried on until Gable’s death in 1960. Even in interviews later life, Crawford referred to Gable lovingly, referring to him as her favorite leading man. When asked why she found Gable so attractive, Crawford put it succinctly, stating: “…Balls! Clark Gable had balls.” Crawford herself also had “balls,” figuratively speaking, which is perhaps why she and Gable got along so well. In many ways Crawford and Gable were cut from the same cloth: similar meager childhood backgrounds, similar struggle to make it to the top of the heap in Hollywood, similar insatiable sexual appetites and so much more.
Whimsically Classic 
can’t believe I never knew this until now, Oct. 2021
LikeLike