WEBVTT - The King of Hollywood 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:15.040 Why Uzzy Media Productions. The Misfits was a much anticipated 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.959 film when it was released in nineteen sixty one. The 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.799 movie featured two enormous Hollywood stars, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.640 but The Misfits was a box office flop. A year later, 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:32.880 Monroe was found dead from a drug overdose. The Misfits 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.600 was not just the last film that Monroe completed, it 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.280 was also Clark Gable's final appearance on screen. The fifty 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.440 nine year old Gable died from a heart attack just 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.920 twelve days after shooting finished. Monroe was stunned and heartbroken 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.560 when she learned of Gable's death. She told one reporter quote, 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.440 nobody was more of a man's man than he was, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.800 but he appreciated women. It's clear Monroe was talking about 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.040 someone who was much more than a co star to her. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.200 Lark Gable was like a father to Monroe. When she 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.760 was being shuffled between orphanages and foster homes as a child, 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.920 she slept with the movie stars picture under her pillow, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.319 which is why on the final day of shooting for 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.080 The Misfits, Monroe reportedly walked over to her famous costar 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.480 and made a confession, She told Gable, do you know something? 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.120 You're my hero and I never had a hero before. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:28.760 Clark Gable's rise to the top of Hollywood during the 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.920 nineteen thirties was much different than Monroe's two decades later. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.280 Both actors came from humble origins and we're products of 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:40.119 a studio system that transformed them into larger than life figures. Monroe, however, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.760 as we learned in episode three, thought of Hollywood as 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.760 quote a merry go round with beds for horses, and 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.560 she resented the fact that her career advancement depended upon 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:53.880 pleasing the predatory male executive she called the wolves. Monroe's hero, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.680 Clark Gable did not have to confront the wolves the 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.960 way that women did in early Hollywood, but unlike Monroe, 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.200 he was willing to do whatever it took to become 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.000 a star. In this episode, we chart Clark Gable's journey 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.200 to screen legend, including how Hollywood's archetypal man reportedly used 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:18.359 and abused women along the way. Suit the star away 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:23.600 from how's it going, I know you got a clue? 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.280 What you do? You complain brand new to all the 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.200 other chicks out here that I know what you are 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:36.240 what you are, baby, look at you. I'm Sean Braswell. 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.280 Welcome back to the Thread. This season is about the 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.480 chain of historical events behind the rise of feminist leader 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.840 Gloria Steinham. The chain we follow takes us back to 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.680 the Hollywood of the nineteen thirties and Clark Gable. He's 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.960 the man who uttered perhaps the most famous line in 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.640 film history as Rhett Butler and Gone with the Wind. Frankly, 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:05.360 my here, I don't give a damn. Here's a quick 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.320 recap to follow our thread so far, but please listen 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:15.240 to the previous episodes if you haven't already. Las Vegas, Nevada, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.400 was a desolate, struggling town in the late nineteen thirties 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.679 that changed dramatically after Clark Gable's wife, Real Langham, went 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.440 there to get a quickie divorce while Gable filmed Gone 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.079 with the Wind, and pretty soon people were running. You 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.840 might say, to Las Vegas to get a divorce, because 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.160 everyone wanted to get a divorce where the Gables had 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.880 gotten theirs. Seven years later, a nineteen year old Marilyn 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.200 Monroe obtained her own divorce there. Maryland clearly felt that 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.640 it would be easier for her to pursue her modeling 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.240 and acting career if she were single. Fast forward another 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.600 seven years, A magazine publisher named Hugh Hefner uses a 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.840 nude photo of Monroe taken when she was a struggling model, 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.280 to sell the first issue of Playboy magazine. She was 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:05.320 the the launching key to the beginning of Playboy. Fast 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.080 forward another seven years, and Hefner founds the first Playboy club, 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.800 whose bunny clad employees revolutionized the nightclub scene. A young 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.320 reporter named Gloria Steinham then writes an expose of life 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.160 as a bunny, one which helps spark her resolve to 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.599 spend a lifetime on women's rights. It was subject to 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.960 constant what we would now term sexual harassment, but there 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.080 wasn't even a word for it. Then. In this episode, 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.560 we turn our attention to the movie star whose landmark 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.880 divorce helped launch Las Vegas, the man they called the 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:48.760 King of Hollywood, Clark Gable. Clark Gable plays a Nevada 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.440 cowboy in The Misfits, one who finds love and companionship 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.159 with a recently divorced younger woman played by Monroe. In 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.719 the final scene of the movie, Monroe turns to Gable 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:04.039 as they drive down desert road at night. How do 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:09.480 you find your way back in the dark? Just head 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:15.680 for that big star, straight on the high. Raise Catt'll 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:20.760 take us right home. Those would be the last lines 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.080 Clark Gable would utter on screen. Two weeks later, he 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.799 died from a heart attack. The New York Times headline 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.960 read the King is Dead. Gable's widow and fifth wife, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:35.640 Kay blamed one person for her husband's sudden death. Marilyn Monroe, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.440 the actress, had a reputation for causing delays and problems 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.840 on set, and The Misfits was no different. Monroe was 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.520 always late, She forgot her lines. She fought constantly on 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.440 set with her husband, Arthur Miller, the playwright who had 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:53.920 written The Misfits for her. She also popped amphetamines and tranquilizers. 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.080 The filming was very, very difficult. This is Monroe. Biographer 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.680 Sarah church Well, her relationship with Arthur Miller was breaking down, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.440 um and um. There were many many problems on the set, uh, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:09.880 some of which had to do with Maryland's own problems 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.200 with addiction, but also with her unhappiness in her marriage. 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.920 To make matters worse, the Nevada summer heat was oppressive. 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.200 The delays, the waiting, and the heat were hard on 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.279 the aging Gable. He also insisted on doing many of 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.120 his own stunts, including being dragged by a truck for 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.880 over four hundred feet across the desert. The physical strain 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.719 on Gable during the Misfits may have contributed to the 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.320 star's death, but Gable was also a chronic smoker and 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.960 a heavy drinker, and he spent his reign as the 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.440 King of Hollywood living large and trying to live up 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:48.839 to his larger than life image. Gable starred in some 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.400 of Hollywood's best films, including It Happened One Night, Mutiny 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.719 on the Bounty, and of course, Gone with the Wind. MGM, 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.920 the studio that owned Clark Gable services for decades, structs 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.520 Aintematic Gold when they discovered him. This is E. J. Flemett, 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.760 author of several books on early Hollywood and stars like Gable. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.000 Clark Gable's success really was based upon the fact that 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.200 the product that M. Jim put on the screen, the 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.760 movie Clark Gable was an every man. But Gable was 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.360 so much more than an every man. There had been 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.360 other super masculine men in Hollywood and Helen Peterson is 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.280 the author of Scandals of Classic Hollywood and a senior 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.280 culture writer for BuzzFeed. But no one had that sort 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:38.120 of like swarthy, unshaven masculinity that Clark Gable popularized over 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.240 the course of the nineteen thirties. Gables frequent co star 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.239 and even more frequent lover. Actress Joan Crawford perhaps summed 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.240 up Gable best. She said, he represented man at his 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.360 most primeval viril, rough and ready, with the instincts of 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.720 a wild beast. Gable had more balls than any man 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.120 I've ever known. So one of the things that made 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.880 women go wild old was that in a lot of 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:07.080 his performances he had stubble, like he was a slightly unshaven, 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.160 and that at the time, you know, it was a 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:16.520 signifier of this sort of unmitigated masculinity. Gable cemented this 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.080 impression and one of the scenes from the nineteen four 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:23.640 classic It happened one night he took off his shirt 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.880 and he wasn't wearing an undershirt, which was just scandalous 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.040 at the time. Gable won the Oscar for Best Actor 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.000 for his performance in that film. He was also given 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.920 another honor, Hollywood Colnation Gable and Maniva Crown, King and 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.160 Queen of the Street to Gable and behalf of the 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.880 twenty minutes fans, I present to you this kingly crown. 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.679 Thank you. Ed. You know I play gamblers, newspaper men, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.319 pondike miners and now a test pilot. But this is 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.079 the first time I've ever played the role of a game. 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.680 Gable scoffed at his honorific title. In private, he said, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.959 this king stuff is pure. I'm just a lucky slab 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.280 from Ohio. I happened to be in the right place 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.040 at the right time, and I had a lot of 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.280 smart guys helping me. That's all. It's true. Gable had 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.720 a lot of guys to help him, and even more women. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:17.920 He slept with virtually every woman acrossed paths with Marna 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.520 Lloyd later said that he was the least selective man 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.280 in the hemisphere. Had screw anything. It didn't even have 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.160 to be pretty or clean. Gable was legendary around MGM 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.120 for his womanizing. One day, Gable was in a studio 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.560 executive's office and his desk was covered with hundreds of 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.800 studio stills of the contract actresses at MGM and Gabel 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.000 looked at them and said, I've had every single one 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.600 of them. It didn't stop with the contract actresses. He 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:53.840 had affairs with virtually every famous MGM star, John Crawford, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.800 Marilena Dietrich, Marian Davies. It's hard to actually find one 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.640 that he did not have a fair but at least 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.439 one of those alleged conquests had broader consequences. It was 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.319 Gable's relationship with a twenty two year old rising film 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:13.480 star named Loretta Young. Loretta Young was kind of like 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.120 the Jennifer Anison of the nineteen thirties, just you know, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:21.920 a very very steady and lovable star that wasn't necessarily 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:26.280 an incredible actress, but was widely beloved. Loretta Young signed 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:28.600 on to make a film with Clark Gable, Call of 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.160 the Wild, about gold prospectors in the Klondike. And she 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.880 goes with Clark Gable to shoot Call of the Wild, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.600 which is based on the Jack London novel. And they're 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.880 in the wilderness in you know, the forest outside of 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.080 Seattle and on location, which was somewhat rare at the time. 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.800 Despite the frigid weather, Sparks flew between Young and the 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.640 married Gable and not just on screen. So you have 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.280 this long shoot in the winter, in the middle of nowhere, 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.680 and you have a beautiful star and Laretta Young, and 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.720 then another very handsome and flirtation a star in Clark Gable, 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.319 and you know there's home movies of them being flirtatious 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.400 with one another, and people on the set said that 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.240 they were flirting. Young, Gable and the rest of the 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.440 casting crew boarded an overnight train back to Hollywood when 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.520 filming came to an end. The stars were given individual 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.959 compartments for the journey. Loretta Young was in her compartment 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.480 in the overnight train and Clark Gable knocked on the 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:32.439 compartment door, and, as she told her biographer and also 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.160 her son and daughter in law, he knocked on the 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.520 door and she didn't know how to say no. Young 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:41.960 later said that she thought Gable just wanted to visit 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.920 her compartment, but according to Young, he had other ideas 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.560 in mind. She said quote, he wasn't rough, but I 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.640 kept saying no, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.560 Clark Gable returned home to his wife, Real Langham after 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.080 shooting finished on Call of the Wild. His first words were, 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.320 I want my freedom. He didn't get it, at least 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.679 not then. Not long after, Gable received some news Loretta 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:15.280 Young was pregnant. He ignored it. Young was devastated. She 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.959 was freaked out. I mean, the thing to be an 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.920 unwed mother at that time in Hollywood, you know, it 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.640 would be the end of her career and she would 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.240 be a fallen woman. I mean, when that happened with 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.839 Hollywood starlet's usually the course of action and was to 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.120 get an abortion, but Loretta refused. Instead, she orchestrated one 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.400 of the greatest cover ups in Hollywood history. Young told 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.080 the studio she needed a vacation and left for Europe 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.360 with her mother. She remained there for months, explaining that 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.840 she was ill. Young then secretly returned to her mom's 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.600 house in California for her final trimester. She would go 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.400 out at night only and walk around the neighborhood to 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.400 get a little bit of exercise because she was still crazy. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.120 But there were rumors that she was pregnant. Young invited 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.199 one prominent gossip columnists to her mom's house to dispel 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.560 the rumors. She greeted the calumnists from her bed and 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.840 they piled pillows all over her and they said, she's 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.160 just sick. She can't get out of bed, and they 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.559 essentially convinced the world that she was not pregnant by 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.960 putting pillows on top of her bed. One evening, about 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.960 nine months after Call of the Wild ceased filming on location, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.440 Clark Gable attended the New York premiere of his next film. Afterwards, 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:32.679 Gable received an unsigned telegram in his hotel room. It read, beautiful, 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.120 blue eyed, blonde baby girl for an eight fifteen. This morning, 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.440 Gabel walked into the bathroom, tore up the telegram, and 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:46.880 flushed it down the toilet. It took decades for Young 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.000 to come to terms with what she claimed happened to 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.960 her that night in the train compartment, says Anne Helen Peterson. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.480 In the nineties, Loretta Young was watching a program that 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:00.840 described day rape or you know, acquaintance rape, and the 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.280 dynamics of how that worked. That's someone that you know 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.720 that you know it's not a violent thing, but that 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.880 it is unwanted sex. And she saw that program and 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.160 heard that definition, and she said, that's what happened between 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:18.640 me and Clerk Gable. Loretta Young devised even more elaborate 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.520 plans after giving birth. She placed her baby in an 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:23.920 orphanage for the time being, and went back to work 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.040 on her next movie. Over a year later, she told 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.360 the press she decided to adopt two babies. What eventually 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.880 happened is those two children turned into one child, and 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.400 that one child that she adopted turned out to be 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.000 her own child. Thanks to Young's efforts, the story would 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.160 remain just a Hollywood r She was so smart, she 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.360 was so savvy. She pulled it off with no help. 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.600 She didn't have like a publicist who was coaching her 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.600 on us. Was like her her mom and her sisters, 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.840 who figured out how to game the entire publicity apparatus 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.880 so that she could keep her daughter like that's amazing. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:03.680 Loretta Young did not get a lot of help from 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.440 the studio and navigating the rocky shoals of Hollywood morality 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.720 and scandal. She was unmarried, female, pregnant, and unwilling to 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.040 get an abortion. But her male co star, Clark Gable, 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.760 had plenty of help with his career threatening scandals up 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.200 next the men they called the Hollywood Fixers, an elite 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.360 special forces unit for scandal management. Clark Gable may never 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.720 have become Marilyn Monroe's hero or the King of Hollywood 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:35.000 without the help of some powerful allies within the studio system. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.240 The fixers at MGM saved gable skin more than once, 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.640 and they were also responsible for his ill fated marriage 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:59.120 to relaying them. Historians call the nineteen thirties the golden 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.240 Age of Hollywood, and more than anything, that golden age 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.120 was defined by stars. The studios realized right away that 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.440 the fans reacted to the stars as much as they 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.200 did to the movie This is e. J. Fleming again. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:20.440 And the studios also realized that the individual stars translated 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.320 to money, so it was imperative that they had an 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.920 organized system in place to take care of any problems 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.080 that came up. There was one studio in particular that 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.720 stood out as a star making machine, Anne Helen Peterson 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.640 MGM was the King, so they had one of their 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.760 slogans was more stars in the heavens. They were like 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.960 the HBO of nineteen thirties Hollywood. MGM stable of stars 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.720 included Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Fred Astaire, Gene Harlow, and 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.760 Judy Garland. MGM and other studios took the personal behavior 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.520 of their stars very seriously. Any hint of scandal could 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.760 sink a star, and more importantly, the studio's large investment 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.160 in them. So MGM, like all of the other major 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.800 studios at the time, had what we're called fixers, and 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:13.000 those are people who collaborated with the publicity department to 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.960 make sure that no negative stories or stories that didn't 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.160 match the public image of the star would be released. 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.240 Clark Gable encountered MGMs fixers early on in his career 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.840 at the studio. In fact, that's how he came to 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.040 be married to Real Langham in the first place. Gable's 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.720 first major films were coming out in nine At the time, 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.760 he was living with Langham, a wealthy woman seventeen years 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.560 his senior. One day, Langham came to see MGM boss 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.920 Louis B. Mayer. Mayor had an experienced secretary who was 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.720 used to handling disgruntled wives and girlfriends. Her name was 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.040 Ida Koverman. Remember that name. We will get back to 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.919 Ida in the next episode. Ida Cooverman quickly redirected the 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.720 distraught Real Langham to a studio executive named Howard Strickling. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.720 Howard Strickling was the publicity director and m JAM. He 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.120 was the guy that had to develop the stories, designed 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.480 the spin and sell then narratives. Langham broke down in 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.080 Strickling's office. She told him how she was living with 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.440 Gable for years with the understanding they would marry. She 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.359 threatened to raise a stink in the press if he 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.880 didn't propose. Studio executive summoned Gable and waived his contract 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.840 in front of him. The entire contract could be avoided 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.840 if the actor engaged in sexual or criminal misconduct. To 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.320 save his career, Clark Gable agreed to marry Real Langham. 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.679 MGM did much more than force its young stars to 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.639 marry live in lovers. They made sure no rough edges 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.040 came into public views, says Anne Helen Peterson. So anything 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.080 that they did, whether it was drunken mischief, punching a 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.719 waiter at a bar, um, abusing a wife or a partner, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.919 those things were covered up in collaboration with the press 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.080 and the police department. MGM controlled every police force within 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.679 fifty miles. It had an army of doctors, psychiatrists, pharmacists, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.000 lawyers and reporters that it could enlist at any time 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.000 to fix a problem. And MGM's chief fixer was a 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.760 man named Eddie Mannix. Mannix was a former amusement park 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.760 bouncer from New Jersey. One of the jobs Mannix was 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.040 tasked with was to keep an eye on Clark Gable. 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.200 Both men were inveterate gamblers, drinkers, and womanizers. They quickly 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.280 became close friends, and whenever Gable had a problem, Mannix, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.040 along with Howard Strickling, was there to solve it. Yes, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.040 Gable felt the blade of the studio's almighty sword when 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.480 he was forced to marry Realangum. But as Gable star rose, 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.840 he saw that same sword go to work for him. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.920 He was driving drunk in Hollywood and he hit a 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.959 woman in a crosswalk and drove away. Clark Gable had 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.240 a lot of car accidents in his life, according to E. J. Fleming, 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.000 This one in three was the worst. He immediately called 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.440 Strickling and said he thought he hit somebody with his car. 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.600 Strickling called the Hollywood police and they confirmed that yes, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.800 there was a dead woman on a crosswalk and people 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.760 identified gables car. MGMs fixers went to work, says Fleming. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.439 MGM reportedly paid off the victim's family and paid another 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.360 employee to take the rap for the accident. Twelve years later, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.320 Gable was driving home drunk again when he lost control 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.320 of his car on Sunset Boulevard and plowed into a tree. 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.960 Gable was taken to a nearby hospital. News of the 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.080 accident leaked to the press. MGM's publicity team, never cowed 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:42.439 by irony, told reporters that Gable was sideswiped by a 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:50.000 drunk driver. Like so many other royals in history, Clark 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.399 Gable got away with just about everything. But even before 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.119 he became a star, Gable was an unflinching opportunist, one 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.119 who would do almost anything and sleep with anyone that 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.240 might advance his career. Real langenm was just one of 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.679 several women who served his rungs in the ladder that 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:12.000 Gable used to climb to the top of Hollywood. Clark 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.960 Gable's route to Hollywood was an orthodox, to say the least. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.119 He was from Cadiz, Ohio, a small river town in 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.879 the middle of nowhere. The young man, then known as 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.680 Billy Gable, quit school and went to work in Akron 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:28.040 doing odd jobs and Helen Peterson. Again. Like many classic 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.600 Hollywood stars, he had a pretty poor and rough and 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.720 tumble childhood, His parents were in and out of pictures. 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:39.040 His mom died when he was young um, and he 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.520 made his way to start um kind of by fits 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:46.200 and starts. Eventually Gable found his way to Portland, Oregon. 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:48.439 There he met the first of a series of older 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.680 women that would change his life. E. J. Fleming explains 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.520 Gable used women his entire life. He was with a 0:21:54.680 --> 0:22:00.800 traveling stage crew in Oregon early in his career, and 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.280 he hooked up with the lead actress, a woman named 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:09.160 Franz door Fler. She actually got him his first job acting, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.840 and he promised to marry her, uh so she would 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.640 keep giving him jobs. Gable broke that promise. He left 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.280 door Floer a year later when he met Josephine Dillon. 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.800 Josephine was a kind of a homely acting coach. He 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.760 was twenty years older than than Gable, but she took 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.399 a liking to him all women did. She renamed him Clark. 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.000 Dylan soon became the first Mrs Clark Gable. The newly 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.119 weds moved into a Hollywood bungalow. Gable worked as a 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.080 garage mechanic and struggled as a studio extra. He was 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.879 tall and handsome, but he had enormous ears and unattractive teeth. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.119 So one of the things that Josephine Dillon for how 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.399 did for him was basically instruct him on how he 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:54.959 could make it as a Hollywood star and not just 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.360 as a you know, sort of handsome guy from Ohio. 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.400 And what she did was paid for him to get 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.920 new teeth. His teeth were crooked and bad. She also 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.000 taught him how to speak in a way that it 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.159 was less high pitched and feminine. Gable rewarded Dylan's efforts 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:15.679 on his behalf by abandoning her. He took up with 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:19.240 yet another older woman, actress Pauline Frederick. She had this 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.960 huge mansion on since at Bovard. He moved in with her. 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.080 He never told Dylan he was even in town, and 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:29.400 he was basically a kept man. He didn't do any acting. 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:35.600 She just kept giving him sports cars and jewelry. Gable 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:38.200 was indeed it kept man, even if no single woman 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.119 kept him for all that long. Finally he met a 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.520 wealthy forty four year old divorce and socialite from Texas 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.320 named Real Langham, and it was kind of a full marriage. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.760 They pretended they were married. They introduced themselves as Mr 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:54.040 and Miss as Gable. With Langham bank rolling him, Gable 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.000 pursued a career on Broadway and then back in Hollywood. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.400 The Ohio Ruffian blossomed into a suave or be night. 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:03.960 He wore Brooks Brothers suits. Sometimes he carried a cane. 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.639 I think that you could safely call Clark Gable a 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:13.040 gold digger. He saw opportunity in a way to rise 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:15.919 through their ranks in Hollywood, and that was given to 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:20.639 him by the rank and money and success of his 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.440 respective wives. You'll recall that Marilyn Monroe had no desire 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:27.840 to be a kept woman, despite no shortage of opportunities. 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:32.280 As a result, she often lent paycheck to paycheck. Gable 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:35.240 took a very different tack. One of the interesting things 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:38.199 about Gable is that during his early career as a 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:42.159 stage actor was that he never had to worry about 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:47.240 the types of things that most struggling actors had to 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:49.879 worry about. He never had to worry about money, He 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:53.840 never had to worry about a place to stay, he 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:56.520 never had to worry about food. He didn't have to 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:01.960 worry about anything because door flour Dylan Paulian, Frederick real 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:06.200 laying him had him on the payroll. Gable was more 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:09.080 than a boy toy. He was a Pygmalion like project. 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.920 His female keepers could play Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle. 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:16.800