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 most famous role was in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred 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 circa October 1960; as quoted in The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Davidson; 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?"
  • Op. cit., 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; op. cit., 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 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. 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

• 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

• 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