Hello Dear Readers,
I would like to tell you an amazing true story about “The King of Hollywood” Clark Gable’s rise to fame. We all know Clark Gable from Gone with the Wind and if you are a classic movie fan like myself, you’ll remember him as Peter Warne in “It Happened one Night” with Claudette Colbert for which Gable won his first of three Oscars. But what you don’t know is that he was about to leave Hollywood and go back to Texas in 1931 and Louis B. Mayer did not think he was so special.
It all started with a bet between Billy Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter and Louis B. Mayer, whom Wilkerson despised. The other studio moguls put pressure on Mayer to deal with Wilkerson. The Hollywood Reporter was becoming too big to ignore and they wanted him run out of business.
Wilkerson told him that newspapers all over the country picked up his stories and reprinted them without giving the Hollywood Reporter or their writers credit. Mayer was doubtful, Wilkerson, a gambling man wagered a bet that at least five hundred newspapers in other cities would pick up a story and reprint it. Mayer bit. To test the theory Wilkerson suggested he concoct an absurdly phony story that only the two of them would be privy to. Mayer mentioned a newcomer that he was nonplused about. He handed Wilkerson a 8” x 10” of Clark Gable and said make some outrageous claim that he will become a star. And so on July 13, 1931, the Reporter ran the following in Tradeviews:
MR. EXHIBITOR: Watch out for Clark Gable!
A new star is in the making. Has been made. A star that, to our reckoning, will outdraw every other star that the pictures has developed. This Gable fellow is a sensation out here on the Coast and if he is not enjoying the same success in your town it is for the reason that your patrons, men and women, young and old, have not seen the new pictures he has been spotted in.
This reviewer has been looking at pictures for almost twenty years, has studied audience reactions to pictures and knows a bit about both. Never have we seen audiences work themselves into a such enthusiasm as when Clark Gable walks on the screen.
Maybe you don’t know Gable. If you played “Dance , Fools, Dance” you may have caught him in the mob. If you saw “Secret Six” you will remember he played a flip reporter. He was a Salvation Army Captain on “Laughing Sinners” and did a refined brute in “A Free Soul.” His unreleased pictures are Warners “Night Nurse” and Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s “Sporting Blood” and the lead opposite Garbo in “Susan Lennox.”
All this is not a build up for Gable. He does not need it, but it is a tip for you, Mr. Showman. Grab everything you can get with Gable in it and watch your box-office thermometer rise, for not since the first days of Valentino has a player shot up into the movie heavens with such rapidity. And he is going to stick at the top, for he has everything. The women will go into backflips at the mere mention of his name; critics will give him a big hand because he is an artist; men will flock to the theatre displaying his name because he is a man’s man. Gable is not limited to type, can play any part, is likable, has a forceable personality, and above all has SEX written all over him in big letters. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not expect this avalanche of enthusiasm. They have only had him for six months, felt they had a bet, but nothing so sensational. Now they scouring the world for stories to star him in.
Put this on your cuff and credit it to this column – after you have played “Susan Lennox” the name Clark Gable will be synonymous with top business. Yes, it’s going to be a Gable year, Mr. Exhibitor – don’t be caught napping.
For the next sixty days Wilkerson kept in close touch with his clipping service. When the results were in he raced over to MGM and showered Mayor’s desk with over five thousand press clippings. Mayer was convinced it was a stunt until Publicity Head Howard Strickland, authenticated the clippings.
Wilkerson had promised he would close his doors if he lost the bet. Mayer and all the studios would take out a yearly advertising contracts if he won. Which he did. And Wilkerson was the catalyst for Clark’s Gable meteoric stardom. When Gable read Wilkerson’s glowing editorial he unpacked his bags and bought a brand new white Cadillac convertible. Gable liked Cadillacs. Here is one he bought in 1935
One response to “The King of Hollywood & Billy Wilkerson – Part II”
So interesting and I love the photographs. Well done Suzette!