Personal Stuff

There's really nothing worth a damn to write about, so I have been taking it easy from blogging since the election. The weather has also been good for a change, so I am taking advantage of it.

I am desperately trying to catch up on watching DVDs. I finished watching the 1976 flick, Gable and Lombard, which really should have had the disclaimer at the beginning of the film, "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." Certain specific events DID actually happen, but my God, there were lots and lots of inaccuracies. Red Buttons played Gable's publicist, and at the end of the film, he's there soothing Gable (played by Mr. Barbra Streisand, who actually gave a halfway decent performance), but in reality the publicist, Otto Winkler, died in the plane crash with Lombard and her mother, Elizabeth Peters. The film also tried to make it look like Gable and Lombard hated each other on sight when they first met, but in actuality, they met four or five years before they became an item, on the set of No Man of Her Own, and they got along great. There as no romance then because they were both married to other people. It is true Gable's divorce from second wife Ria Langham presented some problems for the couple when they did finally become an item, but, unlike the film, they NEVER hid their relationship. It was an open secret. The two of them dated and later lived together for three years before they married in 1939 in Kingman, Arizona.

The worst inaccuracy in the film was Gable was depicted as already having been in the military when Lombard died, but that was completely fabricated. Gable enlisted some months AFTERWARDS; he was so grief stricken this was doubtless a way for him to cope with it. It's possible he didn't care whether he lived or died. By all accounts, he was never the same again after Lombard died. After returning from the service, Gable acted self-destructive, especially with the drinking. It was only after he dated and married fifth wife Kay Spreckels that he actually found life worth living again. Had the truth actually been shown, it would have been a better and more poignant film.

It also would have been better if the filmmakers had found a different actress to play Lombard. Jill Clayburgh was okay with what she was given, but she looked absolutely nothing like Lombard. By comparison, Clayburgh, who was and is an attractive woman, was downright plain and therefore not very convincing in the part. Lombard was known as one of the great beauties of her era; her classic features and refined appearance belied the tomboy that existed in reality. That's one of the reasons people loved her so much; she was such a contrast to what people would have expected. There was a reason she was nicknamed "The Profane Angel."

This article about Gable was written shortly after Lombard died.

Anyway, that's been my day. The news is too stinking depressing to blog about.