The Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Murder Case

by George Baxt

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  For

  Kelley Ragland

  for services above and

  beyond the call of duty

  One

  On December 14, 1939, David O. Selznick’s epic production of Gone With the Wind was scheduled for its world premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was where the author of the book, Margaret Mitchell, lived with her unimpressive husband. While writing the book in long hand at her kitchen table, she never dreamed she was creating a behemoth that would take the world by storm and solidify her place in literary history. She had called it Tomorrow Is Another Day. Her publisher retitled it, and when Hollywood maverick David O. Selznick bought the film rights for a bargain at $50,000 he was soon under siege by every star in Hollywood who saw herself and only herself as the book’s heroine, Scarlett O’Hara. Selznick capitalized on this by starting a worldwide hunt for the right actress to play Scarlett. For the film’s hero, Rhett Butler, Selznick and the reading public agreed that screen heartthrob Clark Gable was the only choice. The one person who disagreed was Clark Gable. He was soon convinced to change his mind. But until this happened, major stars came knocking at Selznick’s door, Errol Flynn, Ronald Colman, Robert Taylor, and Ray Milland among them.

  One warm afternoon Selznick stared across his desk at William Claude Fields. Fields had been badgering him for a meeting for several weeks and Selznick finally succumbed. He was now wishing he’d had time to commit suicide. “Bill,” said Selznick, his voice shaking, “I don’t see you as Rhett Butler.”

  “That’s because you’re nearsighted,” said Fields, taking a swig of gin from one of several flasks he always carried. He stood up and twirled his ever present cane while strutting around the office in what he was positive was a display of male sexuality that would cause Selznick to change his mind. He boomed, “Carlotta sees me as Rhett Butler!” Carlotta Monterey was his live-in lover, an actress of dubious talent but a loyal and faithful paramour. Fields was lighting a cigar and after a fit of coughing said, “If she didn’t see me as Rhett Butler, I threatened to paste her one in her kisser. A very nice kisser, I might add.” He flicked ash on the rug while Selznick groaned inwardly. Fields was one of his favorite people despite his alcoholism. They were together at Paramount Pictures some five or six years earlier when Selznick was a fledgling producer. It was Selznick who four years ago convinced Louis B. Mayer at MGM to hire Fields for David Copperfield, replacing Charles Laughton, whose temperamental outbursts were unnerving the company. Fields as Micawber was a triumph, setting both critics and audiences on their ears.

  Much as he liked and respected Fields, Selznick was growing impatient and Fields recognized this. “David, I will give you a few days to think this over. I’m sitting on an offer from England’s Old Vic to play Julius Caesar for them. I told them I’d consider it if Julius doesn’t die. I know, I know”—he waved a hand at Selznick—“the poor sap traditionally gets himself assassinated, but if he had listened to the old witch who warned him to beware the Ides of March, he’d have taken a chariot back to his villa and run up a game of croquet. Croquet,” he mused, scratching his head. “Haven’t played in years. How long’s it been since you’ve played croquet?”

  “Bill.” Selznick spoke the name with exaggerated patience. Fields recognized exaggerated patience when it was laid out before him.

  “I know, I know,” said Fields, raising a hand like a cop halting imaginary traffic. “I have overstayed my welcome.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Ye gods, I’m late for an appointment with Greta Garbo. She wants me to consider doing Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with her. But no woman leaves me and slams the door for good measure. And who wants to see A Doll’s House with anybody in it? Ibsen’s finished, we both know that.”

  Selznick was escorting Fields to the door that led to his waiting room. “It was nice to see you, Bill. We should get together more often.”

  “We will, we will,” the comedian assured him, “when I sign my contract to play Rhett Butler. Of course I get top billing, keep that in mind, David.”

  In the waiting room, Hazel Dickson, Hollywood’s most avaricious purveyor of gossip, dropped the trade paper she’d been reading along with her chin on seeing Fields exiting from Selznick’s office. On recognizing Hazel, Fields tipped his straw hat and said warmly, “Why, my precious little kumquat, how are you, Hazel?”

  Hazel got straight to the point. Maybe here was a piece of gossip she could sell at a fancy price to one of her many columnist clients. “What are you doing here, Bill?”

  He drew himself up and proudly and said, “Hazel, here before you stands Rhett Butler.”

  “Where?” asked Hazel, looking past Fields and seeing no one but Selznick’s overworked receptionist and several people waiting patiently for an audience with Selznick.

  “Are you blind, my passionate petunia? Right here. Me. I. Moi. Rhett Butler! Can you see anyone else in the part?”

  Hazel’s look of astonishment changed to one of horror and then, in an instant, to one of sympathy. “Why, Bill, I had no idea David was given to such original thinking.”

  “I gave him the original thinking,” boomed Fields. “I presented myself today as Rhett Butler.” The receptionist crossed herself. “Had David sneered or scoffed or favored me with an old-fashioned raspberry”—he raised his cane high over his head—“I’d have crushed his skull like it was a ripe casaba melon.” He brought the cane down on an imaginary melon, Hazel stepping backward as she felt the breeze stirred up by the downward motion. The ferocious look on Fields’ face softened as he asked Hazel in a tone both courtly and concerned, “Did I frighten you, my priceless cream puff?”

  Hazel patted his cheek gently, considerate of the many veins that populated his cheeks and nose. “Bill, darling, you’re a priceless old fraud.”

  “Ah yes!” agreed Fields munificently, “and I command a very high salary. Tell me, my pussy willow, is it necessary you see Selznick or can I kidnap you to the nearest bar for some alcoholic libation?”

  Kidnap. Hazel asked, “Bill, don’t you have a bodyguard?” Hollywood had been besieged in the past several weeks by an outbreak of kidnappings and, as a result, bodyguards were at a premium.

  Fields raised the cane again. “I will pulverize any kidnapper who dares threaten me. I shall mash them into pulp, do you hear me, pulp!” He turned to the receptionist, who had slammed a phone down, and bellowed “Pulp!” The receptionist yelped and Fields immediately assuaged her. “Fear not, my precious concubine. I wouldn’t harm a hair of your beautifully coiffured head.” He stared at the homely woman and repressed a shudder. Then he said to Hazel, “Who chooses Selznick over Fields would choose dishonor before death! I shall go forth and commit a good deed.”

  “Oh good,” said Hazel affably. “No good deed goes unpublished.”

  “Well said! Well said!” Fields was headed out of the reception room.
“Remember me to your mother.”

  “My mother’s dead.”

  Fields continued on his way, his bulbous nose leading him to his car, which he would guide to one of his favorite watering holes, Romanoff’s.

  Finally ushered into the presence of the presence, Hazel settled into the chair previously occupied by W. C. Fields and rummaged in her oversize handbag for a pad and pencil. She asked Selznick, “Doesn’t W.C. know that Gone With the Wind is completed? I mean this nonsense of his playing Rhett Butler. Poor bastard.”

  “Hazel,” said a solemn David O. Selznick, “treat W. C. Fields with respect. The man’s a genius. He’s one of my heroes. Had it occurred to me, I’d have had a part written into the picture for him.”

  “Robert E. Lee?” asked Hazel with a cocked eye.

  “Why not? They say he fought the war half crocked. How are you, Hazel? Worried about being kidnapped?”

  She asked archly, “Who would have the good taste to kidnap me? If they did, Herb Villon wouldn’t pay the ransom.” Herb Villon was Hazel’s long-suffering and patient lover of almost a decade, and a respected detective with the LAPD. “Among others, and a lot of others, Dietrich is scared out of her wits. Not for herself but for her kid, Maria.”

  “They better not touch Marlene,” growled Selznick. “I’m optioning The Paradise Case and there’s a terrific part for her, if Garbo turns it down.”

  “Attaboy, David. First things first. ‘Don’t kidnap my star, I’ve got a great part for her.’”

  “Hazel, why do I put up with you? When you’re sarcastic, you send a shiver up my spine. You sound just like Irene discussing a menu with our cook.” Irene was Mrs. Selznick, the younger of Louis B. Mayer’s two daughters. Mayer loved his daughters, who loathed each other.

  “I hear Clark doesn’t want to go to Atlanta.”

  “Clark is a pain in the ass. He’s been a pain in that vicinity since the picture went into production. He made me fire George Cukor as director and replace him with Victor Fleming, a man’s director.” He selected a cigar from the elegant humidor on his desk. As he spoke, he rolled the cigar knowledgeably between his fingers, then sniffed it and held it to an ear, listening for God knows what, thought Hazel. Finally he laid it to rest in his mouth after clipping off one end and lighting it. He inhaled and then exhaled a magnificent smoke ring, which flew past Hazel’s cheek while she waved her hand to clear the air. “Then Clark goes into a snit when he learns Vivian Leigh and Olivia de Havilland are being coached on the sly by Cukor.” He settled back in his chair. “What they do in private is none of my business and their performances in the picture are superb. Everybody in the picture is superb. The picture is superb. A fitting epitaph for me.”

  “You planning to go someplace, David?”

  Now his eyes narrowed. “What are you after, Hazel?” She must know something he didn’t know. Hazel Dickson always knew something everybody else didn’t know. She had an uncanny nose for news, the way a pig knew exactly where to snuffle under earth for truffles.

  Hazel crossed one shapely leg over the other, ignoring the beginning of a run in the stocking on her left leg. “Have any of the cast received a kidnap threat?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How about Carole?”

  “Not that she knows of. Anyway, Louis B. has assigned them two bodyguards. Two athletes, young bucks under contract to Metro.”

  “If they’re gorgeous hunks, Clark will slit their throats.” She sighed. “That clod. It’s okay for him to bang or try to bang every starlet on the lot, but if Carole’s antenna rises when she sees an attractive man, he goes to pieces. Poor Carole, little did she know she was biting off more than she could chew when she finally roped him.”

  “Clark’s deeply in love with Carole.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But there’s deeply and there’s deeply. Like Herb Villon is deeply in love with me from the picture The Bride of Frankenstein.” She thought of the detective and then shook her head from side to side to clear it.

  “What’s Herb’s take on the kidnappings?”

  “No stars.”

  “What do you mean no stars?”

  Hazel was lighting a cigarette. “No real stars have been kidnapped. Just small fry. And as Herb says, you can’t cash in on small fry.”

  “What about Lydia Austin? She’s been missing about a week now.”

  “She’s no star,” said Hazel flatly, condemning the young actress to a very minor position in the firmament.

  “Nice breasts,” said Selznick with a faraway look in his eyes.

  Hazel flicked cigarette ash in the tray she found on a small table near her chair. “If you’re into breasts…” She knew what Selznick was into—everything but his wife. “Why should anyone want to kidnap Lydia Austin? Her sole claim to fame is being one of Carole’s four protégées she’s grooming for stardom. Four protégées! Now if ever there was a publicity ploy.”

  “It isn’t. You know Carole. Her heart is always in the right place. She’ll always give a kid a leg up. She’s genuinely interested in these girls. Christ, she certainly auditioned enough of them before choosing these four. She made me screen-test all four of them.”

  “Oh yes? Can I see the tests?”

  “If Carole says so, you can see them.” He examined the ash at the tip of his cigar. “The girls aren’t at all bad. I’d have used them for the ball scene in Wind, but it was already in the can. Carole’s got Russell Birdwell doing their publicity.” Birdwell was an ace Hollywood publicist, an eccentric given to wild ideas such as sitting on an ostrich egg all day to see if he could hatch it (he didn’t).

  Hazel thought for a moment and then said, “I’ll bet he arranged Lydia’s kidnapping!”

  “Carole’s already asked him. He denies it vehemently. Damn—do you suppose Dietrich is in danger?”

  “Whoever snatches her deserves the consequences. She’ll be on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors, then she’ll do their laundry and after that she’ll bake some German pastries and cook them a lush sauerbraten for dinner.”

  Selznick said sadly, “If that’s the case, they’ll never let her go.” Then he said, “Are you canvassing every producer in town to see who they’ve got under contract who’s a likely candidate for kidnapping?”

  “A few have told me who they’d like to see kidnapped.”

  Selznick’s face brightened. “Names, Hazel, names.”

  * * *

  Lombard and Gable lived in a handsome, rugged ranch in the San Fernando Valley near Encino. They had purchased it from the director Raoul Walsh with Carole’s money, Clark having been taken to the cleaners in his divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Ria. In her own right Ria was a very wealthy woman, a formidable woman in Hollywood society of whom Carole said, “She has lots of society friends but very little class.” At the same time Hazel was interviewing Selznick, Clark was illustrating how to clean and oil a hunting rifle for their raptly attentive young bodyguards. Roy Harvey and Sammy Rowan were college athletes discovered by an MGM talent scout who immediately hustled them out to the studio where they were tested and placed under contract. Not for their acting talents, which were minuscule but for their physical attributes, which were most impressive. Carole commented on first meeting them that they’d make marvelous bookends. Clark liked his captive audience; their naiveté was refreshing and he liked the way they called him “sir” and Carole “ma’am.” There wasn’t much of that kind of respect in motion pictures. Clark tossed the rifle to Roy Harvey, who had shaggy blond hair and was all of twenty. “Try this one for size, Roy.” The youngster stared at the gun in his hands. “What’s the matter, Roy? Never used a rifle before?”

  “When I was a kid, I had a BB gun.” He added shyly, “I was a lousy shot.”

  “Just raise it to your shoulder and take aim. Don’t be afraid of it, it’s not loaded.”

  “Yes, sir.” Roy raised the gun until he could look through the barrel sight. He chuckled. “If it was loaded, I’d
catch you between the eyes.”

  On the landing above them, Carole screamed. She had emerged from the bedroom she shared with Gable carrying a script, wearing blue jeans and one of Clark’s plaid shirts.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s not loaded.”

  “That’s what Russ Columbo’s pal Lansing Brown said before he shot and killed poor Russ.” She said sharply, “Young man, put that gun down.” Roy Harvey handed the rifle back to Gable, who stared at Lombard with the familiar look of exasperation that made his dimples stand out. Women adored his dimples almost as much as Gable did. Carole had thought of Russ Columbo often since his so-called accidental murder in 1934 from a gunshot from one of Lansing Brown’s antique pistols.

  Hazel Dickson had her own theory about Columbo’s death, as did most of the movie industry. “Those two were closer than peas in a pod. When Russ told Lansing he was planning to marry Carole, Lansing popped him.” Herb Villon didn’t disagree, but the Hollywood powers wanted the matter hushed, especially Carl Laemmle at Universal Pictures, where Columbo was being groomed for stardom. So the matter was hushed, and a loyal Carole abetted Columbo’s siblings in feeding their ailing mother the fiction that Columbo was away on a world tour, even arranging for letters and postcards to be mailed to her regularly. She especially treasured the ones from Italy, where she had been born.

  The bodyguards quietly admired Carole as she descended the staircase. “Having a nice time, boys?” They smiled their appreciation. “I’ll have the cook prepare some snacks. You must be famished. I didn’t think those thick steaks you ate for lunch would be enough.” Then she yelped “Pappy!,” her nickname for her husband.

  “What, Mommy?”

  “This script is so beautiful. It’s really touching. It’s a perfect vehicle for me and Jimmy Stewart.” She murmured, “Made for Each Other.”

  “Soppy title,” said Gable.

  “It is not,” said Lombard defensively as she crossed the room and pushed open the kitchen door and asked sweetly for some sandwiches. She then sat on a couch next to the two bodyguards, facing Gable, who was buffing the rifle’s barrel with a piece of chamois. “It’s a perfectly beautiful love story. Selznick has such good taste. He really has an exquisite story sense.”