fireball robert matzen

Help Wanted

Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3

Margaret Mitchell, the quiet little woman who caused a big ruckus.

I am at a loss and would appreciate your help. Here it is, the 75^th anniversary of the release of Gone With the Wind, the blockbuster 1939 classic motion picture of the classic Margaret Mitchell novel of the Old South. And I can’t find a Gone With the Wind celebration anywhere. Not a convention, not a conclave, not a picnic. Because Fireball is so much about Clark Gable, and includes an account of Gable’s tribulations making the picture and a description of the attendance of Clark and Carole Gable at the Atlanta premiere, I thought it would be natural for me to schedule a presentation about Fireball at a Gone With the Wind event this year. So where are the diamond jubilees? I guess it was the late 1980s when I attended one, maybe two, GWTW barbecues at Clark Gable’s birthplace in Cadiz, Ohio. These were pretty big shindigs with women in hoop skirts and an opportunity to meet and chat with original cast members Fred Crane (Stuart Tarleton) and Cammie King (Bonnie Blue Butler).

Come to think of it, that was 25 years ago, wasn’t it? GWTW was in sprightly middle age then. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but all the cast members are gone except for Olivia de Havilland. Is 75 years just too many for a celebration? Is it time for museums and musty, dusty antiquity? Is Gone With the Wind fast becoming as archaic as, say, Birth of a Nation?

I don’t know how well attended the digital restoration of Gone With the Wind was at last weekend’s Turner Classic Film Festival in Hollywood—we were in transit from the West Coast as it was unspooling. How did it go? Did any of this blog’s readers attend? Were there women in hoop skirts among the patrons that day?

Fred Crane shares face time with Vivien Leigh. The Cadiz barbecue held 50 years later, during which I met Fred, looked exactly like this. Well…….sort of. Don’t they hold these kinds of things anymore?

I must be missing something, right? There have to be GWTW conventions that I’ve managed to overlook. We can’t be so rapidly losing touch with this epic motion picture. Or can we? It was such a cultural phenomenon, truly, unparalleled in American history. The book went off like a crate of dynamite upon release in June of 1936 and was reprinted upwards of 30 times by the end of the year. It earned a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Margaret Mitchell, and again reigned as the top-selling novel in America in 1937. This novel was Big, and then came the movie, which was Just As Big. Speculation raged over which Hollywood star would play which role. Could David O. Selznick pull this miracle picture off? Or would it bomb? Would he even finish the thing? Then it premiered, and played, and played, and hit the road, and played on well into the war years. Then came the 1947 reissue, and then 1954, and the Civil War Centennial reissue of 1961, and a 70mm hatchet job in 1968, and another reissue in 1974. Gone With the Wind hit TV like Sherman in Georgia and played on pace with The Wizard of Oz and The Ten Commandments. It was a TV event, as it had been a theatrical event.

Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen

The Gables receive a royal welcome upon their arrival in Atlanta for the GWTW premiere in December 1939. More than 150,000 people would flock to Peachtree Street to glimpse them.

But that was then. How are you feeling about Selznick’s Gone With the Wind these days? Do you still sit down and watch it? Do you try to introduce it to your children and grandchildren? Is there any hope for even attempting such a thing in our short-attention-span age? Is the 4×3 aspect ratio too out of date? Is the acting too corny? Is the lack of action too extreme? Or has it just plain been overexposed?

Personally I still get a kick out of Gone With the Wind, although not as much as I did 20 or 30 years ago. Now the back half moves pretty darn slowly and I get impatient with Scarlett for chasing around the feckless Ashley. Olivia de Havilland’s Melanie has grown on me quite a bit, though. Oh, how my mother despised Melanie, but I have to side with Rhett’s assessment that she was the only truly admirable woman in the story. Of course, I’m partial to Ona Munson’s Belle Watling too and think it would be swell to have a friend exactly like her.

So, help me out, will you? Where are the hot Gone With the Wind celebrations that I’m missing? What’s happened to the Epic Motion Picture of Our Time? Is it . . . gone with the wind? I’d welcome your perspective

that Gone With the Wind still holds onto some sort of relevance in 2014. I’m hoping it does. I’m hoping that maybe I’m just being a pessimist.

Also on a related but unrelated note: There have been many books written about the production of this motion picture. What is your favorite?

Selznick’s money shot.

Fireball in Las Vegas

Las Vegas features a giant that dwarfs even the mightiest casino. That giant is Mt. Potosi, which looms high in the southwestern sky and can be seen from nearly every vantage point in town. You can’t see it if you’re standing behind the Luxor, or Caesar’s, or the other casinos, but if you’re out and about, Potosi can’t be missed. Potosi is where life ended for Carole Lombard and where life began for Fireball. Each year when I’d visit Las Vegas on business, there would be Potosi, never an inviting sight, but always a compelling sight. I knew the wreckage of Flight 3 was up there, and I knew that one day I would go see it. This is not new information to anyone who has read the book, but I bring up the subject of Potosi again because I just returned from my most important visit yet to Las Vegas after four TV interviews and two on radio, and a Saturday lecture at the impressive Sahara West Library on Sahara Avenue.

On Las Vegas NBC affiliate Channel 3 with Tom Hawley talking about the 1942 plane crash near their town. [Clicking on the image takes you to the TV segment.]

Sahara is a street that’s important to the narrative of Fireball, because at the intersection of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard, Clark Gable spent the longest weekend of his life, waiting in a bungalow under heavy guard at the El Rancho Vegas Hotel for word on the fate of his wife. Back then the El Rancho stood alone in desert as the southernmost point in town and the first of the modern casinos. Now the site of the El Rancho is one of the last remaining empty lots in that stretch of the Vegas Strip. Nothing’s been there since the main building, the Opera House theater and casino, burned to the ground in 1960 during a Betty Grable appearance (Betty reportedly lost $10,000 in costumes that night). The owner tried to keep going on just the cluster of bungalows around the casino-in-cinders, but it didn’t work.

One of those bungalows had been Gable’s, and I have stood at the spot and pondered what he went through that weekend as he stared at Potosi, what his MGM handlers went through, and Gable’s friends, who rushed to his side by the carload when they heard that Carole’s plane was down. My appearance on that street, in that city, with Potosi visible just to the southwest, was what I can only describe as meant to be.

The first modern Las Vegas casino complex, the El Rancho Vegas, along Highway 91 just south of town. Here Clark Gable endured the longest weekend of his life.

On Saturday the story poured out of me to the assembled crowd of locals; I showed two videos and then came the Q&A. It was fantastic to get the perspective of people who have lived with the story all their lives. One woman remembered as a little girl looking at Potosi and seeing the polished aluminum of the wreck gleaming in the sun. TWA had tried to dynamite the mountainside to cover over the site, but their plan failed and locals for years afterward remembered the eerie, reflective glow of the right wing against the cliff wall.

Attendees of the Sahara West event watch one of the GoodKnight Books videos.

Attending on Saturday was well-known Southern California poet Lee Mallory, whose father and stepfather were pilots. Lee’s Uncle Harry grew up in Goodsprings and learned about the crash and aftermath from people who lived it. In fact, those eyewitnesses passed on relics from the crash to Harry, who had them built into a shadow box with brass name plates, and this incredible history display is now in Lee’s possession. Lee hadn’t yet read the book but was able to pepper me with questions that hit on many key facts and myths related to the event. Another attendee firing impressive questions was named Dennis. He had visited local spots connected to Flight 3, like the site of the El Rancho and the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, where Gable supposedly drank his way through the weekend. No doubt the Pioneer was a player in the tragedy, if not Gable’s home base, because it was here that reporters congregated during days of rescue and recovery. It was a practical matter: in an area so remote, the Pioneer featured the closest telephone and the best way for reporters to get their stories out.

Signing books after the lecture and Q&A.

The Sahara West Library is a state-of-the-art facility. I haven’t seen better audio and video capabilities anywhere, and I want to thank Marci Chiarandini for fantastic support throughout the planning and execution of the event.

We also snuck down to L.A. for a couple of days. I paid my usual respects to Carole, Clark, and Petey at Forest Lawn, and we stopped in at Maria’s Italian Kitchen in Encino, which is currently featuring a Fireball tie-in. Patrons bringing a copy of the book into the store receive a discounted meal. The crazy thing is that Maria’s is located near the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Petit Avenue, and Petit Avenue was the address of the Gable ranch. George Healy of Maria’s, who read Fireball and has become one of its leading proponents, wasn’t aware that one of the key locations in the book was less than a quarter mile away! It’s just the latest in a thousand weird little coincidences and ironies around Fireball, which is a very special book to me and, as I’m finding, to a growing number of people around the country.

Shooting Star

Bruce R. Medici said some very nice things about Fireball in a recent comment. He also said, “Carole would have most likely enjoyed it, and perhaps she may have had some choice words about it too.” I wondered every so often as I was writing Fireball whether Miss Lombard would approve of what I was doing. I knew I had found the real person, that I was uncovering the soul of this woman and artist, and does anyone really want to be laid bare before the world?

My friend Steve had a strong reaction to the Carole he read about in Fireball. Steve had known Gable, as discussed here previously, and had heard time and again from Clark and all the other MGM players wonderful stories about this glorious, perfectly remembered, bigger-than-life personality, Carole Lombard. Said Steve in his critique of Fireball, “I was surprised to find out that she was so spoiled and willfully stubborn and strong-headed. To have bullied her way thru life as it appears is surprising to me. Yes, she was attractive and full of joy and fun and laughter. But if you read between the lines, she was also so determined to do as she pleased, that at times I didn’t like her and wondered why so many others liked her. It also killed her.”

Gable and Lombard are adored as American royalty wherever they go.

This is a bulletin to many: Carole Lombard lived a mortal existence and had shortcomings and frailties like we all do. She never wanted for money because she came from it, and so “spoiled” is a fair term. She did what she wanted with her life and if necessary could lean back on her heels and put up her dukes with any man who wanted a fight, including Hollywood moguls. She also most decidedly did put her own insecurity and self-interest ahead of the feelings of her traveling companions that last night in Indianapolis, with fatal results. So “willfully stubborn” certainly fits. Carole did bully Wink and Petey onto the fancy Sky Club that had taxied into the Indianapolis Municipal Airport. And she did it because of a very human, irrational, insecure, unLombard-like reaction to Lana Turner, a girl more than 10 years younger, petite, gorgeous, needy, and husband hunting. Ma was an intuitive creature, and could sense that Pa was hearing this siren’s song and liking the tones. She felt his distraction like she had never felt it in the chorines and bit players that had queued up previously for 15 or 30 minutes of the King’s time.

It was imperfect of Carole Lombard to react this way and force her mother and Otto Winkler onto a plane after promising both repeatedly that they would not have to fly on the bond tour. She strong-armed Petey onto the plane even though Petey knew the numerology was all wrong and she begged her daughter not to get onto the plane. Imagine, your mother begs you. And poor Otto had dreamt he would die if he got on a plane on this trip. It gives me chills even now to write that sentence.

Luckily, Carole found a writer who is also an apologist for human frailties. I don’t hold her stubbornness against her. I don’t hold Gable’s roving eye and “swordsman” tendencies against him. How could we do either? How dare we do either? It’s easy for us to sit here all these years later and tsk-tsk as we turn the pages and say how we would not have done these things and conveniently look past our own imperfect lives and the things we’ve done less than optimally. It wasn’t easy to be a Hollywood star. They worked six out of seven days a week at the whim of their studios and were forced into the limelight almost every night of the week. Imagine everywhere you go you’re assailed for autographs and people tear at your clothes. The first hour would be awesome; after that, not at all. Imagine you have total power over everyone you meet. How would it warp you? Not at all? Forgive me if I have my doubts. So, yeah, Carole Lombard threw her weight around and got on that plane and then in Albuquerque she refused to give up her three seat assignments even though the law required it. That’s willfully stubborn and a half! In her own mind there were compelling reasons why she needed to do what she did, just as there were compelling reasons why Clark needed the attention of every female in sight.

Hollywood-struck Hoosiers press in on Carole in Indianapolis the day before she will die.

I told Carole Lombard’s story without passing judgment on Carole Lombard and knowing her as I do, she wouldn’t give me as much as a “You can kiss my ass” about it. Somewhere on the other side of that cliff she ran into is an understanding that the train would have been better. There’s remorse over the fate of Petey and Wink and sorrow at letting her brothers and friends down, people she wanted to continue to see and love and cherish and support. Sorrow at deserting Clark and the ranch. Lessons always come at a price, and brother the price she paid. The price all these characters in Fireball paid for getting mixed up with dynamic, charge-straight-ahead Carole Lombard. Sure she was imperfect, but on balance no one ever quite got over her loss, not her husband or closest girlfriends or the grips on the pictures she made or anyone in between. All they would ever allow when they remembered the girl who lit up the sky as she streaked across it and then hit a granite cliff at 7,700 feet was, “That was Carole for you.” Human? Hell yes. Which is what made this a story, and why people can’t get enough of it.

At the Crossroads

When you enter the state of Indiana on President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System, you see a sign that says, “Welcome to Indiana, Crossroads of America.” Further probing into the state reveals that Indianapolis is also known as the Crossroads of America, so you’re really at the crossroads when you reach Indiana’s capital city. On Sunday I spoke at a quaint bookstore on Mass Ave in downtown Indianapolis called Indy Reads Books talking about Fireball and on Monday morning I appeared on CBS affiliate WISH-TV’s Indy Style talking more Fireball in general and Carole Lombard’s last day of life in particular. For Lombard it was a blur of a winter’s day with appearances from downtown at the Capitol Building to the tony northern suburbs.

Indianapolis is laid out crazily around a downtown circle much as Pierre Charles L’Enfant designed Washington DC, with diagonal streets laid over a city grid, and the diagonals intersecting in roundabouts here and there. I guess it’s no coincidence since L’Enfant disciple Alexander Ralston co-designed the street pattern of Indianapolis. It’s easy to argue that these guys were geniuses…or that these guys were just plain nuts. Indy’s got six-way intersections and more pedestrians that you can shake a stick at. Jaywalking seems to be a sport in Indianapolis, and some streets have bike lanes but all streets seem to have bicyclists—who don’t always behave predictably. Downtown motorists had better be on their toes all the time because fancy driving doesn’t just happen on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; it happens all over Ralston’s complicated downtown system.

But I digress. I asserted on Indy radio, TV, and in person that Carole Lombard enjoyed two especially stellar days in a stellar life: her March 29, 1939 elopement with Clark Gable to Arizona, and her January 15, 1942 day selling war bonds in Indianapolis. Carole had to love everything about her time in Indy, where thousands of people treated her like a queen from the first instant to the last in a slate of appearances that ran like clockwork.

Getting started at Indy Reads Books.

An excellent Indianapolis Star feature by Will Higgins that heralded my lecture looked exclusively at the local angle on Lombard’s Indy trip, which was orchestrated by local businessman J. Dwight Peterson. I had seen the name in my research but didn’t call him out in Fireball, so Higgins’ article dovetails nicely with the narrative. I quickly learned in my Indy Reads lecture just how much the locals claim Lombard and how magical her day in town has remained over the decades. Attendees were very much into it, and included a rare father-daughter combo with the young lady maybe 13 and not too enthusiastic at the beginning, but the story is irresistible and before long she perked right up. I also met longtime Lombard-Gable fan Patricia Kennedy, who filled me in on some local particulars about the Lombard visit. It was a wonderful give and take of information—my national view and their local view, and I learned some things that will certainly make a future edition of Fireball.

My TV segment the next morning on Indy Style was more magic, as host Andi Hauser found herself engrossed in a copy of Fireball while prepping, and when I offered the exclusive Myron Davis Indianapolis photos as roll-ins with the segment, Brian, the director, snapped them up. How’s the saying go—Print anything you want about me; just spell my name right? I found out afterward that they spelled my name wrong in the super, and if you click the link it’s hideously misspelled still, but only because TV people live in a world where everything happens fast and the next thing is important and the thing that already happened isn’t. The meeting before airtime was maybe three minutes and the host, producer, and director asked brief questions and I knew to give brief answers because of the general state of hurry. But they treated me and Fireball very well, so Robert Matzum it is!

With Andi Hauser on CBS Channel 8’s Indy Style.

Afterward Mary and I sped down to the Capitol for a private tour of the Lombard hotspots, using Davis’s photos for visual reference. Jennifer Hodges and Rose Wernicke of the Tour Office helped us triangulate where Carole stood and handed out war bond receipts imprinted with her photo, personal message, and signature. It was near the office of Indiana Governor Henry Schricker, which made sense in terms of logistics. But Lombard and party were tucked away in a corner behind a makeshift wooden counter, outside a doorway. I asked Jennifer why that would have been. She thought a moment. “That’s the governor’s business office, so they would have been able to take her out that way afterward, down the stairs and outside without having to go out through the crowd.” Like I say: clockwork.

http://wishtv.com/2014/03/31/author-robert-matzum-fireball-carole-lombard-the-mystery-of-flight-3/

The 2014 view inside the Indiana State Capitol Building showing a glimpse of the same spot in 1942. The building was refurbished in the 1980s, so some of the appointments have changed–but not much.

Outside the building Mary and I easily found the spot where Carole stood on a makeshift platform for her speech that was covered by all the newsreel companies and by national radio. It was at the bottom of the steps near the east entrance, with the facade of the building unchanged today from what the Davis photos showed in 1942.

Our tour of Indianapolis was a clear success, and I can only hope the stop in Las Vegas next week goes as well. It will include some TV early in the week, followed by a lecture and signing on Saturday, April 12, at the Sahara West Library, with Potosi Mountain in full view. I know from writing the story how special Nevadans are; I’m hoping to meet some whose parents or grandparents participated in the search and recovery in 1942. Or maybe there are a couple hardy first responders still with us who can teach me a thing or two like the people of Indianapolis did just yesterday.

Carole Lombard delivers a speech outside the Indiana Capitol Building in 1942.

The same spot today.

Scarface Comes Across

I have a question in the category of “How the hell did they do that?” I’ve got a couple of appearances coming up in Indianapolis, this Sunday at Indy Reads Books on Massachusetts Avenue at 3:30 P.M., and Monday morning on Indy Style at 9 A.M. on WISH-TV. (Come out and see me!) In preparing for these appearances I’ve been studying the Myron Davis photos of Carole Lombard selling war bonds at the Indiana State House the day before she died. Davis took several shots of Lombard, one after another as she handed out receipts for bond sales. He was using his Speed Graphic camera, the most famous press camera of its day, with Kodak film, and the detail of these shots is incredible.

It was while studying the digital files that had been processed at 800 dpi from the original Kodak negatives that I realized, in some of the shots, you can see one of the scars on Carole Lombard’s face. It’s common knowledge that Carole’s face was sliced up by windshield glass in a freak car crash just after she turned 17. She had nearly bled to death that night, cut to the cheekbone on one side, upper lip nearly severed, and deep cuts close to the left eye. She had been put back together by a cosmetic surgeon, but the wounds were so egregious that for a long time afterward, she was despondent and wanted to die.

Detail of one of the Myron Davis photos shows the boomerang-shaped scar beside Carole Lombard’s left eye.

Here I was looking at the candid bond shots taken by Myron Davis, and I started to be aware of the scar by her left eye. It runs up beside the eye in the shape of a little boomerang, broad and milky as scars can be, and a good inch long. There are others that are visible now and again in photos, the big one on her cheekbone and another dimply scar beside her mouth. What astonishes me is that I can see the eye socket scar in these Davis photos, but you don’t notice them in motion pictures of the day. Granted she worked with hand-picked directors of photography who knew how to photograph their way around the scars but still, given all the physical comedy she did, all the closeups, where are the scars?

So that’s my “How the hell did they do that?” question of today. This was 60 years before the invention of computer software that would obliterate such imperfections in motion pictures performers, frame by frame. Somehow in the 1930s they did it with lighting that smoothed out the skin, and angles that hid the damage. And there was a lot of damage, as is evident by the shots taken in Indianapolis.

The same scar is visible in this screen capture from 1939, as is the scar on her cheek.

One of the first things people who met Carole Lombard face to face must have remarked to themselves was, “Whoa! Look at the scars!” Bogey had that scar on his lip, a souvenir of World War I. You’ll see a divot here and divot there on other stars too, and there are the painfully obvious examples of Montgomery Clift and Van Johnson, their boyish good looks butchered in car crashes worse than Lombard’s. But for a glamorous leading lady of the 1930s to be sporting facial scars and not caring, not letting them get in the way of a thriving career, allowing cameras to get in so very close—that’s something. Carole’s pal Alice Marble said, when asked about the scars, that they only accentuated her beauty, and I can see that. They were character lines, visible in life and once in a while on film. It’s interesting that scars are not what people saw when they looked at Carole Lombard. They saw something genuine that transcended flawless skin. Granted the girl had help from camera and lighting geniuses. She also had guts, and a personality that made sense of an occasional railroad track on her face. I just wonder if she would be given a chance today, when the press and style gurus are so quick to judge and label a woman as hideous for the slightest deviation from some standard of beauty that they themselves could never attain. I think Carole Lombard would have a quick two words for such people, and I think you know what those two words would be.

Presenting Clark Gable

I knew going into the writing of Fireball that understanding and presenting the real Clark Gable was going to be tough. Some people said this guy was electric in a one-to-one conversation; others said he was boring. How do you get inside the head of a bigger-than-life personality with a public persona crafted and maintained by the publicity department of MGM, the most powerful Golden Era Hollywood movie studio?

I read what there was. Gable biographer Lyn Tornabene helped on two fronts: her 1976 book Long Live the King provided key information about “Billy” Gable’s childhood and upbringing. Tornabene’s gesture of donating all her research materials to the Academy Library placed a great deal of previously unseen and unheard material at my fingertips, and I sifted through it like a geologist, discovering gem after gem. I talked to those few still around who knew Gable.

Fireball: Carole Lombard in Hollywood by Robert Matzen

Clark Gable before.

What emerged were two Clark Gables: there was the self-centered, spoiled-movie-star Gable that existed up until January 16, 1942, and the Gable that survived the crash of Flight 3 and the loss of Carole Lombard, Carole’s mother “Petey,” and Clark’s own best friend, press man Otto Winkler. Imagine for a moment the trauma of that event, especially since he felt partly responsible for actions that led his wife to feel compelled to rush home.

I was interviewed recently by Dick Dinman for his radio show that’s heard via podcast on TCM.com, among other places. Dick asked about my presentation of Gable and related a story about David Niven, whose wife died in a horrible accident. Dinman said that Gable went out of his way to console Niven, and Dick said that this episode was in no way consistent with my depiction of a self-centered movie star. BUT, I responded, it was perfectly consistent with the empathetic Clark Gable, the survivor of Flight 3 and that horrible weekend in Las Vegas.Did I capture the real Clark Gable? Proof came just this week from someone who would know, Hollywood novelist, screenwriter, and actor Steve Hayes, a friend of Gable and intimate of both Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. Steve read Fireball and here are his comments, in part:

“Gable’s character was well laid out and his many facets as a personality have been captured. Since I only knew him after her death, I’ve had to rely on others (Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, etc.) to understand how he was before Carole died. I knew this wasn’t Rhett Butler I was talking to, a man whose charm and sex appeal and charisma were absolutely irresistible. But until Franchot Tone and Walter Pidgeon and others I’ve just mentioned told me how he was in real life before Carole’s death, I really had no way of judging how huge this change was.“I found Alan Ladd, whom I knew after working for 11 weeks on Botany Bay, and then occasionally bumping into him at Paramount and being invited to swim at his Holmby Hills home, equally sad inward, as if carrying a personal tragedy. I don’t know what his sadness was—I know he loved June Allyson and couldn’t break loose of Sue Carol—but it certainly wasn’t of the magnitude of Gable’s loss. But there was a definite similarity between them regarding a strange inner sadness.

Clark Gable after.

“Your portrayal of him is dead on. Anyone who met Gable always remembered how immaculate he was—clothes and toiletry, nails, shaven, etc.—and for a boy from the oil fields of Ohio, he’d certainly come a long, long way. He could still laugh, mostly it seemed at himself—I recall having lunch [at MGM] with Pidgeon, Tone and some other actor, and in came Gable, and he looked lost—in his own studio! But he brightened up when he saw us (not me, them) and readily joined our table. Everyone in the commissary turned and stared—and I have to admit it was one of the high moments of my life to be part of that group at that moment. Hell, The King had joined us!

“I don’t think that he really cared much about his life after Carole died. He was pretty much an alcoholic and chain smoker—as so many other stars were—and it’s symptomatic of the era. He once said about Flynn, “Well, he’s killing himself with cigarettes and booze—like most of us are.” Yet he was so wonderfully tolerant of Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits, constantly excusing her bad behavior in front of the others. So inwardly, he was a gentle giant, and a genuinely nice guy. Which is how I will always remember him.”

The always-immaculate Gable, seen at the Encino ranch in 1947. It was the place he felt closest to the one he called “Ma” and “Mrs. G.”

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

I hate the sound of bagpipes. To me the sound of bagpipes is more torturous than the squeal of a feedbacky microphone, or the wail of a screaming baby, or the pounding and grinding of a dumpster being emptied in the middle of the night. It’s the top reason I’m not a fan of St. Patrick’s Day. I’m also not a fan of people going out and getting drunk obnoxiously when they could just as easily, no, more easily, stay home and drink in silence. So where have I been the past few days, you ask? I was waiting out St. Patrick’s Day in the Cone of Silence and now it’s the day after, and safe to come out.

My idea of hell.

I need to know. Do you people tweet? Do the cool kids these days tweet? It seems as if people must sit around watching TV with the remote in one hand and a phone in the other so they can report their thoughts in real time, and maybe if you’re a great pundit who has thoughts in real time that would be desirable, but if you’re just a guy or a girl and go reporting on how the ref made a non-call in a basketball game, is this a good thing?

My housemate has been railing for years that there’s too much communication in the world today, and the emergence of “Twitter wars” seems to bear this out. Someone disrespects someone else on Twitter, and suddenly a snarkfest is unleashed, often with no winner but just a lot of nasty messages hanging in the ozone. To me, Facebook is a fine thing and allows me to keep people at the far end of arm’s reach while still learning of their comings and goings. Facebook is perfect for the reclusive introvert, which I’m one of. I care about my friends, which doesn’t necessarily mean I want to talk to them all the time. Now I don’t have to: there’s Facebook.

But Twitter. Quite some time ago, Basil Rathbone authority Neve Rendell encouraged me to start tweeting. I thought, what the heck, why not, and I signed up on Twitter and got my handle (@robertmatzen) and guess what. I have only tweeted I believe one thing in my entire Twitter career, and that was a funny little something to a co-worker. I just couldn’t bring myself to tweet because who cares what I have to say? Why is my viewpoint important? Does the world need to know that I hate bagpipes? RT if U h8 bagpipes 2.* NO! I can’t murder the king’s English that way. I can’t go against the grain and reveal my loathing of an “instrument” played at heroes’ funerals!

I have seen an effective use for Twitter, and that’s to build a brand. If I were a comic attempting to build my brand, RT if U h8 bagpipes 2 would actually make sense. As a matter of fact, comedian Stephen Wright used to talk in tweets long before Twitter was born. But even if I were building a brand, I can’t see myself shamelessly self-promoting because reclusive introverts aren’t made that way. Ironically, I am building a brand and can’t make my thumbs use Twitter! You can see my conundrum.

Besides, with a subject matter like vintage Hollywood, my tweets would just be a litany of sadness.

Shirley Temple dead. Bummer.

Sid Caesar gone. Nooo!

Harold Ramis passed. Can’t B.

Robert Matzen, angel of death.

So please tell me, do you tweet? Are you on Twitter? Should I do this or not do this? I’d love a pro or a con from you, the most influential people in my life (other than she who lives with me). And most importantly, would you have RTed that U h8 bagpipes 2?

*RT = ReTweet

Raked by the Spotlight

Wow, the last 36 hours have been interesting. My publicist asked me in a phone meeting if I wanted to write a piece tying Fireball to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. My first inclination was, of course I don’t. In no way do I want to exploit so obvious a tragedy, but some hours passed and she queried me again, prompting me with an article about unsolved air mysteries.

I banged out 500 words in 17 minutes and sent it off; in no time at all she told me Fox News had asked for an exclusive on my op-ed. And so was born my first national byline. Within minutes I was asked for radio interviews by Fox national radio and Voice of Russia, and then Relevant Radio in Minnesota. A national op-ed and three significant radio interviews resulted from the gut feeling of my publicist that my expertise connected with research into the 1942 crash of TWA Flight 3 in Nevada could be informative and maybe even important to this global story.

Sean Hannity saw the op-ed and asked me to appear with him on Fox TV today, but then the story shifted from air disaster to air what-the-hell? prior to my 6:30 P.M. interview slot at the studio in downtown Pittsburgh, and I was “pushed” to an indeterminate point in the future.

In the radio interviews of the past 24 hours, I have been asked interesting, thoughtful questions about air transportation in general because the current mystery is do deep, so engrossing, that humans struggle to grasp it. Sure there’s historical context related to TWA Flight 3: commercial air transportation still isn’t an exact science, and in a void of information, wild speculation fills that void, and pilots are highly trained and worthy of the benefit of the doubt, and most important, until we know otherwise, we keep hoping for a miracle.

Then I’m asked about Fireball, and I’m reminded how incredible this 1942 air mystery is, how enduring, and all of a sudden seasoned radio professionals are stunned, mesmerized, asking for more and more about something that’s 72 years old.

All I want to do is keep spreading the Fireball message: so many angles, so many people to honor—from those on the plane to first responders to investigators; so much relevance to the audience of 2014 for a story that originated before the middle of the last century.

No, we haven’t yet figured out air travel. Yes, fragile humans continue to strap themselves into tubes and wings and launch themselves into the upper atmosphere and rely on other humans to see them safely down again. I continue to watch with the rest of the world as this latest aviation mystery unfolds, and marvel at the ongoing mysteries of flight.

The Name Game

Hockey players nickname everybody. Locally, the National Hockey League Pittsburgh Penguins have a “Kuny,” a “Scuds,” a “Duper,” a “Tanger,” and a “Borts.” They do this at rinks all around the world. I’ve found no evidence that Carole Lombard ever played professional hockey, but hockey players would admire her penchant for nicknaming everyone, including her own mother. In fact, alternate names run so rampant in Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 that a reader I met in L.A. in January, Ruth Peeples, asked for the creation of a scorecard to keep all the nicknamed people in Carole’s life straight.

Since it’s impractical to drive around inserting a cheat sheet in every copy of the book in stores and warehouses, let’s take a moment and run them down here.

Carole’s mother was Elizabeth Peters, and you’d think that “Mom” would suffice, or “Mother,” but to Carole she was “Petey” or “Tots,” and mostly I used Petey in the book with an occasional Tots thrown in when looking at Elizabeth Peters from the perspective of her famous daughter. In unpublished interviews kept at the Academy Library, Alice Marble refers to Mrs. Peters entirely as “Petey,” including when Marble recounts conversations in which Carole referenced her mother…always as Petey.

Carole and Bucket

Carole knew her brother Fred as “Fritz” and her brother Stuart as “Tootey.” There wasn’t much Carole could do with close friend Dixie Pantages because Dixie already fit the bill, but her other best galpal, Madalynne Fields, became “Fieldsie” to Carole and then to everyone else in Hollywood. Jean Garceau, secretary to Clark and Carole Gable, was just “Jeanie,” but Loretta Francelle, the hairdresser who worked on all Carole’s pictures, was, picturesquely, “Bucket.” The people in Lombard’s universe knew they had arrived if they picked up a nickname, and I have to wonder if it was Carole who dubbed close friend Cesar Romero “Butch” because this one certainly has a Lombardesque ring to it.

Carole and Butch

When Carole took up tennis, her teacher, Elinor Tennant, became “Teach” first on the courts of Hollywood and then all over the world. Carole’s protégé Alice Marble, the TB-hospital refugee whom Carole sponsored to worldwide tennis stardom, including U.S. and Wimbledon championships, became “Allie.” Then Margaret Tallichet, whom Lombard sponsored for a career in pictures, became “Tallie.”

Carole and Teach

Carole’s men had nicknames too. You’d think “Bill” would suffice for first husband William Powell, but just to note their age difference of 17 years, Carole called him “Pops” or “Popsie,” and every once in a while, “Junior.” Her tempestuous year with crooner Russ Columbo saw each referring to the other as “Pookie,” and when Clark Gable came along and became husband number two, Carole didn’t go with the obvious “Clark” or even “King,” as in King of Hollywood. She called him “Pa” or “Pappy” or sometimes what Spencer Tracy called him, “Moose.” In turn, Gable referred to Carole as “Ma” or “Mrs. G.”

Carole and Pops

So this is for you, Ruth, a glossary of Carole Lombard’s nicknames for friends, family, and lovers. This is in no way comprehensive and I invite additions.

…not to be confused with Carole and Pappy

Allie – Alice Marble, tennis star
Bucket – Loretta Francelle, Carole’s hairdresser
Fieldsie – Madalynne Fields, Carole’s friend, housemate, confidante, and secretary
Fritz – Frederick Peters II, Carole’s eldest brother
Jeanie – Jean Garceau, secretary to the Gables
Junior – William Powell (alternate to “Pops” and “Popsie”)
Moose – Clark Gable (alternate to “Pa”)
Pa or Pappy – Clark Gable
Petey – Elizabeth Peters, Carole’s mother
Pookie – Russ Columbo
Pops or Popsie – William Powell
Tallie – Margaret Tallichet, Paramount PR girl who became a leading lady
Teach – Elinor Tennant, Carole’s tennis instructor
Tootey – Stuart Peters, Carole’s elder brother
Tots or Totsie – Elizabeth Peters, Carole’s mother (alternate to “Petey”)

Riding the Wave

This past Tuesday I did a local Fireball lecture/book signing on Pittsburgh’s North Side and then introduced a showing of the 1936 screwball comedy My Man Godfrey with William Powell and Carole Lombard. It’s been a while since I visited 1011 Fifth Ave. and Tuesday marked the first time I’ve ever seen Godfrey in a public setting.

Pittsburgh is the home of William Powell, or to be precise, William Powell hails from Allegheny City, which was once Pittsburgh’s sister city before being gobbled up via hostile takeover in 1908. But that’s another story. And my ancestors hail from Allegheny City after coming off the boat from Germany in 1844, but that’s yet a third story. For now let’s stick to the fact that Powell met the world as a bouncing baby boy in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, and spent his childhood there and some of his best pictures are being shown publicly in a series running two months in a church on the very streets he once walked. I was invited to introduce My Man Godfrey because of Fireball, a book about Carole Lombard that covers her brief and turbulent marriage to Mr. Powell and their close friendship that endured to her death. In fact, the couple had been divorced for more than two years when Universal offered Powell My Man Godfrey, and he said he would take the part only if his ex-wife was offered the co-starring role.

Map of Allegheny City, home of actor William Powell and site of a showing of Carole Lombard's My Man Godfrey.

Allegheny City was once Pittsburgh’s elegant sister. The showing took place roughly at the T in City.

The pro-Powell crowd was into My Man Godfrey, which is a loud, sometimes frenetically paced picture. In a nutshell, the zany Bullock family of Fifth Avenue, New York City, has way more dollars than sense and lives extravagantly, frivolously, and foolishly among Big Apple’s elite. On a whim daughter Irene rescues a “forgotten man” named Godfrey off the city dump and gives him a job as their butler not knowing he is a Bostonian from old money who had fled a bad relationship by deciding to live among honest bums by the East River. Or maybe it’s the Hudson.

Carole Lombard and William Powell in My Man Godfrey.

Carole Lombard and William Powell pose for a My Man Godfrey publicity photo. Both acknowledged that they made excellent friends and terrible spouses.

Familiar character actors populate the sets. Gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette plays the head of the household, a reasonable man who processes things in practical fashion but is no match for his shrill wife Angelica, scheming older daughter Cornelia (Gail Patrick), and capricious younger daughter Irene. Alice Brady plays the wife as if she’s off her Prozac. Brady was a fine actress and stage veteran, but the other night it occurred to me that a little of Angelica goes a long way.

Carole Lombard and other cast members of My Man Godfrey, a motion picture described in Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen

Mischa Auer as Carlo takes the spotlight in this scene also showing Lombard as Irene, Alice Brady as Angelica, and Gail Patrick as Cornelia.

I was curious about the reaction of my companions, including my friend Eric, who had never seen a Lombard picture, to Carole and her performance. He was quite taken, commenting on the subtlety of her playing and command of the screen even when confined to the background. Lombard would call Irene “the most difficult part I ever played. Because Irene was a complicated and, believe it or not, essentially a tragic person.”

My Man Godfrey is really Powell’s vehicle and he gets most of the attention, with Carole hemmed in by Irene’s pining for Godfrey through half the run time. She’s really part of an ensemble cast that assures Powell his picture will work. These players keep the plot moving along as they toss off classic one liners that stand the test of time. Strength of cast is measured by the sweep of Oscar nominations in all four acting categories—Powell, Lombard, Brady, and Mischa Auer as “Mother’s protégé,” the freeloading concert pianist Carlo. Director Gregory LaCava was also Academy Award-nominated for My Man Godfrey, as were screenwriters Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind.

Scene from My Man Godfrey, which is featured in Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen

Godfrey is oblivious to the fact that both Irene and Molly the household maid (portrayed by Jean Dixon) are in love with him.

I can only imagine how many William Powell and Carole Lombard fans were born of stumbling into this picture halfway through on the late show or TCM. The household at 1011 Fifth Avenue (which was the name of the novella by Eric Hatch on which the screenplay was based) is a charming and friendly place and if you watch any 30 seconds of this film you’ll be re-upping for 30 more until you’re hooked.

Carole Lombard, subject of Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen

Publicity photo of the screwball queen, Carole Lombard.

I’m amazed by the light in people’s eyes when they learn that Fireball is all about Lombard. This actress, gone 72 years now, continues to haunt popular culture to a degree I never expected. If you Google Fireball and Carole Lombard you come up with pages and pages of hits, largely because people are out there responding to the book and chattering afresh about the queen of screwball. I pinch myself frequently that no writer had done a fresh take on her in almost 40 years, and I get the feeling we’ve only scratched the surface of what might be a significant Lombard resurgence ahead.