TUCSON, Ariz. — It’s been more than seven decades since Hollywood superstar Clark Gable stayed in a handsome Spanish-style house here, but Tucsonans still refer to the adobe structure as “The Gable House.’’
The two-story, five-bedroom house, which has been up for sale for several years, sits on a small cul-de-sac called Madelyn Circle, just off a busy five-lane road several miles north of the downtown area.
Along with two 15-foot cactuses, a palm tree and other bushes and trees in front, there is a rusty brown mailbox reading “The Gable House.’’ Several photos of the star of the 1939 blockbuster “Gone With the Wind’’ hang on the living room wall of the 3,500-square foot home.
After his beloved wife, actress Carole Lombard, died in a plane crash in January 1942, Mr. Gable retreated to the sparsely populated Southwest to escape the pressures of Hollywood, local residents say. He spent part of 1942 at the house, then owned by a friend, Gilbert Duncan, in order to grieve. At the time Ms. Lombard was a highly paid actress and almost as famous as her husband. (Later in 1942, on Aug. 12, he enlisted with the Army Air Force — even though he was old for service at age 41 — and served in active duty in World War II until June 12, 1944.)
“He used to come to that house and rest because he knew the owner,’’ said the current owner, Tucson real estate agent Lupita Arevalo. She and others said Mr. Gable never actually owned the house. She has been trying to sell it for several years, dropping the price to $289,000 from nearly $600,000 in 2010.
No one who now lives on Madelyn Circle ever met Mr. Gable, a heavy smoker who died of a heart attack in 1960, at age 59.
“But many people in the area are positive he lived in that house for a while in the early 1940s,’’ according to John and Connie Grinnell, who since 1969 have lived in a house across the street.
When 2324 N. Madelyn Circle was built in 1932, it sat all alone on an acre of property, with a large empty swimming pool in the back.
“It was all by itself back then,’’ said John Grinnell. “It was a little oasis.’’
The pool and backyard are difficult for outsiders to see because the rear of the property is surrounded by a 6-foot-high wood fence.
The house is now surrounded by 15 smaller one-story homes, built in the 1950s, when sweltering Tucson jumped in population thanks to the arrival of indoor air-conditioning.
“Once a secluded desert hideaway, the house now sits off East Grant Road … Tucson’s little-known link to the man once known as ‘The King’ of Hollywood,’’ said the Tucson Realty & Trust Co. in a newspaper ad about Tucson attractions.
“Frankly, Clark Gable ‘gave a damn’ about this home,’’ the ad read, a twist on Mr. Gable’s famous line from “Gone With the Wind” — “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”
It was spoken to actress Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett O’Hara in the Civil War-era film. A picture of Mr. Gable and Ms. Leigh used to promote the movie also hangs in the living room.
A retired local Realtor, Albert Cummings, who sold the house to Ms. Arevalo several years ago, told the Arizona Daily Star in a January 2010 article that as a boy he had delivered newspapers to the house.
Mr. Cummings, now in his late 80s, owned it from 1968 to 1997. Mr. Cummings, who couldn’t be reached, told the newspaper he’s sure that Mr. Gable stayed in the house for about a year starting in 1942.
“He used to bring boys over there and let them swim in the pool,’’ he is quoted as saying. “I’m certain he lived there.’’
Before selling it to Ms. Arevalo, Mr. Cummings turned it into a bed and breakfast. In a brochure for customers, he said Mr. Gable was “looking for peace and quiet after wife Carole Lombard’s death. Here he found the peace and rest he needed.’’
In the brochure, Mr. Cummings described the house as having the “picturesque style of Santa Fe Pueblo Indian with Mexican influence.”
He was the one who hung the several pictures of Mr. Gable and his leading ladies in the living room. After Ms. Arevalo moved into the house in 1997, she decided to leave the pictures on the wall because he was so famous. But the decision mystified her children.
"I have four children and we needed the room back then, but children grow up and it's too big for us now,'' she said.
Mr. Gable was the George Clooney of his day, appearing in 67 movies, including “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935), which, like “Gone With the Wind” (1939) won the Academy Award for best picture. His last film, “The Misfits,” with Marilyn Monroe, was released in 1961, after his death.
Tom Barnes a freelance writer now living in Tucson, Ariz., can be reached at thomashickeybarnes@gmail.com. He retired from the Post-Gazette in 2011.
First Published: July 12, 2015, 4:00 a.m.