Clark Gable is a legendary leading man from the golden era of Hollywood.
Roughing It Interests Me Most in This Cosmopolitan World Says Clark Gable Cosmopolitan magazine, July 1941
When I was fifteen I owned my first saddle horse. Nine-tenths of the time she hauled the farm buggy. I didn’t see another horse for years—all those years I spent as callboy, tool-dresser, lumberjack, necktie salesman, mule driver, log loader and actor. Then I got my first break in pictures, a party in a Western called “The Painted Desert.”
Just as I had my pen poised to sign the contract, someone asked, “Can you do cowboy stunt riding?”
“Sure,” I said easily, thinking of the old buggy horse on the farm.
When I finished the e on Gable, I lit out for the nearest riding academy. An old cowpuncher who broke horses took me in hand. I practiced plain and fancy sheriff’s-posse riding, and escape from sheriff’s-posse riding. I learned downhill plunging and how to get off a horse going full speed—all the stuff you see in the last ten minutes of a Western. When that cowboy had finished with me, I was an expert at hoof pounding and a horse lover at heart.
Today, I get my fun out of my horses, my dogs; out of hunting and fishing and camping. My job keeps me pretty much indoors; the major part of any picture is made on a barnlike sound stage, under a blinding blaze of lights. No complaints, you understand—I like acting. But in my spare time I get a great kick out of life, for I have discovered the outdoors. With so many things to do there, I don’t see how anybody can be bored.
If you aren’t getting a hundred percent out of life; if you haven’t had any real enjoyment since Wrong-way Corrigan in Ireland, maybe you could use the Gable formula for fun. It’s simple and down-to-earth, but I’ve found that the best kind of fun generally is.
We—that is, Mrs. G. and I—have two horses and a mule: Sonny, a high-headed, high-spirited eight-year-old chestnut sorrel; Peanuts, a palomino cow pony with a disposition like a Shirley Temple doll, and Judy, a meek hybrid who was thrown in with the ranch.
A few years ago, I bought a mare named Beverly Hills. I thought it would be a great thrill to own a race horse. Well, I didn’t break out in American flags or anything. She raced two or three years, then developed a throat infection, and I sold her. Right then I realized I didn’t particularly care about racing and betting. What I enjoyed was being outdoors and riding, myself.
