Color Me Shocked and Slap Me Silly!

The Hollywood Legends

I just learned about this story and was shocked, not only because of what happened but also because I, the queen of movie trivia, didn't know about it!!!

While filming 'The Call of the Wild' in 1935, screen legend Clark Gable and then-rising star Loretta Young engaged in an off-screen extra-marital affair that resulted in a secret pregnancy, even more secret birth, and fake adoption.  Gable, then 34, and Young, then 22, fell into an affair while filming 'Call of the Wild' in Washington state during the winter of 1935. When a pregnancy followed, Young had no choice but to go into hiding -- being a staunch Catholic, an abortion wasn't an option. "Wouldn't you [be unhappy] if you were a movie star and the father of your child was a movie star and you couldn't have an abortion because it was a mortal sin?" the actress was quoted as saying in her 1994 memoir 'Uncommon Knowledge.'

Loretta and Judy

Young fled to Europe to hide the pregnancy, and returned to California to have the baby in secret in November of 1935.  Her daughter was handed over to a "series of caregivers," so that Young could return to stardom. It wasn't until 19 months later that Young announced she had "adopted" a daughter, the 19-month-old Judy.  It wasn't until 31 years later that Judy Lewis (formerly Young) realized just how much she was deceived by Young, her birth mother posing as her adoptive mother. The secret love child of two Hollywood legends died this week at the age of 76 from complications due to lymphoma.   

Wow!  Quite the story, especially back in the thirties!