Mae West: Godmother to Gwen

MAE WEST, who never testified during her controversial “Sex” trials in 1927, was almost the star witness at another trial in Los Angeles a decade later. Let us go back in time. This is Part 2 of 2.
• • In April 1937, Clark Gable entered a Los Angeles courtroom to face Mrs. Violet Wells Norton, who claimed he was the father of her 13-year-old daughter, Gwendoline. She’d been arrested in January of that year on charges of mail fraud, for writing to the actor and demanding money from him.
• • These curious letters, however, had begun arriving in 1932.
• • Miss Norton, the government charges, wrote Gable for money on the claim that he “wooed and won” her in England (back in 1922).
• • Violette Wells Norton [shown here] claimed in her letters that she knew Clark Gable as a tutor in England.

• • Despite Violet’s attempts to garner support from Jimmie Fidler and Mae West (and who knows how many others?), Gable had no difficulty refuting her claims.
• • Clark Gable produced witnesses from the Pacific Northwest to prove that, during the time he was allegedly impregnating his accuser, he was selling neckties and working as a lumberjack in Oregon.
• • Gable had other witnesses, including Franz Doerfler would testify on his behalf; she’d dated Gable during his lumberjack days in Oregon, and vouched that he’d been nowhere near England at the time.
• • Mae West had been called to testify that she had received a letter from Mrs. Norton asking for a chance in the movies for her daughter, Gwendoline, “Gable’s child.”
• • Mae West was not the star witness for the prosecution ― ― in person. She was represented by proxy in court.
• • In addition to Franz Doerfler and Mae West, other witnesses included a “movie commentator” named James Fidler, who received an 18-page missive detailing Violet Norton and “Billing’s” supposed English affair, as well as how Clark Gable (born William Clark Gable in Cadiz, Ohio) became Frank Billings, taking his first name from the local grocer and his last name from the shop itself, “The Gables.”
• • Was Clark Gable secretly an Englishman named Frank Billings? • •
• • At a certain point, the real Frank Billings apparently stepped up and identified himself as Gwendoline’s father (he was said to have a passing resemblance to Gable, so maybe Norton wasn’t completely off her rocker, though she still maintained Gable was hiding "his secret British past").
• • A Los Angeles jury found her guilty of mail fraud. Violet was sentenced to a year in prison; she was subsequently deported to Canada.
• • Gable did have quite the way with the ladies but not that one.  
• • On Thursday, 3 August 1944 • •
• • "Catherine Was Great" opened on Wednesday, 2 August 1944. Reviews appeared soon after.
• • The Herald Tribune reported on Thursday, 3 August 1944: "Mae West came to Broadway last night, decked out like a battleship in a swimming pool" ....
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •

• • A 1938 headline tooted: "Mae West and Clark Gable." In that year, the screen queen was in her mid-40s and the leading man would have been 37 years old.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: “The wages of sin are sables and a film contract.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article in a California paper discussed Mae West and Clark Gable.
• • Will super-masculine Clark Gable marry super-feminine Mae West?
• • Probably not, but you’d be surprised how many movie fans think it would be a swell idea. Kibitzing the motion picture marriage market is apparently the favorite indoor sport of those who take film players seriously enough to write letters to and about them.
• • Several hundred during the past month have urged Mae West to flee altar-ward with the virile Gable, and vice versa.
• • Fans are often ignorant of actors’ currently marital ties or blithely disregard them.  ...
• • Source: San Bernadino News; published on Tuesday, 1 September 1936
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • •
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — —
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 17th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past seventeen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,700 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,791st blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source: https://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml  
• • Be sure to bookmark or follow The Mae West Blog
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Mae West and Clark Gable cover in 1933 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest