It was 12 March 1936 when forty-seven-year-old Violet Wells Norton sat down to write another letter to film star Clark Gable, after several other letters had been ignored. She was not the only one to be writing to Gable that year; indeed, his fan mail was through the roof and about to get even bigger over the next few years with the release of blockbuster Gone with the Wind. However, Norton’s letter was no ordinary piece of fan mail, but instead an attempt to obtain money for the care of her teenage daughter, Gwendolyn.
According to Norton, Gable was the father of her daughter, the result of a relationship they had enjoyed in 1920s England when Gable was supposedly living in Essex under the name of Frank Billings. The frankly unbelievable story went that Norton had hired Billings as a tutor for her son, fell hopelessly in love with the man and ended up conceiving her daughter as a result. Norton claimed that so in love were she and Billings, that despite not being married, they had the baby anyway, though four months after the birth he left her heartbroken when he fled first to London and then to the United States.
In fairness to Billings, the man had offered to take Norton with him on his travels, but unfortunately for her, he refused to take her four other children along for the ride. The two split up; she never heard from him again and several years later decided to marry Herbert Norton and settle down to a new, simple life in Winnipeg. However, this peaceful existence all changed during a family trip to the cinema to see the Clark Gable picture, It Happened One Night.
As Norton sat in the darkened cinema, she became somewhat agitated and surprised. The reason? Well, it would seem that the man on the screen bore a striking resemblance to Billings, and so the woman immediately put two and two together and decided that her ex-lover had thrown in his career as a teacher, changed his name to Gable (or Gables as she constantly referred to him) and made it big as a film star.
For Clark Gable (and anyone else for that matter) the very idea was preposterous; he had never been to England and in 1922 and 1923, when the relationship was said to have taken place, he had been working as a tie salesman and lumberjack in Oregon. With this in mind, he decided to ignore this and other letters from the obviously mistaken woman and get on with his life.
“I did not consider them worthy of serious action,” he later told reporters, a decision which would seem logical given the circumstances.
While others would forgive Gable for his lack of concern for the letters, being ignored by the famous film star was not something that pleased the already volatile Mrs Norton. She decided that if she was going to be taken seriously she would need to write to others, too, so she took out her pen and once again sat down, this time writing to columnists such as Walter Winchell and Jimmy Fidler, along with radio commentators and – for reasons known only to herself – the actress Mae West. The obsession quickly got out of control and her whole existence seemed to revolve around proving that Clark Gable and Frank Billings were one and the same person. So much so, in fact, that in November 1934, when it became clear that Violet would not give up her quest, her exasperated husband packed his bags and moved out of the family home.
Even this shock did nothing to deter Norton, however, and instead she continued her letters, enlisting her daughter to help, and even sending some notes to Gable’s home. He later told Pete Martin in the Saturday Evening Post: “She asked if she could see me about a personal matter. I didn’t know her. In fact, I had never heard of her.” Once again the actor ignored the letters, but they kept arriving anyway, with the woman becoming more and more concerned that she was being mistreated once again by “Frank Billings”.
Finally, when every letter went unanswered, both Violet and her daughter decided to travel to Hollywood from their home in Canada in order to confront Clark Gable in person. The trip was said to be financed by private detective Jack L. Smith and Winnipeg landlord Frank James Keenan, though it was ultimately fruitless and Violet Norton did not get anywhere near the actor, much to her chagrin. “As affairs go, the one described was a long-distance project,” Gable told Pete Martin. “I decided she was nuts and forgot about it.”
But while Gable himself was happy to continue ignoring the persistent letters and visits, his studio and the American authorities were not. After receiving a letter from the Director of Administration Services in Canada, officials were convinced that Gable’s admirer needed serious help. Events were put in motion and Norton was charged with mail fraud in January 1937, while Keenan and Smith were accused of scheming with her to obtain money from Clark Gable.
Reporters were thrilled to hear the outrageous stories being pointed in Gable’s direction and were anxious to hear what the actor had to say about the matter. He did not disappoint: talking to newspapers was never his biggest concern, but he did open up over what he considered to be a fabricated and preposterous story.
“Now that the authorities have decided to prosecute,” he said, “I can only offer my fullest cooperation.” Suffering from flu, he nevertheless was still able to declare his distaste for the whole episode, branding it ridiculous, and adding, “I have never been in England; never heard of this woman except through notes written to me and turned over to the authorities.”
In spite of Gable’s pleas that he had never met the woman, he was warned by the US Assistant District Attorney that the burden of responsibility fell on him – not her – to prove that he had never been to England, particularly in the years Norton was accusing him of being there. Not only that, but he would also have to show his exact whereabouts at the very time the child was being conceived. This was not an easy task, especially since Gable had been pretty much a free agent during the early 1920s, and had been working many jobs to make ends meet. But determined not to be beaten by the mysterious woman, Gable went through his archives and began to pull out things he deemed relevant, such as old theatre programmes and pay cheques from the Silverton Lumber Company where he had worked for a time. His attorney handed them all over the District Attorney’s office, who readied the evidence for the case.
When Norton appeared in court on 26 January 1937, she went back and forth between saying she had never tried to get money from Gable and then quite happily asking if he could give financial help with thirteen-year-old Gwendolyn. Quite bizarrely, Norton also asked if he would consider buying four romantic stories that she had previously written, which just ended up making her look even more unhinged. Things became even more fraught when she claimed that an investigator for her attorney, Hiram McTavish, had tried to adopt daughter Gwendolyn against her will. McTavish retorted by denying all knowledge of being her current attorney and claimed his investigator had only taken Mrs Norton and Gwendolyn into her home because she felt sorry for their impoverished circumstances.
Coming to Gable’s defence in the bizarre case was his first wife, Josephine Dillon, who released a statement saying that she had known the star in 1923 when he attended her acting classes in Portland, Oregon. “To my knowledge he has never been in England,” she said. “The entire story is silly and fantastic.” Meanwhile employee records were released from the Silver Falls Timber Company to coincide with the pay cheques he had previously supplied, which thankfully showed Gable as having worked there in the winter of 1922–3.
However, even when she was presented with this evidence, it still didn’t stop Norton from insisting her story was true. From jail she told reporters, “He looks like the Frank Billings I knew in 1923. I’d like to see him in person.” Of course, practically every woman in America at that time would have loved to meet Gable in person, and he had absolutely no interest in coming face to face with the woman who had been bombarding him with disturbing letters for months on end.
Unfortunately for him, he was dragged even deeper into the scandal when the London Daily Express reported that factory inspector H. Newton had come forward to say that he too had known Frank Billings when he ran a poultry farm in Essex, England. According to Newton, Gable was “either Frank Billings or his double”, and went on to describe how his brows, nose, temples and “twisted, cynical half-smile” were all the same as those of Gable.
Then out of the blue, in February 1937, the real Frank Billings actually came forward to declare that he was the father of Gwendolyn, and joyously bragged that he was also “a perfect double for Clark Gable”. By now it was pretty clear to everyone that Violet Norton was either lying or just a very mixed-up woman, and that Clark Gable was an innocent bystander in the bizarre episode. However, even this was not enough to prevent him from being called to testify during her trial in April 1937, much to his dismay.
On 20 April Gable fought his way through hundreds of adoring women to take his place in the courtroom holding the trial of Violet Norton. In front of everyone, including Norton herself, he denied ever being in England, confirmed he had never met the woman in his life, and laughed off the very idea of being the father of her daughter.
Violet, meanwhile, stared intently at Gable throughout his testimony. One can only ponder exactly what was going through her mind at that moment. “That’s him, I’d know him anywhere,” she later told her attorney, who amusingly then made it clear to everyone that he did not believe a word his client was saying. “She acted in complete good faith,” he told waiting reporters. “We expect to prove that Clark Gable closely resembled the Frank Billings she knew in England.”
Nobody could take the proceedings seriously, especially when Norton tried to explain why Frank Billings decided to change his name to Clark Gable. According to her, he called himself after their local butcher, Clark, who owned an estate called “The Gables”. “Hence Clark Gables,” declared Norton, to the amused crowd.
The trial went on for three days, during which time Gable was called to the stand on several occasions, including on one occasion when Norton requested to view him close up. Approaching the moustached actor, she was the envy of thousands of fans as she pored over his looks intently. After the examination, everyone listened closely to what Norton had to say. “Yes, he looks like Frank Billings,” she said. “And I still feel convinced that Clark Gable and Frank Billings are one and the same man!”
On 23 April, after dozens of witnesses including Clark Gable’s father, his ex-girlfriend and Gwendolyn Norton herself had taken to the stand, Violet Norton was convicted of misusing the mail system, but not guilty of conspiracy. Mrs Norton dramatically almost fainted in the courtroom, before being led away to face her distraught daughter, after which she was sentenced to one year in the Orange County Jail, where she still insisted that Clark Gable was her baby’s father.
Gable, meanwhile described the entire episode as “Unfortunate . . . particularly because of her children,” before adding, “My conscious is clear.” Unfortunately for him, that was not entirely true, as at that very moment in time, he was embroiled in a baby scandal of a very different nature. And this time he really was the daddy . . .
In 1935, two years before Violet Norton untruthfully declared that Clark Gable was the father of her child, the actor was working on The Call of the Wild with film star Loretta Young. Young was single; Gable was not. Although estranged, he was most certainly still with his second wife, Ria Gable, though many believe it was always a marriage of convenience for the actor and he was never truly in love.
During the making of the film, Young and Gable enjoyed a secret and short-lived affair, which ended with the actress discovering she was pregnant. Distraught and ashamed, she immediately went into hiding for the majority of her pregnancy, travelling first to England and then back to California in order to deter uncomfortable questions from friends, colleagues and most of all, reporters.
Restricted by the studio’s moral codes and terrified that the scandal would be enough to shatter her career and reputation as a good Catholic girl, Young was determined to protect both herself and Gable. With this in mind, when people started to wonder where she was towards the end of her pregnancy, Young showed considerable chutzpah by holding a press conference from the comfort of her bedroom, hiding her stomach under mountains of blankets and comforters.
Finally the child – Judy – was born at home on 6 November 1935. Rumour has it that Gable paid one visit to the child and gave the mother some money to buy a crib, before she was unceremoniously placed in an orphanage, while Young returned to work.
Finally in June 1937, just two months after Gable had appeared in court to deny all knowledge of being a father to Violet Norton’s daughter, Loretta Young announced her intention to adopt two children: Judy and James. She had spotted the two, she told reporters, while visiting the orphanage in December 1936. “I have always wanted children,” she said. “And when I saw these two I just had to have them.”
What she failed to declare, however, was that Judy was actually her own child whom she had placed in the orphanage well over a year before. As for James, nobody knows if he really did exist, but Young certainly did not adopt him. She later announced that there had been problems taking the child and that she had instead opted for adopting only Judy instead.
It was a well-known story around Hollywood that Judy Lewis (she took the name of Young’s second husband, Tom Lewis) was the illegitimate child of Loretta Young and Clark Gable. But for the rest of the world, Young was seen as a hero: an angel who adopted a poor child and took her to live with her in the palatial hills of Hollywood.
Unfortunately for Loretta, however, Judy not only inherited Clark Gable’s huge ears, but facially she was the exact image of her mother, a fact Young explained away as being because they lived together and had developed the same mannerisms. Loretta worried about the ear situation, however, and for years insisted that her daughter wear bonnets in public until finally it was decided to pin them back. When the child became a teenager, she endured gossip on a regular basis that she was not adopted at all – that she was really the child of Loretta Young and Clark Gable. These stories continued throughout her teenage years though Judy tried to ignore them and get on with her life.
Finally, however, Judy could ignore the stories no more when she became engaged and her fiancé, Joseph Tinney, took it upon himself to tell his future bride that everybody knew who she really was. She was stunned but it wasn’t until she had become a mother herself that Judy finally had the nerve to demand the truth from her mother. In true dramatic style, Young promptly threw up, admitted that she was indeed her natural mother, and then called her daughter “a walking mortal sin”. She also demanded that Judy keep the information from her own children – Young’s grandchildren – which was something she rightly refused to do.
Sadly, the only father-daughter time Gable and Judy ever shared was one day when, as a teenager, Judy came home from school to find Gable sitting in her living room. Not knowing that he was her father at the time, she sat with him for a while, answered his polite questions about her life, then bade him farewell while accepting a kiss on her head as he left the house. By the time Judy found out her true parentage, Gable had long since passed away. Sadly it was never possible for her to get to know her true father.