Murió la hija secreta de Clark Gable y Loretta Young

Foto:EVERETT COLLECTION

Judy Lewis fue el centro de uno de los más incomprensibles escándalos de Hollywood. La hija de dos de los más grandes actores de la época de oro del Séptimo Arte falleció el viernes pasado víctima de cáncer. Tenía 76 años.

Fue concebida durante un affaire que mantuvieron Clark Gable y Loretta Young mientras filmaban "The call of the wild", de 1935. Gable estaba casado, y los estrictos códigos morales de la industria hubieran hecho que las carreras de ambos sucumbieran si se sabía del embarazo.

Young decidió irse de "vacaciones" a Inglaterra durante la gestación, y allá tuvo a Judy en el más absoluto secreto. Poco después volvió a hacer películas, y durante sus primeros 19 meses, la niña vivió en casas adoptivas y en un orfanato. Entonces, Young fue a buscarla: a los medios les dijo que había decidido adoptar. Recién cuando tenía 31 años, Judy se enteró de que Loretta y que su padre era Clark Gable.

Lewis (en la foto) reveló esta historia en una autobiografía de 1994 titulada "Uncommon knowledge". Logró tener una carrera relativamente exitosa en el teatro, pero al final de su vida se dedicó a la psicología.

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Viernes 02/12/2011. Actualizado 05:40h.
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ACTRIZ | Tenía 76 años

Muere Judy Lewis, la hija 'secreta' de Clark Gable y Loretta Young
Judy Lewis, en una imagen de archivo. | Ap

Efe | Washington
Actualizado viernes 02/12/2011 05:36 horas



Judy Lewis, la hija 'secreta' de las estrellas de Hollywood Clark Gable y Loretta Young, falleció de cáncer a los 76 años en Gladwyne, en Pensilvania (EEUU), informó el diario Los Angeles Times.

La muerte de Lewis se produjo el pasado 25 de noviembre y fue confirmada por su hija, Maria Tinney Dagit.

La historia de Lewis, que fue actriz de televisión y de espectáculos de Broadway durante dos décadas antes de convertirse en terapeuta familiar, parece sacada de un guión de película.

En la década de los treinta, Young, de 22 años, y Gable, de 34 y casado entonces, mantuvieron un breve romance mientras grababan juntos 'La llamada de la selva'. Ella se quedó embarazada.

Devoto católico él y ella a punto de protagonizar 'Las Cruzadas', una película de temática religiosa, para proteger sus exitosas carreras acuerdan que Young se marche a Europa para ocultar el embarazo.

La actriz regresó meses después y dio a luz en secreto en Los Ángeles. Entregó a Judy a un orfanato, pero regresó a por ella cuando aún no tenía dos años y anunció que había "adoptado" a una niña.

Judy tenía cinco años cuando su madre se casó con Tom Lewis, un productor de radio del que adoptó el apellido. Gable nunca la reconoció, pese al gran parecido físico entre ambos y a que en Hollywood era un secreto a voces.

Como su padre, Judy tenía unas prominentes orejas que escondió bajo sombreros hasta los 7 años, cuando se sometió a una cirugía para corregirlas.

En un libro de memorias publicado en 1994 y titulado 'Uncommon Knowledge', Judy cuenta que cuando tenía 15 años y todavía no sabía que Gable era su padre, el actor la visitó una vez.

Hablaron y al despedirse Gable la besó en la frente. Nunca más lo volvió a ver.

Y es que Judy no supo que Gable era su padre hasta varios años después, cuando poco antes de casarse su novio, Joe Tinney, le dijo que era "vox populi" que era hija del famoso actor.

Después, con 31 años, se enfrentó a su madre y ella le pidió que guardara silencio sobre el asunto. Young negó públicamente que Gable fuera el padre de Judy cuando ésta lanzó su libro de memorias, aunque sí lo reconoció después, en una biografía póstuma autorizada que salió a la luz en 2000.

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Loretta Young (1913-2000)



Loretta Young was a graceful and beautiful actress whose career began in the Silent Movie era and ended with a successful television series, 'The Loretta Young Show'. In between she enjoyed a long, career in Talkies during the Golden Age of Hollywood, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1947.

She is remembered as one of the great beauties of early Hollywood and as the mother of Clark Gable's illegitimate daughter.

Biography
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Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 6, 1913. She had two elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later to become better known as Sally Blane). When she was 3 her parents separated and Loretta and her two sisters were moved to Hollywood, where her mother ran a boarding house. All three girls helped their mother in the boarding house, and, with the assistance of an uncle who was a second director at one of the nearby studios, became successful child actors.

Loretta's mother got married again, when Loretta was ten, to one of her lodgers, George Belzer and their daughter, Georgianna, was born two years later.

After leaving Ramona Convent Secondary School at age 14, Gretchen got a small supporting role in in the silent movie 'Naughty But Nice', which led to a screen contract with First National Studios. On the advice of Colleen Moore, the star of 'Naughty But Nice', she changed her name from Gretchen to the more exotic sounding Loretta and she was billed as Loretta Young for the first time in 'The Whip Woman' in 1928. She continued working in Silent movies and appeared in supporting roles in 'The Magnificent Flirt' and 'The Head Man', both also in 1928. After having started her career as a blonde she reverted to her natural brunette and almost immediately she was offered better parts.

In 1929 she had a leading role in 'Laugh Clown Laugh' with Lon Chaney and in the same year she was made one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, along with Jean Arthur, among others.

Loretta had a pleasing and strong speaking voice and she easily made the transition to Talkies, having her first speaking role in 'The Squall' in 1929. She was extremely ambitious and a hard worker and she made between 6 and 9 films each year. In 1930 when she was 17 years old, she appeared in 'The Second Floor Mystery' with divorced actor Grant Withers, who was nine years older than her. They made headlines when they eloped and got married but after one year the marriage was annulled.

Loretta's hard work paid off when Daryll Zanuck of Warner Brothers placed her under contract. When Zanuck left Warners for Twentieth Century Fox in 1934, Loretta followed him and continued to make many successful films for him. In total she made 88 movies during her 26 year film career and starred with most of the leading men of the day.

Loretta started getting better roles and by the mid-1930's, she was an established Hollywood star, usually cast as a decorative addition in 'B' movies. In 1938, she had an outstanding success with 'Kentucky' in which her co-star Walter Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Loretta continued to work hard, making several movies a year, cementing her reputation as a reliable as well as talented performer. In 1944, she appeared in 'Ladies Courageous', about a unit of female pilots flying bombers from the factories to the airfields during the War.

Loretta was approaching the peak of her career and she made a major impact in 1946, as the wife of a renegade Nazi in Orson Welles's 'The Stranger', and then in 1947 she won the Academy Best Actress Award with her first nomination in the comedy 'The Farmer's Daughter', the tale of a Swedish farm girl who works for a United States congressman, and is eventually able to become a congresswoman herself. The film was both a critical and a box-office success.

Also in 1947 she starred in 'The Bishop's Wife' with David Niven and Cary Grant, another great success, and one which is still a television favourite. Another well-received film was in 1949, 'Mother Is a Freshman' with Van Johnson and Rudy Vallee, and in the same year she received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her appearance in 'Come To The Stable'. Loretta's final movie role was in 1953 with 'It Happens Every Thursday'.

Loretta was one of the first and certainly the most successful of the early movie stars to make the switch from moviemaking to television. From 1953-1961 she compered and appeared in her own TV show, originally called 'Letter to Loretta', and then renamed 'The Loretta Young Show'.

In each show Loretta made a spectacular entrance, in a haute couture gown and she became more famous through television than she had been as a movie star.

The eight year run of her program made it the longest-running prime time network program ever hosted by a woman up to that time. She also won three Emmys, the first in 1955 as best dramatic actress in a continuing series.

Loretta retired from performing in the mid 1960's, and devoted herself to volunteer work for Catholic charities along with her old friend, Jane Wyman. She briefly come out of retirement to appear in two television films, 'Christmas Eve' in 1986, for which she won a Golden Globe Award, and 'Lady in a Corner' 3 years later.

Loretta was a devout Catholic but 'fell from grace' on a number of occasions. After her elopement and short marriage to Grant Withers in 1931, in which she claimed to have been the sole breadwinner, she had affairs with first, Spencer Tracy, and then, in 1935, with Clark Gable.

She became pregnant by Gable and Loretta and her mother went 'on vacation' to Europe, where she had a baby girl. This was at a time when it would have been extremely damaging to both Loretta's career and Gable's (he was a married man) to admit the truth, so Loretta announced that she had adopted the baby.

In 1940 she married Tom Lewis, and thereafter her daughter was called Judy Lewis, although she was never legally adopted. Loretta had two sons with Tom Lewis, Christopher, who became a film director, and Peter Charles, who was a member of the San Francisco rock band Moby Grape. Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960's and he died in 1988.

Loretta married for a third time in 1993, age 80, to Jean Louis, a fashion designer, 5 years her senior. He died in 1997.

Loretta Young died on August 12, 2000 from ovarian cancer at Santa Monica, California. She was 87.

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