Now Judy Lewis - the secret love child of film stars Clark Gable and Loretta Young, who conceived her on the set of The Call of the Wild in the 1930s - has died of cancer aged 76.
Lewis sensationally revealed in her 1994 memoir Uncommon Knowledge that she was conceived in 1935 when Young, 22, and the married Gable, 34, were shooting the classic movie.
Young, a single Catholic woman, concealed her pregnancy and placed her daughter in an orphanage at eight months. She brought her into public view at 19 months, saying she was her adopted child.
Terrified her secret would come out, Young did all she could to cover up clues about her daughter's origins. There are no photographs of Lewis up to two. Up to seven they show her wearing a bonnet.
Lewis recalled: 'My ears stuck out, just like my father's did. So I had plastic surgery when I was seven. My surgeon had told my mother that an operation of this nature was extremely painful.
‘He suggested it should wait until I was older. But she insisted.' Lewis saw her father, who died in 1960, only once, when she was 15.
She said of the encounter: 'As he left, he gave me a kiss on my forehead, but I didn't know he was my father. I cry when I watch his films. Why didn't he ride up on a white horse and rescue me?'
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Old Hollywood: Lewis sensationally revealed in
her 1994 memoir that she was conceived in 1935 when Loretta Young, 22,
and the married Clark Gable, 34, were shooting The Call of the Wild
Secret: Loretta Young is pictured with Judy Lewis in 1944, who did not know for years who her father was
She added that perhaps the famous 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn' was a truer reflection of his feelings towards her.
‘At the time, what Loretta Young did was completely successful,’ said Leonard Maltin, a film critic and Hollywood historian.
‘The general public never had any inkling that she had done this. It protected her stardom and her image as a wholesome young woman.’
In 1940, Young married Thomas Lewis, and Judy Lewis took his surname - but she was never formally adopted by her stepfather.
Mother and child: Loretta Young is pictured centre with Judy Lewis, left, and a grand-daughter, in 1982
Disguised: There are no photographs of Judy Lewis up to two. Up to seven they show her wearing a bonnet
Mummy: Her parenthood was an open secret in Hollywood but Lewis's friends were told not to tell her
'As
he left, he gave me a kiss on my forehead, but I didn't know he was my
father. I cry when I watch his films. Why didn't he ride up on a white
horse and rescue me?'
Her parenthood was an open secret in Hollywood but Lewis's friends had been instructed not to tell her.
Judy Lewis
It wasn't until Judy's wedding that her groom Joseph Tinney finally told her that Gable was her father. She was 23.
She explained: 'I grew up surrounded by rumours that Clark Gable was my father. Everyone knew who my parents were, even my closest friends, but no one dared tell me.
'It wasn't until the night before I was to get married that my future husband told me who my father was. I had told him my suspicions about my mother being my real mother and that I didn't know who my father was.
One meeting: Judy Lewis saw her father Clark Gable, who died in 1960, only once, when she was 15
No father: Terrified her secret would come out, Young tried to cover up clues about her daughter's origins
'Twenty-three years of my life had passed and everyone in the world knew about me - but me. I cried then. And I have been crying for most of my life,' said Judy, who had years of therapy.
'Twenty-three
years of my life had passed and everyone in the world knew about me -
but me. I cried then. And I have been crying for most of my life'
She was born in Venice, California, and went on to perform on Broadway and TV in her own career.
Judy Lewis
Lewis also produced the soap opera ‘Texas,’ a spinoff of ‘Another World.’ In the 1980s, she earned psychology degrees, advocating for children's rights and counselling teenagers.
She later became a psychotherapist in Los Angeles, something she pursued until her illness. In 1994, she wrote ‘Uncommon Knowledge,’ acknowledging her parentage publicly for the first time.
‘The situation in which they found themselves in 1935 would not have posed such a problem in the Hollywood of today,’ Lewis wrote in the book.
Showbiz life: In this May 1961 photo, actress
Loretta Young, right, and her daughter Judy Lewis, left, attend a party
following the Emmy awards in Hollywood, California
Party time: Loretta Young is pictured centre with her daughter Judy Lewis, right, in an undated photo
Before her memoir was published, the identity of her parents had long been rumoured.
However Mr Maltin said the truth was never truly public until the memoir, in which Lewis describes her mother telling her the truth in 1966.
'Well, he was your father. He was darling. Sweet and very gentle. He
was married, so when I discovered I was pregnant with you, I was
frantic and terrified. It would have ruined both our careers, a scandal
like that'
What Judy Lewis remembers being told by Loretta Young
In the book, Lewis said Young told her then: 'Well, he was your father. He was darling. Sweet and very gentle.What Judy Lewis remembers being told by Loretta Young
‘He was married, so when I discovered I was pregnant with you, I was frantic and terrified. It would have ruined both our careers, a scandal like that.’
Young, one of Hollywood's most glamorous screen goddesses of the Thirties and Forties, died in 2000 aged 87. Gable died in 1960 aged 59.
Lewis, a psychotherapist and actress, of Palm Springs, California, died in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, on Friday. Her survivors include her daughter, three half-brothers and her partner, Steve Rowland.
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