Uncommon Knowledge Hardcover – January 1, 1994

.....I bought this book because I wanted a greater insight into the lives of two of my favorite Hollywood Stars of the forties ...I got that and a lot more ........When Judy finally confronts her mother and asks, "if you didn't want me and if you only saw me as a living reminder of your "mortal sin", then why didn't you allow me to be adopted by parents who would have wanted me and loved me so that I could have been raised in a normal home with both a father and a mother?" ........I don't know if Freud could have answered that question but I'll take a shot ...Loretta's first husband called her a "steel butterfly", beautiful and delicate on the outside but hard as steel on the inside. Part of her inner strength was caused by the abandonment by her father when she was four and the abject poverty she and her siblings had to endure as a result. When she was six she was sent to live with Silent Screen Star Mae Clark for about a year. Loretta saw the opulence and wealth that came with being a Hollywood star and vowed that she would become one, not just an actress, but a "Star"......Her career was the central point in her life. She was not going to do anything that might jeopardize her position. When her affair with Clark Gable led to the unexpected and unwanted pregnancy she panicked and turned to her mother. A meeting with Gable was set up to formulate a plan of action. Being a devout Catholic abortion was not an option and Loretta, still in love with Gable, probably would have liked to work out a plan where they could eventually marry......Gable however, had no desire to get married, his affair with co-star Joan Crawford also resulted in a pregnancy but Joan immediately had an abortion and Gable probably would have preferred that Loretta do the same. When he saw that was not going to happen he settled for secrecy and an adoption. He must have been surprised when Loretta decided to "adopt" their child herself but he was OK with it as long as it never came out that he was the father......I'm sure that Loretta was disappointed that Clark would not marry her and when she set up an account for him to secretely contribute to Judy's support he ignored it, even though he was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, he made it clear that Loretta was on her own. Having been hardened by both the rejection of her father and her lover and saddled with the sole support of her child Loretta probably reasoned that by keeping Judy close to her she could guarantee that her secret would never come out even if she had to deny Judy an identity of her own to do it......Ms Lewis had to contend with her mothers seeming indifference and coldness over the span of thirty years and so when she struck back, her mother got the brunt of her anger. She seemed more willing to give Gable a pass, more than he deserved in my opinion. Except for $400 dollars he gave to Loretta to, "buy the kid a decent bed" he made no effort to contribute to her support. When he came to visit her when she was 15, for reasons known only to himself, he cupped her face in his hands and said, "Good-bye Judy". Apparently he meant that literally because he never made any attempt to ever see her again......When she graduated from High School, he did not acknowledge it. When she got married he did not attend her wedding, though invited, and did not even send a gift nor did he acknowledge the birth of his grand daughter. And the final rejection came when he died and Judy was left out of his will. All in all I would have to say that Mr. Gable acted like a cad. I can't blame Loretta for being bitter, it is too bad that she never experienced true happiness. I only hope that she and Judy had a reconcilliation before she died. Judy turned out to be quite a remarkable person under the circumstance. This is a good book and I highly recommend it.

I love the condition of the book and find it to be very compelling and hard to put down. It's a great read.

A wonderfully written book about a childhood marked with mystery and frustration. Judy Lewis was the love child of Clark Gable and Loretta Young who had to hide the identity of their child in the days of morality clauses in movie stars contracts. Ms. Lewis goes into great detail regarding the years of frustration searching for the identity of her father and feeling uncertain in her position in her family. She also has an uncanny ability to let the reader know how much she loved her mother amidst the turmoil and angst she felt for many , many years. Read this book and be amazed at a remarkable woman who was able to love and forgive the circumstances she endured and survived.

Loretta Young was not one of my favorite actors, but Clark Gable was. I am fascinated by the Golden Age of Hollywood and read as much about it as I can and watch as many movies from the earliest films to the early 60's as I can.This true story about two huge stars was too much for me to resist.I've seen Ms. Lewis' interview with Larry King and she seems to have been a very sincere and lovely woman. She also looks exactly like both her parents.Honestly, it was a good read. I read it in two sittings during a snowy weekend and it kept my interest. I didn't give it 5 stars though, because it seems she was overly psycho analytic about her life and it became annoying at times. For example, she did endure a difficult relationship with a career woman mother, but most of us have issues with our parents. Although Hollywood types might push the rearing of their children to nannies and end up spending little time with their kids, parents who are struggling with finances are also often away from their children trying to make ends meet. Also, Ms Lewis thinks nothing of admitting that she left her daughter in the care of a nanny when she and her husband took a much needed vacation, but when her mother left her in the care of others it was traumatic. Examples like those became annoying since after all, very few of us escape our childhood unscathed. She begrudges that her mother discouraged her from marrying at 18. Frankly, if my daughter came home at 18 saying she was getting married I'd have a total fit and send her to a nunnery too. (Well, just kidding about the nunnery part, that was a bit extreme.)Some of Ms Lewis' problems with her mother are common mother-daughter tensions. Ms Young faced public humiliation and ruin if her secret was discovered. I cannot blame Ms Young for hiding her pregnancy. It would have been very easy for her to abort her love-child since abortion was extremely common among stars and starlets of the time. So credit must be given to Ms Young for not only refusing to abort her child but figuring out a way to keep her. There were whispers and rumors about the circumstances surrounding her daughter's birth and adoption, and she kept on keeping on. So you have to give credit to the woman for that.Not every parent is over joyed upon learning about a pregnancy even if they are married, so I think her parents can both be forgiven for initially not being overjoyed about the pregnancy.It does become clear though, toward the end of the book, just how unsatisfying the relationship between mother and daughter was. Ms Young just refused to break down the walls she had built, even at the expense of finally having a real mother daughter relationship. That was heartbreaking to read. Ms Young seemed to have gotten odd as she got older. She seemed to be a victim of provincial thinking that held her back from ever having real joy. Gotta love religion and Catholic guilt, shame, and pretense.The points Ms Lewis made about Ms Young's indifference about things, particularly her granddaughter's wedding and her reaction upon hearing of Clark Gable's death were telling, as was the hospital story with Irene Dunne. The point was very well made that this inner circle of successful Hollywood types had no real connection to humanity. They loved their fans and had a sense of duty to their fans, but had no real meaningful connections with the people in their lives that really mattered.Ms Lewis makes her point crystal clear and you can't help but feel her regret, especially in being denied a relationship with her father. She seems to think that he did not care, but that was all she was allowed to feel, wasn't it? Gable didn't donate money into a bank account for her which made her feel abandoned, but why would he since Ms Young was so adamant that all ties between them be severed? For all we know he may always have given cash at Christmas or other times to buy nice gifts. It is known that he did want to see his daughter and did when he was allowed to. I finished the book believing that he was cut off from his daughter and sadly accepted her mother's decision to do it her way. It could not have been easy on him either.A good read, and terrific photos. A personal and fascinating peek into the lives of some very significant stars of the Golden Age.

Received book before due date and it was a pleasant surprise. Book is fascinating and very interesting. Keeping quiet about the baby all to protect their careers. Nowadays it gets celebrated.

It was a book I wanted to read

A good read at a good price.

Judy Lewis lived a life as a Hollywood star's child that no other offspring of a celebrity can claim - believing that she was the adopted daughter of Loretta Young, she was in fact Young's natural child, conceived during a brief affair with the King Of Hollywood, Clark Gable. However, the Tinsletown of the 1930s, out of wedlock pregnancies were unacceptable, and Gable's status as a married man and Young's Roman Catholic faith forbade any chance of the two ever to be linked in matrimony. Loretta carried out a plan with the help of her mother, in which she let it be known that she was embarking on a trip to Europe, when in fact she was in seclusion, waiting to secretly give birth. The baby girl was placed in an orphange while Young returned to Hollywood to put gossip to rest and resume her career. She reclaimed her infant daughter some months later and let it be known that she had adopted the child. Although the open secret around town was that she and Gable had a love child, it was one that everyone kept mum about. Thus, little Judy grew up with low whispers, a stepfather who turned on her the moment he fathered two sons with her mother, and Loretta's own strange ambivalence and detachment. Although Clark was aware of his daughter (even coming to visit her a few times as an infant), he never publicly acknowledged her. One of the most painful passages recalls Judy's hurt by being called "Dumbo" at a birthday party because of the size of her ears (inherited from her famous father). Young used her little girl's negative experience as an excuse to have Judy undergo excruciating surgeries to reshape her ears so that Loretta's secret would remain safe. When Judy did meet Gable as a teenager, she was still in the dark about her parentage and was awed by the famed actor's visit to her home. Her stepfather became emotionally cold and cruel to his stepdaughter while her mother was off busily doing her work. It wasn't until she was grown that Judy learned the truth about herself - from her fiancee, who admitted that everyone knew that she was the child of two legendary stars. In adulthood, Judy married, had a daughter of her own, and eventually became a psychologist (after working as an actress), and was able to piece together and analyze why her parents made the choices they did, and why her mother continued to deny the truth. With her own background of abandonment, Loretta felt that Gable's distance and lack of financial support of their baby was yet another example of how men were unreliable. Unfortunately, she inflicted her own sense of shame (reinforced by her religion, no doubt), guilt and anger on her daughter. God took the place of a father in Young's life, and she used her religion as a defense with many situations. At the time Uncommon Knowledge was published, Young still had not confirmed that Judy was her biological child, and they two were estranged. Loretta sniffed to the press after the book's initial release, "I cannot imagine why she wrote this book." It was only shortly before Young's death from ovarian cancer in 2000 that the star admitted the truth publicily and mother and daughter reconciled.Judy Lewis was courageous in revealing what had been denied to her entire life - her father, and the truth. Most of us take for granted our lineage and our identities, but one thing's for certain - looking at photographs of Lewis there is no mistaking who her parents were. Loretta Young's "mortal sin" was in fact something that was hypocrisy at the time, no child is ever a sin, nor is love a sin. But Young's own psychology and the standards of the time prevented her from emotionally stepping up to the plate, the same can be said of Gable, and their child suffered as a result. Judy Lewis continues to inspire with her story, refusing to give into the shame that so affected her mother, and she maintains a close relationship with her daughter and granchildren. She was able to overcome the patterns and cycle that had emotionally crippled her forebearers, and has gone on to live a fufilled life.

Haven`t Read Yet!! I know that I will Like It!! Always, A Clark Gable Fan!!