Judy Lewis: Clark Gable's Secret Daughter Tells All | Dini Petty 1994

Video Description

Judy Lewis, the secret daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, sits down with Dini Petty to reveal Hollywood's most carefully guarded scandal for the first time on television. This 1994 interview captures Lewis promoting her memoir "Uncommon Knowledge," breaking nearly six decades of silence about her true parentage. Lewis was conceived during the filming of "Call of the Wild" in 1935, when Gable was married and Young was an unmarried Catholic starlet terrified of career destruction. Born in secret, hidden in an orphanage, then publicly "adopted" by her own mother through a fabricated story planted with gossip columnist Louella Parsons, Lewis grew up not knowing the truth that everyone else in Hollywood already knew. At 23, her fiance casually mentioned what all their friends assumed she already understood: Clark Gable was her father. It would take another decade before Lewis finally confronted Loretta Young and heard the full story. In this interview, she describes the only meeting she ever had with Gable (at age 15, when neither acknowledged the truth), the painful ear surgery her mother forced on her to hide her resemblance to the King of Hollywood, and why she chose to write the book that would estrange her from her mother for three years. This conversation, never broadcast since its original 1994 CTV airing, offers a window into Golden Age Hollywood's ruthless morality codes, the human cost of celebrity image-making, and one woman's journey to claim an identity that had been denied to her for a lifetime. CHAPTERS 0:00 Dini introduces the woman who grew up as Hollywood's best-kept secret 3:15 "Call of the Wild" in more ways than one: how a snowstorm and a film set created a hidden child 5:01 Born in Venice, hidden in an orphanage, "adopted" through Louella Parsons: the elaborate deception 6:20 The Clark Gable ears that terrified Loretta Young (and the bonnets that hid them) 8:07 Growing up with a movie star mother who made six films a year and kept her distance 8:23 Eight years without speaking: the cost of writing "Uncommon Knowledge" 9:47 The only meeting with her father: two hours with Gable at age 15, not knowing the truth 10:39 "I wrote the book to claim my identity": why Judy finally broke her silence 11:37 A mother still denying it publicly, even in 1994 13:30 "My grandsons have the right to know their heritage": breaking the generational lie 14:36 No inheritance, no acknowledgment: what Judy never received from either parent ABOUT THE DINI PETTY SHOW The Dini Petty Show was a Canadian daytime talk show that aired on CTV from 1989 to 1999. Broadcast from Toronto, the show ran for 10 years featuring in-depth interviews with Hollywood legends, music icons, politicians, and cultural figures. Dini Petty's warm yet probing interview style earned the show multiple Gemini Award nominations and a loyal audience across Canada. This channel is the official archive of The Dini Petty Show. Most of these interviews have not been seen since their original broadcast. New conversations from the vault are uploaded weekly. Subscribe to never miss a piece of television history. #JudyLewis #ClarkGable #LorettaYoung #HollywoodScandal #GoldenAgeHollywood #ClassicHollywood #DiniPetty #RareInterview