Uncommon Knowledge [Hardcover]

Judy Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

Judy Lewis was in her thirties before she discovered Hollywood's best-kept secret--that she was the daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young. Set against a backdrop of Beverly Hills mansions and lavish parties, Uncommon Knowledge is a behind-the-scenes memoir of Hollywood in its heyday. But it is also the unforgettable story of a difficult but ultimately triumphant journey of self-discovery. Photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Born in 1935, Lewis was a mother herself when she learned what her friends and acquaintances already knew--that she was the offspring of a single mother and a married father. Her parents were Loretta Young and Clark Gable. Young, fearing that her daughter's birth would ruin two movie careers, staged an adoption to cover up what she regarded as her most grievous mortal sin. In this absorbing memoir Lewis writes without self-pity of her unfulfilled relationship with both parents; she met Gable only once, when she was 15; her account of that event is the book's most poignant scene, because she was unaware that he was her father. She is frank about her mother's "imperfections and sometimes difficult personality," a gentle way of characterizing Young, whom she shows to be humorless and narcissistic and whose career was second only to her Catholic faith in importance. When Lewis launched her own acting career on Broadway in the '50s soaps, her mother disapproved. Their increasingly strained relationship ruptured in 1966 when Young refused to attend her granddaughter's wedding. "It all came pouring out--all the years of hurt and abandonment, all the feelings of not belonging, of being an outsider in my own family." Mother and daughter remain estranged. This tell-all memoir is an affecting account of family failure and only incidentally about celebrities and Hollywood. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

For 23 years Judy Lewis lived as the adopted daughter of Loretta Young. Now in her mid-50s, she reveals that she is the natural child of Young and Clark Gable. Young and Gable became lovers in 1935 while costarring in Call of the Wild. Gable was married and Young divorced, though still in her early twenties. When Young and her mother told Gable that she was pregnant, he offered little help. To understand the bizarre nature of what ensued, one must know that Loretta Young's family had a history of drinking fathers who abandoned their families. The actress and her mother saw men as no good. Loretta, a childhood convert to Catholicism, viewed God himself as her absent father. Pregnant, she would have to live with her ``mortal sin''--abortion was no option. While filming The Crusades for Cecil B. De Mille, Young kept her fetus hidden under secret straps. Judy Lewis was born at home, just as the milkman arrived, and Loretta covered her mouth to silence her, apparently at her first breath, so that he wouldn't hear. Lewis, a therapist and family counselor, makes much of her early traumas with Loretta. Loretta wore a mask of virtue, would never play an immoral person on screen, and to this day will not publicly admit the truth about Gable. Highlights include Judy's long meeting with Gable when she was 15, not knowing he was her father; her fianc‚'s telling her of her parentage, which all Hollywood seemed to know; Judy's big showdown in her mid-30s with a still evasive Loretta; and her confrontation with her own daughter about Gable. Loretta's posture of morality is placed in the context of her own abandonment as a child, her dread of censure by the Catholic Legion of Decency, and her fear of being blacklisted under the film industry's Hayes Code. Gripping throughout. (Photos not seen.) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 430 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; 1st edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671700197
• ISBN-13: 978-0671700195
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The King's Daughter, December 31, 1999

By 

Kendra "keedinah" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Uncommon Knowledge (Hardcover)

Having seen many of her films, I've long considered myself a fan of Loretta Young. I always found her to be a gracious and benevolent presence. Imagine how my curiousity was peaked when I read that Ms. Young was the mother of an illegitimate child with none other than the King of Hollywood himself, Clark Gable. Of course I was first intrigued by the idea of a secret "love child" hidden in plain view as the adopted child of a famous and beautiful movie star. But with each turn of a page I discovered that this was not Loretta Young's story, neither was it Clark Gable's. It was the story of Judy Lewis, the little girl with the big ears who grew up wondering why everyone stood whispering in corners when she entered a room. Ms. Lewis is both funny and tragic in telling the story of her life as Loretta Young's "adopted" child. I couldn't help but be moved by her vivid word pictures when she tells how she often felt alienated and cast off by her famous mother. But in telling her story she doesn't attack Ms. Young; it's very clear how much she continues to love her mother. She is frank, forthright, and endearing as she claims what was long overdue: her birthright as the daughter of Hollywood royalty. This book is a great read. I couldn't put it down!

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just One Autobiography, December 30, 2003

By 

Courtney Rabideau (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Uncommon Knowledge (Hardcover)

This is a very interesting book. It does not just tell the story of Judy Lewis, the illegitimate daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, it also tells the story of a family over several generations. Judy had to dig into her mother and father's past to understand just what made them do what they did on that mountain in Baker, Washington that led to her being born. She tells about the histories of Loretta's parents-her mother virtually orphaned at the age of five- mother of five by the age of 28; a father who constantly cheated on his wife and left her raising five children all under the age of 10. As well as the history of her father, who's mother died at the age of 10 months, whose father never wanted Clark to be an actor because it was "sissy". Clark the man who married two women old enough to be his mothers.
She also describes the hardships they had to deal with when Loretta found out that she was pregnant. How the public knowing she had a baby by a married man would make her and Clark loose their jobs. Judy describes the acrobatics that Loretta did to make sure that the press never found out about her pregnancy and then what Loretta did to hide the fact that Judy was hers after she "adopted" her.
Judy goes on to describe her life after her mother married Tom Lewis. How Tom went from treating Judy like a princess to treating her like the hired help after his sons Christopher Paul and Peter Charles were born. Judy describes the years of emotional abuse that Tom meted out to her until the day when she was in her mid 20's and she heard him telling Christopher and Peter that because she was adopted she was not their sister.
Judy goes into detail about some of her friends and childhood adversaries. She tells about her friendship Daniel Mayer Selznick (the son of David O. Selznick and grandson of Louis B. Mayer.) She also tells about her friendship with people like Bucky Hearst (the grandson of William Randolph Hearst and cousin to Patty Hearst), and the children of Bing Crosby and Irene Dunne. Some of her adversaries were the children of other Hollywood Bigwigs who would make fun of Judy because of her big ears (a trait she inherited from her father and pasted on to her daughter and grandsons.) The teasing got so out of hand that Judy wanted to have surgery to get rid of them. Though she thought that the surgery was her idea it was really her mothers who did not want any evidence about the parentage of her "adopted" daughter because as long as Judy still had those "Dumbo" ears people would know that she was Clark Gables daughter.
Judy describes her early boyfriends like Robert Dornon and Jack Haley Jr. as well as the relationship she had with her fiancé Russell Hughes, whom nobody in her family liked. She goes into detail about her husband Joseph Tinney and their rocky relationship, which produced daughter Maria Tinney Dagit, and two grandchildren.
In the book, Judy also describes her on again off again relationship with her mother. She tells about when she was younger and her mother was very loving to her, but would not want to be asked about Judy's adoption to the scene after Judy was married and Judy finally confronted her mother about being her and Clark Gable's biological child to the fight that they had Mother's Day 1986 when the pain and anger Judy had about her childhood as well as the fact that her mother the movie star said that she did not have enough money to get a dress and pay for a plane ticket to Pennsylivania to go see Maria get married to Daniel Dagit.
All in all this is a very good book, and I recommend it to anybody interested in old Hollywood.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the usual movie star's offspring memoir, May 8, 2003

By 

Wendy-Marie Chabot "The Bad Gwen" (Central CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Uncommon Knowledge: Uncommon Knowledge (Paperback)

Over the last few decades of the 20th century, several children of the Kings and Queens of Hollywood have stepped forward and write stories of what it was truly like to grow up under a famous shadow. Some have revealed horror stories of horrid abuse, neglect and alienation.

A person could be tempted to lump "Uncommon Knowledge" with the rest. But that would be doing Judy Lewis and her story a grave injustice. Unlike other Hollywood children, Judy Lewis entered the world in shadow circumstances that are still debated to this day.

In 1935, a blue eyed, blonde baby girl was born to Gretchen Young and her married former lover. Gretchen was better known to the world as the film star Loretta Young and her former lover was the smoldering Clark Gable. Compelled to save her career and image at any cost and her strong Catholic faith barring abortion, the young mother chose to hide her pregnancy and child from the world.

Judy Lewis was the baby girl. To the world, she was the adopted daughter and beloved daughter of Loretta Young. To the film world, she was Gable and Young's secret love child, the truth of her heritage stamped on her face. Lewis herself never knew the truth until adulthood.

Written without the consent of her mother, Judy Lewis builds a strong case for her story. The photos scattered throughout the text show a young woman to an adult, her resemblance to Clark Gable radiating in every pore. Other photos reveal her close resemblance to the Young family.

Like many other Hollywood children, Lewis was subjected to more nannies than time with her mother. And the complete silence from Young in regards to Judy's "adoption" and who she "truly" was left a heartwrenching void in Judy's life, one that even years of working as a family counseler can not erase.