Willing and Gable

Twenty-seven-year-old John Clark Gable has always shied away from the klieg-light glare attracted by his singular Hollywood pedigree. His arrival four months after papa Clark's passing landed him on the cover of Life, but since then Gable has spent most of his time burning rubber to reach worldclass status as an off-road truck racer. This month, young Gable will switch from one fast track to another as he takes center stage in New York at a Radio City Music Hall fete for the fiftieth anniversary of Gone with the Wind.

"I'll be there unless I'm stuck on location in Arizona making my first picture," explains Gable, who makes his screen debut in an old-time Western called Bitter Duel. "My favorite actor would have to be my dad," he says, "but I don't yet know about the acting careers of Kayley, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, or Clark James, my three-month-old little boy."

ANGELA JANKLOW