Young Revelation

I have read many disturbing things in my seven decades of life, but the other day I read the most devastating thing in my lifetime. The daughter of Loretta Young, who thought she had been adopted, wrote a book in which she revealed that she was the illegitimate child of a love affair between her mother and Clark Gable.

Tell me that the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series this year. Tell me Gen. Patton was a Russian spy. Tell me that Rush Limbaugh is a registered Democrat.

Perhaps I could believe all those things. Please don’t tell me that Loretta Young, who played “The Bishop’s Wife” and “The Farmer’s Daughter,” had an affair with Clark Gable and produced an illegitimate child. How much can a man take?

Not even wars, depressions, poverty, poor health and death could have devastated me as much as learning that Young, who was the symbol of beauty and decency, whom I admired and adored all my life, could be guilty of such conduct. Say it isn’t so, Loretta!

TED KRUGER

Escondido