In One Ear: Aspiring actor

Published 6:00 am Thursday, February 5, 2026

Feb. 1 would have been actor William Clark “Billy” Gable’s 125th birthday. A plaque on the corner of Exchange and 12th streets reveals he spent some time in Astoria, at that particular spot, the location of the first Liberty Theater, before it burnt down in the December 1922 fire.

The plaque proclaims that Gable “began his acting career in the summer of 1922” there, which isn’t so, according to Southern Oregon Past and Present.

Brought up in Ohio, the aspiring actor left home at 21 to join a traveling theater company. When it disbanded in Montana, he rode a freight train to Bend.

Gable had several odd jobs around Oregon in between acting gigs. One was surveying timber tracts, according to a 1932 story in The Milwaukee Journal. “This meant going on ahead and cutting a way through a jungle of thickets and brambles,” he recalled.

“They’ve got a vine … called ‘devil’s walking cane.’ Its little thorns dig into your hands and stay there … I spent the whole nine weeks with my hands bandaged. It was all pretty tough, but it meant three squares and a bed, such as it was, at night.”

Once in Portland, he joined the Astoria Players Stock Company, which took a paddle steamer around the Lower Columbia River area, performing in local towns.

The company disbanded when they ran out of money in Astoria, and the players had to perform their way back to Portland. After a stint at a Portland theater, Gable moved to Hollywood in 1924, and the rest is movie history. (Photo: Turner Classic Movies)