Loretta Young, considered one of the most stunning actresses to ever grace the screen, carried a dark secret until her passing in 2000.

In 1935, while working on the film “Call of the Wild” with Clark Gable, who was 34 and married to his second wife, Maria ‘Ria’ Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham, Young and Gable grew close. After the film’s completion, Young discovered she was pregnant and took extensive measures to keep it hidden.

While the paternity of Loretta Young’s daughter Judy was known before her passing, the true circumstances of Judy’s conception have only recently come to light.

Young, a devout Catholic with a strong moral compass, was reportedly a victim of date rape by Clark Gable, as revealed by her daughter-in-law, Linda Lewis. The revelation came after Young, at 85, watched an episode of Larry King Live discussing the topic. After asking Lewis to explain date rape, Young responded, “That’s what happened between me and Clark.”

Lewis, who shared this story with Buzzfeed journalist Anne Helen Petersen, was shocked by the revelation. However, for Young, protecting Judy was always the priority. This same concern kept the family silent, but following Judy’s death at 78 in 2011, Lewis and her husband Chris, Young’s son from her second marriage to Tom Lewis, decided to make the truth known.

Linda Lewis explains, “Judy is not here to be hurt by this, and that’s what Loretta really wanted to avoid—because who doesn’t want to be conceived in love?”

Loretta Young, who began her acting career as a child, was one of Hollywood’s brightest stars when she met Clark Gable in 1935 during the nine-week shoot for “Call of the Wild” near Mount Baker, a remote area three hours from Seattle.

Lewis shared that Young often developed feelings for her co-stars and flirted with Gable, who affectionately called her “my girl.” Despite her flirtations, Young was a devout Catholic who had been deeply hurt by her earlier elopement and subsequent divorce from Grant Withers. She also had a long, unconsummated affair with Spencer Tracy, a fellow Catholic who was separated but could not divorce his wife. Terrified of eternal damnation and heeding warnings from her family priest, Young maintained strict boundaries with her co-stars.

However, this changed during the train ride back to Los Angeles from Seattle. According to Lewis, the cast members had separate compartments, but somewhere along the journey, Gable entered Young’s compartment. A month later, Young discovered she was pregnant.

What followed was one of Hollywood’s most elaborate cover-ups. Young hid in an apartment in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, where she eventually gave birth to a daughter. She informed Gable with a telegram that read: “BEAUTIFUL, BLUE-EYED, BLOND BABY GIRL BORN, 8:15 THIS MORNING.” Gable, whose name did not appear on the birth certificate, ignored the message and had no significant involvement in Judy’s life.

Despite Loretta Young’s efforts to integrate her daughter into her life, including plans to formally adopt her and even discussing it publicly, rumors about her affair with Clark Gable persisted, and the truth about Judy’s paternity became an open secret.

Young eventually revealed the truth about Judy’s parentage when Judy was 23 years old and demanded to know. By that time, Clark Gable had passed away at the age of 59, just ten days after suffering a heart attack.

However, Judy never learned the full circumstances of her conception, a topic Linda Lewis has now chosen to discuss amid increasing awareness of historic rape cases. “I realized that it’s almost every day,” Lewis explained in an interview with Buzzfeed. “All these rapes, and the men just keep getting away with it.”

Clark Gable, it seems, was among those who evaded accountability.

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