A 1930s MSM Myth About Clark Gable; + Mysteries You Never Asked Questions About Dept.: The History of the Undershirt

According to legend, when Clark Gable removed his shirt in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (the film that would relaunch the star's career and the first to win all five main Academy Awards at the Oscar ceremony), revealing no undershirt but a bare chest, it led to a precipitous fall in sales for the undershirt industry. Except for one thing: according to Cliff Aliperti, it seems to be another drama queen myth:

 … the legend has never been verified … The disappearance of the undershirt is never reported in the business columns, just on the entertainment pages. 

Now, here is one mystery you probably never asked a single question about: To the question of a reader who did do so, wondering "why the ribbed undershirt has become the ubiquitous garment of the moment" and asking Why Are So Many Men Wearing Tank Tops?, Vanessa Friedman proceeds to provide an answer in the New York Times regarding the garment's birth: 

a brief history of the undershirt is in order.

The “marcel undershirt,” as it was originally known, was born in the 1860s when French dockworkers decided to cut the sleeves off their sweaters for relief from the heat. Les Établissements Marcel, a knitwear company, took note and began selling ready-made versions of the style.

Those styles made their way into the American wardrobe in World War I, when U.S. troops in Europe encountered the tank top and realized its potential as a garment to wear under their wool uniforms, and it was officially adopted by the Navy. By World War II, it was a ubiquitous part of military garb.

While the Army was embracing the tank top, so too was the athletic world. Indeed, the “tank” part of tank top is a reference to early-20th-century swimming pools, which were called swimming tanks, and the tank top made its debut as part of the swimming costume of female athletes from Australia, Britain and Sweden in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

From there, the shirt made its way into the mainstream, imbued with associations of physicality, strength and a certain gritty reality. By the time Marlon Brando and James Dean were plastered all over the silver screen smoldering rebelliously in their white tanks, it had reached iconic status — and its cartoonish masculinity was ripe for subversion and appropriation. (That aspect of the tank top never went away. See Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” Hugh Jackman in “Wolverine” and Angelina Jolie in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.”) 

But not Clark Gable.