How Clark Gable gave The Peninsula Hong Kong’s Johnny Chung a lesson in cocktail making

The Peninsula hotel’s Johnny Chung Kam-hung is not only its longest serving member of staff but also its longest standing resident. He signed on in 1957, and is one of only two personnel members still living in the staff quarters there. At one point there were 200.

Chung started as a messenger, eventually becoming the hotel’s senior bartender, but is perhaps best known for an incident that occurred in his first year of service.

In 1957, The Peninsula had a popular bar in its lobby, and sitting there one day was Clark Gable.

“He asked me to fetch him ‘a screwdriver’, and I gave him the tool,” Chung recalls. “He said ‘No, a screwdriver is a cocktail’ and I said I’d never heard of it. He asked for paper and pen, and wrote the recipe down. Vodka and fresh orange juice. I went and got the drink for him and he said ‘Perfect. Wonderful.’ I didn’t know who he was. Afterwards a waiter came up to me and said ‘Johnny, that’s an American movie star’.”

Even if unknown to the young Chung, Gable, probably most famous for his leading role in Gone With the Wind, was hugely popular in Hong Kong. Another of his films, Soldier of Fortune, which came out in 1955, was partly set here, and Chung’s brief encounter with the star generated a lot of interest.

People wanted to know what Clark Gable drank, and bartenders from all over town approached him for the recipe.