Gone with the Wind
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A Photographer’s View on Gone with the Wind and Carole Lombard
In 1940, Fred Parrish, a well-known Hollywood photographer, mused on some of his favorite moments. Gone with the Wind For a scene of the evacuation of Atlanta in GWTW, a horse-drawn ammuniton wagon was to come down the street and explode just as the horse passed [a lamp post]. I picked the safe side of the street, but when the bomb in the wagon went off, the horse went the wrong way so fast he made Seabiscuit look sick. If it had not been for the iron safety bowl used in the wagon, I would have been blown right off the lot! I’ll bet the hardest work [Clark Gable] ever…
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{Rumor Mill} Clark Gable, George Cukor and Gone with the Wind
It’s no secret that Clark Gable didn’t want to be in Gone with the Wind. Despite the public’s insistence that he was the only one who could play Rhett, he had no desire to step into the shoes of the rebellious blockade runner. “The reason I didn’t want to do Gone with the Wind–here is a novel that is the top seller of all time. Now, people form opinions about characters–they formed an opinion that I was going to play it. They already had a preconcieved idea of what they were going to see. That’s why I didn’t want to play, I said too many people know this character. My God, with…
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{Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier Appreciation Blogathon} Spotlight on: Vivien Leigh
As is Gone with the Wind folklore, producer David Selznick’s search for the perfect Scarlett O’Hara reached far and wide, cost thousands of dollars and took years. Every female star auditioned for the part, regardless of how qualified she was. People on the street debated on who should play her. Southern debutantes took acting lessons and bought train tickets to Hollywood. It caused a nationwide frenzy. Then appeared the dark horse: British Vivien Leigh–whose casting surprised some, and rattled others. Civil War descendants decried her casting in letters to newspapers, stating, “The selection of Vivien Leigh is a direct affront to the men who wore gray and an outrage to the memory of…
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Gossip Friday: Scarlett Also-Rans
From March 1940: Talk of Hollywood, recently, is how much luck the girls who did NOT get the Scarlett O’Hara role in Gone with the Wind had! Of course, Vivien Leigh was the “lucky” one who got the part. But look at the others– Bette Davis did Jezebel instead and won an Academy Oscar; Norma Shearer, in The Women, did such a swell job that she may get the next Award; Tallulah Bankhead, when she flopparooed on Scarlett, did the stage play that’s getting her international raves…ditto Katharine Hepburn, who also did NOT get the O’Hara plum, but who scored hugely behind the footlights in Philadelphia Story. And Susan Hayward,…
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Bette Davis vs. Vivien Leigh
Today is Bette Davis’ 103rd birthday– here’s a letter to the editor of a fan magazine from June 1940: I was extremely disappointed to learn that Vivien Leigh, not Bette Davis, was the recipient of this year’s Academy Award. What right had they to give the “Oscar” to a star who has had only one great picture to back her? Hasn’t Miss Leigh been in pictures before this “GWTW” epic? And hasn’t she just been “among those present” as far as the fans were concerned? Did she ever attract any attention before they thought she looked the way Scarlett O’Hara should look? It isn’t fair that Miss Davis be de-throned by a…
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Gossip Friday: Rhett and…his Scarlett?
From September 1938: With the announcement of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Norma Shearer as Scarlett in “Gone with the Wind”, Clark and Norma, far from happy, are wearing two worried frowns on their personable faces. Gable is anxious to know these things: “Will I be the Rhett Butler of the fans’ dreams? If please the North, will the South be happy over the choice? Will I interpret each scene, each move, as the millions of readers have pictured it in their minds and hearts? Will I fail in this, my heaviest assignment to date? Frankly, I don’t see how any actor can win with this role and I’m…
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Gossip Friday: Snippets from the set of Gone with the Wind
From August 1939: There’s a mad scramble between every scene on the “Gone with the Wind” set. For Vivien Leigh is an Anagram fiend and Olivia de Havilland is equally rabid on the subject of Chinese Checkers–and they like Clark Gable for a partner. Gable happens to like both girls and both games, but he’s hit upon a practical solution for the predicament. It’s three-handed bridge and now everyone is happy. *** Though Vivien Leigh has many elaborate costumes for “Gone with the Wind”, her costliest is the ugliest dress she wears in the picture. Fourteen copies of this dress had to be made, for it is the one which…
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Gone with the Wind hits Los Angeles
The Los Angeles premiere of Gone with the Wind was 71 years ago this very evening. Jean Garceau, Clark and Carole’s faithful secretary, attended the event with them. Here is how she described it: The theater was decorated inside and out in keeping with the background and theme of the film. Huge searchlights probed the sky, bands played, streets were roped off and uniformed attendants held back the crowds as the police permitted only those cars with passes to draw up in front of the theater. A long flower-decked canopy extended to the sidewalk and a master of ceremonies stood there to welcome the stars, announce their names over a…
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Gossip Friday: On the set of Gone with the Wind
From May 1939: We said we didn’t believe it. “Tell us,” we said, “that Greta Garbo is hunting autographs; that Shirley Temple has been sent to reform school; that Jimmy Cagney is baking a cake. Tell us anything. But don’t tell us ‘Gone with the Wind’ is actually shooting!” “Come over and see for yourself,” said the Selznick-International man. How could we resist making “The Wind”, as Hollywood knows it, our first stop on the monthly set circuit? After these months of waiting and waiting–false hopes, phony Scarletts, reluctant Rhetts and so forth–a mere peep at the champion never-never movie in actual production is like a preview of the millennium.…
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Remembering Bonnie Blue
On Sunday, I attended the memorial service for Cammie King Conlon, or as we all know her, Bonnie Blue Butler, in Marietta, Georgia. Filled with both tears and laughter, it was a touching tribute to a woman who always claimed she “peaked at age five”. It began with a video tribute, including all of her scenes from GWTW and also a scene from Bambi (she was the voice of young Faline). Speakers included Cammie’s son Matt Conlon, Chris Sullivan, a long time Gone with the Wind enthusiast and collector (whose collection is housed at the GWTW Museum in Marietta), and Mickey Kuhn, who portrayed Beau as a child in GWTW.…