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 star who was lucky enough to get the most talked about role in all movie history. Furthermore, Bette could have acted that part just as convincingly.
Physically speaking, Bette isn’t as much Scarlett as is Vivien Leigh, but that doesn’t say she couldn’t have handled the role just as well or better. Look at what she did with “Elizabeth” and “The Old Maid”! She didn’t look like either of them, either, but did we ever give that a thought?
I don’t dislike Vivien at all. She was grand in “Gone with the Wind.” We cannot, however, adjudge her worthy of that most coveted award just on the strength of one picture. The other choices were perfectly satisfactory. I did think Clark Gable would get one for his 18 carat Rhett, but then Robert Donat was just as good in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”. All in all, it was a pretty fair outcome, and the “best of everything to the winners.” ~Jane Brennan, Beverly, New Jersey
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Bette Davis was very vocal in her desire to play Scarlett and begged Jack Warner, head of her studio at Warner Brothers, to buy the rights for her. She still thought she had a chance after Warner passed on it but when David Selznick was briefly considering her, Warner said he couldn’t have her unless he took Warner property Errol Flynn as Rhett as well. Selznick refused, since he had his heart set on a certain other mustached fellow for Rhett, thus crushing Bette’s chances. To be fair, Bette did get to star as a different bratty Civil War era Southern belle in Jezebel, as a bit of a consolation prize. And she won an Oscar for the role, the year before Vivien did. So even though she lost out to Vivien the following year (Bette was nominated for her excellent turn in Dark Victory), she had two Oscars on her mantlepiece already (Bette also won in 1934 for Dangerous). So is there really a reason to complain, Miss Brennan?
13 Comments
Sarah GODWIN
I am shocked and angry that anyone would ever prefer a Yankee New Englander to play Scarlett O’Hara. This is blasphemy !! Really and truly blasphemy and insanity for this to even be printed !! NOW. Vivien Leigh was Scarlett O’Hara and Bette Davis didn’t hold a candle to Ms Leigh.
Corrin Thoma
Bette Davis, in at least three films, had very authentic Southern accents. From an early age I remember asking Why doesn’t Scarlett sound Southern? At times Leigh didn’t even sound – American. Bette Davis would have made a superb – and better – Scarlett O’Hara. Davis was brilliant in Dark Victory. The film didn’t have the crutch of – besides the great Davis – big star power, elaborate sets, grand costumes. It was Bette Davis’s pure acting genius that made her role in Dark Victory awe-inspiring.
Beverly Thompson
Bette Davis was such a strong personality and talent,she would have dominated all the scenes and actors in this great film. Gable was fine as Rhett and Vivien did well as Scarlett. They needed an actress that could blend with the personality of the Rhett character.
Jesse Bacon
Corrin Thomas – Bette Davis was a great actress, but she would have dominated the role and it wouldn’t have been a classic. It would have been a triumphant for her not the film. As far as her southern accent, it was more poor trash southern rather than gentile.
Mark C Dauber
OMG, Jane Brennen! R u kidding me? Oscars r awarded to the performance, not to honor a “career”!
YOU OUGHT TO KNOW THAT AT YOUR AGE!
NO OTHER WOMAN ALIVE AT THAT TIME COULD HAVE DONE BETTER THAN VIVIEN LEIGH.
YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON ON THIS PLANET THAT WAS DISAPPOINTED IN HER OSCAR FOR GWTW!
DOESN’T THAT MSKE YOU FEEL LIKE A DUMB ASS?!
Emilia
I agree with Ms. Godwn. While a great actress, Bette Davis was too “Yankee” to play Scarlett O’Hara – although Vivien Leigh’s ethnic origins are rather interesting in their own right. There is speculation that she might have been part-East Indian (she was born in India, after all), so in my view, the possibility she was not 100% White puts her role as a Southern belle in a racist society in a new perspective. So I think having Leigh play Scarlett O’Hara was the best choice.
Steve Smith
As many have noted, at the time of the Civil War many southerners were only a few generations removed from Europe (even Margaret Mitchell noted that), and Scarlett’s mother was French, and in the book she still carried some French accent. At that time the “Southern” accent was hardly what it was in the 1930’s, let alone today. Susan Myrick was hired to coach Leigh in her accent, and warned her when she was getting “too southern”. There’s no one “southern accent”. Tennessee is so different from Mississippi from Georgia, from Virginia, and who knows how someone from Georgia in the 1860’s with a father who moved from Ireland and a mother of French descent would sound?
Leigh was fluent in both French and Italian (& dubbed her movies herself in those languages) and Myrick said she was a quick study.
And Leigh may have been born in India, but to English parents. Her father was stationed there.
Tony W. Abraham
Isn’t it a further stretch for an Englishwoman like Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett O’Hara than a northerner like Bette Davis? Yet Leigh’s performance in “GWTH” and Davis’ in “Jezebel” demonstrated that both could sashay a petticoat with the best southern belles.
But once an iconic role like Scarlett has been successfully performed, it’s difficult to imagine someone else. The film becomes a worshipped totem. But I find it entertaining to consider the wonderful Bette Davis in the role, made easy by the range she displayed in “Jezebel,” “Dark Victory,” and “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” The first film, for which she won an Oscar, screamed for Davis to be cast as Scarlett, which was highly likely, if not for the added freight of Errol Flynn as Rhett Butler, which was a no-go for David Selznick.
Lest we forget that Davis was the audience’s favorite to play the role of Scarlett. What is inconceivable today was not always so.
Ana
Me encanta Bette Davison, pero pensar en otra Scarlett, que no fuera Vivien Leigh, es IMPENSABLE. BELLEZA Y TALENTO!!!
Nat
I Want Miss Davis to played Scarlett, but totally Miss Leigh can played that role and she was born to be “Scarlett O’Hara”.
But Miss Davis Said that “It Wasn’t A Big Deal Of Her Life, Because she said she had Margo Channing to played in All About Eve”. So fair.
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