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 uneasy.”

Shearer asks this of her close friends:

“Will I be hated by fans if I put all the shallowness of Scarlett into the role? Can they forgive me if I don’t? Will this role have a lasting influence on my career? Will the public realize it’s only play-acting, or has Scarlett become a living, breathing human to them–one I’m noa bout to become?”

So, on the even of their greatest cinematic ventures, we find these two fine artists worried, anxious, concerned. Who says Hollywood takes its movies lightly?

I like Norma Shearer, don’t get me wrong, but that would be some pretty bad miscasting! Besides looking nothing like how Scarlett is supposed to look (and not having the acting range of a certain Miss Leigh), Shearer was thirty-six years old and not looking at all like sixteen, the age of Scarlett at the beginning of the film. Although she had just played teenage girls in both Romeo and Juliet and Marie Antoinette just a few years prior to success so who am I to judge.

 It’s interesting to me that she apparently had nabbed the role at this point. Reports say later she then “turned it down” and that’s why it went to Vivien. Pshaw!

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New this week:

Saturday: Screenshots from “To Please a Lady” in the gallery

Sunday: Blog Post–Property of Carole Lombard

Monday: New pictures of Clark and Carole in the gallery

Tuesday: Article: “How Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Live”

Wednesday: Jack Benny’s radio show after Carole‘s death

Thursday: Radio Show–Good News from 10/27/1938

Friday: Screenshots from “Any Number Can Play” in the gallery