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Gone with the Wednesday: Repost–A New Ending for Gone with the Wind
This week, here is an article I posted in 2012 about a contest Screen Guide magazine had to come up with a new ending to Gone with the Wind. The winner is hardly satisfying… http://dearmrgable.com/?p=5740
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Gone with the Wednesday: Clark Gable Reflects Back on Rhett Butler
Clark Gable didn’t want to play Rhett Butler–mainly because everyone else wanted him to. He often described how, even before he himself had read the book, people would call him “Rhett” and ask him when he was signing on for the film. He thought it was a great role, certainly, but the pressure was too great. In the end, it wasn’t really his decision, as he was traded like cattle to Selznick for MGM to have the distribution rights. Clark remained nonchalant about the film for years afterward. He had done his work, gotten his paycheck, that was the end of it to him. I’ve had people say to me at…
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Nutshell Review: Gone with the Wind (1939)
In a Nutshell: Gone with the Wind (1939) Directed by: Victor Fleming (and George Cukor and Sam Wood) Co-stars: Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Hattie McDaniel Synopsis: Still seventy five years later heralded “the greatest movie ever made”, Gone with the Wind singlehandedly guaranteed Gable’s immortality to movie goers for decades to come. He is the dashing and ruthless Rhett Butler, a blockade runner from Charleston, who falls in love with headstrong southern belle Scarlett O’Hara (Leigh) at first sight. Scarlett only has eyes for her childhood crush, Ashley Wilkes (Howard) despite that he is engaged to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (De Havilland).Through the Civil War and Sherman’s march…
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Gone with the Wednesday: Is This Scarlett?
Last month, we posted Photoplay magazine’s sketch of Clark Gable as Rhett, from 1937. The following month, Photoplay upped the ante by publishing a sketch of Clark as Rhett with a woman that represented what they thought Scarlett should look like. Think Vivien Leigh fit the bill? Is This Scarlett? Again Vincentini scores–with this picture of Scarlett, as Photoplay conceived her. The prime requisite was, we told him, that Scarlett must be in Gable’s arms, for you see we still insist on Clark as Rhett. For the rest, she must have the fire of Paulette Goddard; the acting ability of Shearer; the voice of Alicia Rhett, Southern girl candidate, whose name…
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Gone with the Wednesday: “Here’s Rhett–You Asked For Him!”
Here is another article featured in the archive about Gone with the Wind: Here’s Rhett–You Asked For Him! from Modern Screen magazine, March 1940. It has some interesting quotes from Clark Gable about playing Rhett Butler: “One critic’s going to cause me trouble. I feel it in my bones. He said I ought to retire because I could never top my performance as Rhett. I like to be patted on the back as well as the next guy, but, boy, that pat has the makings of a knockout blow. I don’t want people getting the idea that, from here on, I’ll be slipping. God forbid. And I don’t want people…
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Gone with the Wednesday: Clark Gives the Latest News on Gone with the Wind
On December 10, 1939, Clark Gable appeared on The Silver Theater radio show, in a performance called “For Richer, For Richer.” At the end of his performance, the host asked him for the latest news on Gone with the Wind. Clark talks about how he is flying down to Atlanta to be there for the premiere on Friday. Listen here! GWTWSilverTheater121039
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Gone with the Wednesday: Leslie Howard Speaks Scarlett
In my years of vintage magazine collecting, I haven’t come across many interviews with Leslie Howard, but here’s one! In the July 1939 issue of Hollywood magazine, Leslie discusses Scarlett and Gone with the Wind, in an interview conducted at Busch Gardens in Pasadena, while on location filming the Twelve Oaks barbecue scene. Here’s Howard’s take on Scarlett: “…what people seem to overlook is that Scarlett was so modern! Scarlett O’Hara was a new-fashioned girl in an old-fashioned setting She was a 1939 sub-deb…in hoopskirts.” “Possibly my idea of Scarlett differs from that of some people. But I’ve studied her carefully. I think I’m right. She was fascinating, even more for…
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Gone with the Wednesday: The Gift of Rhett
Turns out Clark REALLY liked the sketch that Photoplay magazine did of him as Rhett Butler, that we posted last week. A few issues later, Ruth Waterbury, Photoplay‘s editor, wrote: …it was nothing to be photographed with Mr. Gable…though suffering with Mr. Gable is not actually the worst of all human agony… Clark had asked for that Vincentini portrait of himself as Rhett Butler that we ran in our October issue and though I was more than delighted to have him have it I had to see that PHOTOPLAY got something out of it too…so I asked that we get a shot of him receiving the drawing and they decided to…
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Gone with the Wednesday: Photoplay Magazine Makes Their Choice For Rhett
In 1937, when the casting of Gone with the Wind was the #1 topic of debate, Photoplay magazine declared their choice for Rhett Butler loud and clear. Photoplay Throws Its Hat in the Ring Herewith we enter the Great Casting Battle of “Gone with the Wind,” because to our mind there is but one Rhett–Clark Gable. So sure we were of our choice that we had Vincentini paint this portrait of Clark as we see him in the role: cool, impertient, utterly charming. We like all the other handsome actors mentioned as Rhett–only we don’t want them as Rhett. We want Gable and we’re going to stick to that…
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Gone with the Wednesday: “I Was Afraid of Rhett Butler!”
One of the things I’ll be doing on “Gone with the Wednesdays” this year is revisiting the Gone with the Wind-themed articles in the archive. There are so many and I know that the archive is so hefty now that it is hard to find what you’re looking for sometimes. This article, “I Was Afraid of Rhett Butler!” appeared in Liberty magazine in February 1940 and is completely written by Clark Gable. It’s not very long so here it is in its entirety: Rhett Butler really put me on a spot, a hot one. Or rather Margaret Mitchell did when she created Rhett. I hope some day to have the privilege of…