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Gossip Friday: It’s a Wrap for Gone with the Wind
From October 1939: Most welcome news of a “completion party” for a picture came from Selznick studios. On one of the “Gone with the Wind” stages, refreshments were served and all who had worked on the picture were invited to come. Carole Lombard came, anyhow. Said her sense of curiosity drove her to it, since she’d never believe it was actually happening without seeing it with her own eyes. Cameraman Fred Parrish, who had made a record 6,000 stills for this one picture, arrived to take a few more of the party. But Gable insisted he put down the camera and relax. “As it is,” Gable pointed out, “you’ll probably be…
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In Memory of Ann Rutherford: “I guess things like hands and ladies don’t matter so much anymore…”
It was with a heavy heart that I learned of Ann Rutherford’s passing yesterday. She lived to be 94, which is itself an accomplishment, but my heart just breaks as we continue to lose these classic stars. Their era is fading away, and with them goes their memories. I met Ann for the first time in November 2009 at the 70th anniversary of Gone with the Wind event in Marietta, GA . She was full of life, very spunky and those big brown eyes were quite the giveaway to her youthful self. I only spoke with her briefly. At the time I was pregnant and she congratulated me and said, “I hope you’ll show…
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{Event} Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum–Belles, Beaus and Barbecue
Last weekend I headed down to Marietta Square for a Gone with the Wind event held by the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum. I didn’t attend all the events, such as Friday night’s Sock Hop. You can see the full schedule here. Saturday we headed down to the square near the museum for Belles, Beaus and Barbecue! Summer in Atlanta is not pleasant, as any fellow resident will attest. It was 94 degrees on Saturday and it sure did feel like it! We managed to stay in the shade and we had our fancy hand fans to keep us cool. There were several brave souls who showed up in their…
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{New Article} 1940: A Woman’s Lowdown on Clark Gable!
This article is from the Gone with the Wind-publicity period and is supposedly unique because it tells a woman’s perspective on Clark. I don’t know how unique this article is but it is rather gushy. This fellow is unimpressed by all he has acquired; with his importance as a star. Luck, he insists, was with him: “Anyone who has ears and can speak and understand words of one syllable can do it,” he shrugs. “It might have been any other guy; it just happened to me.” Even his bosses are set back on their heels at unexpected moments by his passion for facing facts. In Atlanta, at the super-swank premiere…
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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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{Moustaches for Movember Blogathon} Clark Gable: Evolution of a Moustache
This post is part of Bette Classic Movie Blog’s Moustaches for Movember Blogathon. Movember is a campaign in which men grow moustaches over the month of November to raise funds for prostate cancer. You can learn more about the cause here. You think of Clark Gable and you think of that familiar moustache (well, that and maybe the ears…) It’s funny that the mustache has become so synonomous with the image of Clark Gable, considering he didn’t want one to begin with. Clark was a clean freak, the kind who took showers multiple times a day and who reportedly shaved his chest hair because he considered all that extra…
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{Hollywood} Clark Was Here
Let’s follow Clark around Los Angeles… Culver Studios. Formerly Selznick International Studios, this is where Gone with the Wind was filmed. The white house and manicured gardens are well-remembered as the opening shot of GWTW, then with a white sign in front that said, “A Selznick International Picture.” The scene where Mammy, Prissy and Pork stand in front of Scarlett and Rhett’s enormous Atlanta mansion and exclaim over its size (“Lordy, she sure is rich now!”) was filmed right here, in front of this building, with a matte painting standing in for Scarlett and Rhett’s mansion. Carole Lombard made Nothing Sacred and Made for Each Other here. It was later home…
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{Hollywood} The Academy Library Clears Up a Clark and Carole–Gone with the Wind Mystery
People sure did look at me funny when I said that one of the things I was most looking forward to on my Los Angeles trip was a visit to the library. Sounds strange, but this is not just any library, it’s the Margaret Herrick Library, the library for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). If you’ve read a bio on a classic star (a reputable one, anyway) bet your bottom dollar they did their research here. They house thousands of original scripts, screenplays, correspondence, you name it. Many, many people have left their personal papers to the library, including Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Billy Wilder, Esther Williams, …
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{New Article} 1957: I Call on Clark Gable
Folks, as far as articles go on Clark Gable, this one is a gold mine! If you’ve perused through our Article Archive here, you know that many interviews with Clark are pure fluff. MGM protected what was published about its stars and Clark was no exception. Most interviews never asked the questions people really wanted to know, and instead of a true sit-down interview, it was a quick conversation (if any at all) that was beefed up by the writer’s own assumptions and fluffy writing. This one is different. Of course by this time, it was the late 50’s and the “studio system” had dissapated. Clark was no longer under MGM’s protective wing,…