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Gone With The Wind, hereafter GWTW, won ten academy awards including best Best Picture for 1939. Vivien Leigh won for best Actress as Scarlett, and Hattie McDaniel was the first black performer to win an Oscar. She was voted Best Supporting Actress. Although nominated, Clark Gable did not win Best Actor. Robert Donat won that year for Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Victor Fleming also directed The Wizard of Oz in 1939, which was nominated for Best Picture that same year, but lost out to GWTW. However, Victor Fleming won for Best Director of GWTW. The cost of a ticket at the original premiere was between $.75 and $1.10, prices that were higher than normal for the time. Producer David O. Selznick (he added the O to give his name style) was as involved in the distribution of the picture as he'd been with the production. He ordered a soft paper be used for the programs so there wouldn't be rustling over the dialogue. Loads of crushed brick were scattered over the back lots to replicate the red clay of Georgia. I've seen the movie so often, I can point out the flaws. After sweet Melanie dies, Scarlett rushes out onto the front porch to find Rhett. She grabs hold of the porch column and it wobbles under her hand! Watch for it. Scarlett and Rhett are fictional folks, but Clark and Vivian were real people who did not always get along that well during filming. Rumor has it he had a problem with his breath. The truth, as I've heard it, is that he disliked her so much at times, he purposely ate onions before romantic scenes!
Lizzie McDuffie, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's cook, tried out for the role of Mammy. The two young men on the front porch with Scarlett in the opening scene are referred to as the Tarleton "twins" in the novel. Since the hair/make-up department was unable to dye their hair the same shade of red nor make their facial features similar, the men are called the Tarleton "boys" in the movie credits. One was George Reeves who went on to become TV's Superman. In the scene where Melanie is giving birth, director George Cukor twisted her foot under the covers to make her wince during her supposed labor pains. The old wooden gates from the set of King Kong were burned to replicate the burning of Atlanta. Barbara O'Neal who played Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother, was actually just one year older than Vivien Leigh. The book was banned by the Nazis during World War II, but the French Underground secretly passed it around. GWTW is shown daily in Atlanta at Ted Turner's CNN Center. Margaret Mitchell decided never to write a sequel, although others have tried. She was killed by a drunk driver in 1949 when she was 48 years old. Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes, was on a plane bound for Great Britain in 1943, when it was shot down by the Germans. Clark Gable's only son was born months after he died of a heart attack. There were 4,400 people involved in the making of the movie. These included 59 cast members and 2400 extras. If you've never seen Gone With The Wind, please do. You will enjoy it. If you've already seen the movie, revisit it and let your emotions follow the course this great film sets. At the time of filming, actress Olivia de Havilland was dating Howard Hughes, the millionaire. He wanted her to abandon her acting career and spend all her time with him, but didn't want to marry her until he was at least 50 years old, which would be 17 years later. She kept on acting, and they continued to date until he unexpectedly proposed to her sister, actress Joan Fontaine at a party in 1939. Because the Los Angeles Times printed that Gone With The Wind was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1939 across its front page on February 29, 1940, they broke the unspoken agreement of all newspapers not to release this information before the ceremony. Since that time, the names of all winners have been sealed in envelopes and not revealed until the official ceremony actually happens. Clark Gable refused to cry in the scene where Rhett is being comforted by Melanie on that late rainy afternoon after Scarlett's miscarriage from having fallen down the stairs. Feeling it was not masculine for a man to cry on camera, the director, Victor Fleming, suggested a compromise. They would shoot two versions, one with Rhett's back to the camera, his head hung in sadness, the other, face to the camera, crying. Gable would make the final call on which scene he preferred. After viewing them both, Gable was proud of his performance and agreed that the tearful scene added sincere emotion to the story. In the final scene of Part 1 when a tattered Scarlett returns to a damaged and desolate Tara, she goes to the garden in search of food and finds only a radish. She takes a bite then retches. Since Vivien Leigh's "retch" was not convincing enough, Olivia de Havilland filled in with a richer, fuller sound and that is her voice on the final cut. The role of Belle Watling, the infamous Atlanta madame went to Ona Munson. These were some of the other actresses considered for the part: Tallulah Bankhead, Loretta Young, Mae West and Joan Blondell. Author Margaret Mitchell originally wanted Miriam Hopkins to play Scarlett and western movie star Jack Holt to play Rhett. Oversights When Rhett Butler carries a wounded Ashley Wilkes into the bedroom, Melanie follows carrying an electric lamp with the cord dangling. When Mammy helps Scarlett dress for the barbeque at the beginning of the picture, Scarlett hurries so, wolfing down her flapjacks and tying on her floppy bonnet, she exits her bedroom wearing no necklace. Later at the barbeque, she is wearing a pretty coral necklace around her neck as she tip-toes from the rooms where the other girls are napping at Twelve Oaks. In the screen credits, George Reeves is incorrectly listed at Brent Tarlton, one of Scarletts' beaus in the opening scene. He actually played the part of Stuart Tarleton.
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