The Scarlett Letters: The Making of the Film Gone With the Wind

535 Pages·2014·15.33 MB·English

by  John Wiley Jr.

The Scarlett Letters
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The Scarlett Letters
The Making of the Film
Gone With the Wind
Edited by John Wiley, Jr.
TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING
(cid:129) (cid:129) (cid:129)
Lanham Boulder New York London
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Published by Taylor Trade Publishing
An imprint of Rowman & Littlefi eld
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom
Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK
Margaret Mitchell’s letters © 2014 by GWTW Partners, LLC.
Notes and commentary © 2014 by John Wiley, Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitchell, Margaret, 1900–1949.
The scarlett letters : the making of the fi lm Gone with the wind / [edited by] John
Wiley, Jr.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58979-872-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58979-873-1
(electronic) 1. Mitchell, Margaret, 1900-1949—Correspondence. 2. Mitchell,
Margaret, 1900–1949. Gone with the wind. 3. Georgia—History—Civil War,
1861–1865—Literature and the war. 4. Novelists, American—20th century—
Correspondence. I. Wiley, John, 1938– II. Title.
PS3525.I972Z48 2014
813'.52—dc23
2014001554
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in Canada
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In memory of
Margaret Mitchell and David O. Selznick—
a “marriage” made in movie heaven,
and
Herb Bridges,
keeper of the GWTW fl ame, Georgia gentleman, and friend.
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Contents
Foreword by Turney Allan Taylor ix
Introduction xiii
A Note About the Letters xvii
Prologue: The Making of a Masterpiece xix
CHAPTER
One Hollywood Comes Calling
1936 1
Two A National Pastime
1937 41
Three When This Cruel War Is Over
1938 109
Four Scarlett at Last
1939 (January–June) 159
Five “Faster and Funnier by the Hour”
1939 (July–December) 245
The Premiere
1939 (December 13–15) 307
Six Atlanta’s Night, America’s Film
1939 (December)–1940 319
Seven In the Wake of the Storm
1941–1949 365
vii
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viii THE SCARLETT LETTERS
Epilogue: Tomorrow Is Another Day 421
Cast of Characters 429
Acknowledgments 437
Notes 441
Bibliography 447
Index 455
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Foreword
Turney Allan Taylor
M
ost people immediately associate author Margaret Mitchell
with her sweeping historical novel Gone With the Wind, which
was published in 1936 and became a huge, worldwide best-
seller. However, for me—and I count myself very fortunate—there is a far
more personal connection to this illustrious southern writer.
* * *
My father, Allan Taylor, was born in Tennessee and always wanted to be
a newspaperman. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, he worked
on a paper in Chattanooga and then moved to Atlanta to join the Atlanta
Journal. He met Margaret Mitchell for the fi rst time in December 1922,
when she was brought down to the newsroom. She had just been hired as
a feature writer by the editor of the paper’s Sunday Magazine, Angus Perk-
erson, and the only available seat was the desk she would share with my fa-
ther. They soon became fast friends. (My father already knew John Marsh,
who would become Mitchell’s second husband, since they were roommates
briefl y after Marsh fi rst moved to Atlanta.)
My mother, Lois Cole, met Margaret Mitchell for the fi rst time at a
luncheon in 1927. Mother had relocated recently from New York City to
be the offi ce manager of the southeastern branch of the publishing fi rm
The Macmillan Company. To present her to Atlanta’s female literary so-
ciety, Medora Perkerson, the grand dame of Atlanta literati, gave a bridge
luncheon at the Piedmont Driving Club. When my mother was introduced
to her partner at one of the tables, she learned that her name was Margaret
ix
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