Gone with the wind
1939 USA Color 222 / 238 Minutes
Within 24 days it would have been Hattie McDaniel`s (Mammy) 113th birthday.
* June 10, 1895
† October 26, 1952
Within 30 days it would have been Ona Munson`s (Belle Watling) 105th birthday.
* June 16, 1903
† February 11, 1955
The movie was completely shot in California, mostly in the studio’s backlot. The burning of Atlanta was filmed first to clean out leftover sets from old movies like King Kong (the giant gates) and David Copperfield. Source / More (Book)
Release date: December 15, 1939
Actor Gary Cooper: “Gone with the wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me”. Source / More (Book)
For “The burning of Atlanta” producer Selznick ordered more than 30 acres of the Pathe backlot to be put to torch. Every Technicolor camera (there were only seven) was used to record the fire from different angles. Source / More (Book)
Olivia De Havilland: “It was Davi’s [Selznick, the producer] unifying influence that made it possible for us to shoot. You would shoot a scene in the morning, say, with Victor Fleming and then you would change your costume and go to another stage and shoot another scene that afternoon with Sam Wood. For actors, that is agony. But we did it because David made us believe that we could. ” Source / More (Web)
Gone with the wind ranks number 1 in the American box-office rankings
Grossing adjusted for inflation -> $1,293 m Source / More (Web)
Writer Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone with the Wind.
In 1994 there was a six-hour TV mini-series sequel titled Scarlett, that was based on the follow-up novel by Alexandra Ripley.
Director George Cukor was fired because producer David O. Selznick objected to the slow pace of filming, and star Clark Gable had personal conflicts with him.
Cukor: “Clark Gable took to seriously my reputation for being a good director for actresses. He was concerned that I was favoring Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland over him”. Source / More (Book)
Director Cukor was fired but afterward both Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland asked him every night what they should do with their scenes for the next day’s shooting. Source / More (Book)
Vivien Leigh: “On Sundays, when we didn’t shoot, I’d steal over to George Cukor’s and discuss with him the bits we’d be working on the next week. It was probably terribly irregular, but I couldn’t have finished it without him.” Source / More (Book)
Margaret Mitchell published Gone with the Wind in 1936. She wrote the work from a house on Peachtree St. in Atlanta where she lived from 1925-1932.
When Vivien died, West End theaters in London dimmed their house lights in memory of one of Britain’s greatest actresses.
November 5 , 1913
Vivian Mary Hartley
July 7, 1967
Vivien Leigh was born in Darjeeling, India. From the ages of six to 15 she was educated in English convent schools, where she showed aptitude for the performing arts. Inspired by the example of her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan, she embarked upon an acting career, enrolling at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1932.
Vivien's stage debut was in The Green Sash, but it was her performance as Henriette Duquesnoy in The Mask of Virtue (1935) that earned her critical acclaim. She married barrister Herbert Leigh Holman, whose name she used to create her stage name.
In 1937, she met and made her first screen appearance opposite the rising star, Laurence Olivier, in Fire Over England. In 1938 Olivier and Leigh traveled to Hollywood, he to star in Wuthering Heights (1939), she to audition for the highly coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). The role won Leigh her first Oscar, after which she kept her screen appearances to a minimum, preferring to devote her time to Olivier, who would become her second husband in 1940.
Pregnant during production of Caesar and Cleopatra in 1944 (released 1946), Leigh suffered an on-set accident that resulted in a miscarriage. In 1944, the actress was diagnosed as having a tuberculosis patch on her left lung.
In the fifties Leigh made a two-fold success as Tennessee Williams's Blanche Du Bois, first under Olivier's direction on the London stage. And later in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) directed by Eliah Kazan, and with Marlon Brando in which her performance gained her another Oscar.
She continued to act on stage with Olivier at the Old Vic in London.
By the early 1960s Vivien had suffered two miscarriages, and the severity of the tuberculosis was incapacitating. She starred in a 1963 Broadway musical adaptation of <em>Tovarich</em>, a production for which Leigh won a Tony Award. She was preparing to star in the London production of A Delicate Balance when she was found dead from tuberculosis in her London apartment in 1967.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Ship of Fools (1965)
That Hamilton Woman (1941)