second 11 Prem1ere" • British m o vi e actress Vivien Leigh, who pl~yed Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind," has accepted an invitation to take part in a sec. ond "premiere" . ·"'.d:.
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Ubt iltlanta ]ournal and CONSTITUTION
SUNDAY, MAY 26, 1974 • ' r t ' ' 'q •
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March 10 in Atlanta, Ga. It will be a part of Georgia's
observance of the Civil War centennial.
HISS LEIGH
VIVIEN LEIGH, tROMAS MITCHELL IN 'GONE WITH THE WIND' Wbat Will Happen After Scarlett Vows She'll Never Go Hungry Again?
RHETT WOULDN'T GIVE A DAMN? When Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With the Wind," she had Clark Gable in mind when she created the character of Rhett Buller. Every_. body knew it but Gable. "I NEVER could see myself in that part," he once said. His portrayal in the movie of the famed best seller was a screen classic but it was· not his favorite. His all-time favorite was the one that won him an Oscar in 1934 - the wise-cracking newspaperman of "It Happened One Night." "I was having a beef with Metro in those days," he once said. "I was sick - even went to a hospital - but they threatlmed me with suspension. To get even, they exiled me via a loanout to Coluinbi11.
GWTW Sold to Yankees In Unkindest Cut of All. By SCOTT CAIN
studio's financial difficulty. I am unable to write anyCan tbere be any other rea.thing bumorous about tbe sale son? Wby else would MGM of "Gone Witb the Wind" to sacrifice a picture wbicb bas television. · periodically revived its forTbe kindest tbing tbat can tune? It's ·a simple case of be said about tbis develop- grabbing what Uaey can in tile ment is tbat it is revolting short term and letting the and despicable. Surely this is long term take care of itself. Hollywood's ultimate capitulaMake no mistalte, "Gone tion to tbe little tube. With the W'md," unique as it And to be told a bald-faced is, will follow the path of lie in tbe bargain rubs more every other movie which has salt into tbe wound. An MGM gone to television. It will spokesman had tbe effrontery never again be able to draw · to tell the New York Times people to the box office. Once that the sale of GWTH for $5 the public has seen it for million was not linked to the free-if you can count sitting
Gable co-starred with Vivien Leigh In the greatest money-making f"tlm, "Gone With ~ Wind." Author . Margaret Mitchell had Gable hi mind for Rhett Butler.
\...Ommma, although impressed by her performance in All.,;jp; v· ' felt she was too spe< •·' " offer her a contract three film roles in Lightning Strik.es T Inside Straight, ho grammers. McCamhridge san the first time in T . piece in which she pl waitress. The prodmt to have the song, dubbed, but McC~n them that if tht wai: · accomplished singer s been slinging hash. number herself. In '51 she played a
radio series
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he flight to Tara is made by Scarlett in a wagon pulled y a broken-down horse, across the hattlefiel<l of Rough
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Ber mother dead of typhoid, her father half-mad, and the beaaty of her home laid waste, Searlett and Pork, a faithful family slave, start tbe work of reetorinll Tara.
& Ready. Beside her sits .Prissy, while in the old wagot lie Melanie, almost unconscious, and her newborn baby
Slill laqininc laenelf In love with Aebley, Searlett hep him to so away with her. Aehley refaeee 'o leave Melllnle, and Searlett her eelfi11h. rothleee way alone.
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A11hley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), Melanie (Olivia de Havilland) and Aun· Pittypat (Laura Hope Crew11) in a scene from "Gone with abe Wind.'
Both Searlett and Melanie 11erve as volunteer nunH fer the eeores of wou~ded Confederate• who poar into Atlanta durin1r 1864. Here a eltatth ie 1eniq a11 a hoepitaL
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lt3t, HSI: Oscars to YIYIEN LEICHt for &one with the Wind and A Strfft. car Named Desire. Vivien won the role of Scarlett O'Hara ofter a nation· wide search that lasted through I ,<f-00 candidates and 28 screen tests. There was some disappointment when the choice was onnounced--Out none when the picture was seen. Vivien's performance was described as "le.t ter perfect." Vivien started acting at 8, and there. was no turning bocl She hod on ea-husband, a daughter, and a string of British hits to her credit before she ever found herself in Hollywood. She"s 43, Lady Lourence Olivier.
A CYNICAL REBEL in Gone With the Wind,
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Clark played dashing Rhett Butler, blockade runner who wooed Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara (1939) .
EIGH
OLIVIA Of HAVlllAHO, LESLIE HOWARD
OLIVI A OE HAVI LLAND, W A RD BO NO, CLA RK GABLE, LESLIE HOWARD
(M-G-Ml
GONE WITH THE WIND Seb.nick lnt<"rnationul Prorlurti<m, M-C.-M lt.1..._ leas('; Produc<>r. D:\\'iol 0. 'S,•h:nie k; Din•rtor, Victor Fl('ming; Sl'n-cn11lu~· by Sichwy Hownrtl; From the Non•I hy Mar11rnrd Mitchl'll; Prl.Mludion •ll"1hrnerl b)· V.'illiam C:rnwron Mt•n:r.i••I : Senn.• by Max ·Steiner; Dfln<'t"ll IJy Frnnk t'loy•I.
EL
LESLIE HOWARD
AS ASHLEY wu rs:c
BEl.O\\: In contra,.!. ~carlt'lt"., toom at Tara i~ the fr1·~h ro11111 of a ~011th1·rn _ir J. 1lr. \\t't I _,II Je, lwarrt ifrrl arrd ornan11 rrt , .. \Ollll!.! J h " h
St.'arl..rt \\a~ 11111\\;trdh. l Ir. :.!""" ta~I• of f I ra, Sca1 let(,. mother. j,.. ,., id1·11t 111 it- f'olr d cowred wirh_a brightl~ colond rul!. 11 ... 111111 , m 1lrogarl\ . furnrtur1· and it• \\hi11 r11f111 d I•"" r lu c:I
VI VI EN LEIG H
CAST Brent Tarl<'ton Stuntt Tari<'hm SC'atktt O'Hara Mnmmy Big SRm Elij11h Cri"tRJ.I O'HarK Jona!I Wilkeninn Ellen O'Han1. Su<'llcn O'Hara CRrtt'<'n O'Hnrn Pti!l..-1y John Wilkl-s lndin W{lk<>S A11hJ._.y Wilkes Mt•lanic Hamilton Charlc-s Hamilton Frank K<'nnt><ly CRthle.?"n Caln•rt Rh<'tt Hutlcr Aunt Pitty·Put Doctor M<'Rfll• Mrs. MC'ade Mrs. Mt>rriwt!Kther H.('ne Picard Maybelle MC'rriwC'Mth<'r Fanny t~l!'inir .... Old Le\·i Uncle Petet Phil Meade Reminii;<"('nt Soldier Rdle Watlink Th<' Scrkeant A Wounded Soldil't A Con..,nlf'S<"t'nt Solriil'r A Dying Soldit·r Amputation C111;e A Commandina- Offi<'<'r A Mounted Offic"r • A Hunirry Soldit•r Emmy Slattery Ynnkee M1dor Johnny G>t.llakh<'r yank~. R'!'sin~'I Ma.n
(;t'OrJl'<' lh't.'\C.'11 t'n.~l Cn1n" Vi\·ien l..<'ikh Hatti" MrDnnit.•I Jo:\ t•n•tt Hruwn Znck Williama Thono1!1 !\'htdwll Vi<'tor ,J.,ry H11tlmrn O'Nt•il t:\••lvn t.:• •)'t'9 Ann Hutht•rfurd llutterfty Mr-(lut"<'n How11nl Hirl..nrnn Alirin Hht'lt L<'llli" Hnwnrd Oiivi:i <It• Hin ilh'"d llM.n•I Bruu~! C'nr r11ll Ny<' M11rrt•ll11 Martin C'hirk (i11hl<> L1111rt1 H111w Cn•w11 H11rry Dt1\'t•nport IA'Ona Robt·rt1 JRne Dnrwl'll All.t•rt Murin M11ry Andt•no1111 Tl•rrv 8ht•ro Willinm Mrn11in F.ddi(' An•l••t11"11 Jacki<' Mor11n Cliff' Etlwanh1 Ona Mun,.nn i-::tt Chanrll••r Gt.'Orll'e H1M'k11thurnt> Rrlfl<'°" Aleti John Ark•'lhte Eric l.ind<'n Tom Tyh•r Willh1.m llnkl'wt•ll Looi11 Jc•n Ht•ych 1!'11.bc>I ,h•wc•ll Hubt>rt Elliott J. M. K"rriran Olin Howlnnrl
ClAR K GABLE A S RH ETT BUTL ER
OLIVIA DE H AVI LLAND AS M EL ANIE HAMIL TON
Lauds Stan • The twenty.first Cannes Film Festival opened with a tribute from young British actnss Carol Wblte, star Of tile mo~e "Poor Cow," to three of Hollywood's greatest stan . -
dead - who appeared m the festival's first scbednled movie, "Gone With The Wind." She asked the audience te &urn its thoughts to "tbl anfbrge Lellle Boward, .toward Gable, who was nicknamed 'The Kini' (of Hollywood), and final-
ly, toward Vlftell LeJcb • • .'' Miss White said Miss ~
et
"was able the same time to be a p'88t ~ actress and on the screen one of ..., faees whlch will never be wiped frem memory."- '11ie starstudded 'first-Digbt audience at the festival was led by. Prblcess Grice of Monaco. Others in~ Dann1 Kay, Omar Stiarlf, hoak Alme and JalleUa Massina.
PAi&Bi'i
leYlll,_ 'GWTW' Loem
Lo• Record-Breaker London, Sept. 24.
"Gone With the Wind," ill 1t1 n-
UPI Telephoio•
VIVIEN LEIGH STARRED OPPOSITE CLARK GABLE IN 'GONE Wl'l1I THE WIND' Role In Margaret Mitchell Story Won British Actress Her First Academy Award
vamped format, 11 lhapln1 a1 the bluest hit the Empire, Metro'• London lhowcue. hu ever had. It'1 even 1UJ1Pa1Sing the paeeaettin1 llgure1 of "Doctor Zhivago" at aame houae. · Metro and U.K. topper Mlb Havu uld the film 11 alread7 22% over the eomparable "Zh!va-
10" lliure1 with 1~ SRO per-
formanee1 recorded out of the ant
week'• 15 lbowa. Mvanee boo1dn11 he added, are allo unprecedentauY heavy, with current total approachm, the fl00,000 mark. "GWTW" ii also reported doing bullish bi1 at other UK date1 1n Manche1ter, Liverpool, Glaa1ow and Bmtol. UJICODlinl a.re CUdlJr Bripton and .Ed1nburgh. · '
ill, Evel)路n Keyes, Ann Rutherford ~n, \'Men Leigh, Hattie McDani;l '"'" l.eigh. Top: Clark Gable Vivien Leigh '
Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard. Above: Harry Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh. Above: Paul Hurst, Davenport, Vivien Leigh, Laura Hope Crews Vivien Leigh. Top: Olivia de Havilland1 Top: Eddie Anderson, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Ward Bond, Clark Gable, Leslie Howarel Havilland, Ona Munson .h h . d" 81 "Gone Wit T e Wm
68 "GONE WITH TIIE WIND'' SCENES NOW A.V AILABIE vie can now supply you with 68 at.fferent scenes of that great motion picture classic, "Gone With The Wind'', which starred Clark G;aQle and Vivien Leigh. Each scene is size 8 x 10 and either Clark Gable or Vivien Leigh or both of them together are Shown in the scene. Our special price is 45 cents each scene or 10 C!ifferent scene poses for only $ 4. 50 plus 50 cents for postage an<t handling. See back supplements E, J, K, anc:t L for other illustrations of scenes available from this excellent motion picture. All 68 scenes for $ 29. 00 plus $ I. 50 for postage and hanClllng.
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GW-8
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be sure to lncl_ude for poatagP. and handling with all orders. ll postage and handling is 11ot includea unaer an offer, .then Juat add 2~~ with all orders for lese than ~ phot<>!J. Add 3~ with orders for 6 to 10 photos and adif 40~ for postage and handlingwlthallordersforllormorephotos. Please list second choices with all oraers.
SEND ALL ORDERS TO MOVIE STAR NEWS, 212 EAST 14th STREET, N. Y.C., N. Y. 10003
screaming and kicking release of tensi.on coUld welil be a social inconvenience, even supposing that it were generally understood aind tolerated, so they provided a 'safe' fOll'lll of hwnan contact that enabled sufferers eventuaUy to accept a world inhabited by fellow beings, where otherwi5e t:hey might have withdrawn into a personal state of isolation_ In AJ.la,n King's verity-type film, an hysterical young girl shouts her resentment a•nd •tries to fa.sh ou~ witlh arms and legs while She is held by a member of t:he staff. He sits on the floor behilild her, havi:ng grabbed her bands and crossed her arms over her chest, in sllraitjacket fashfon, aind he wraps his legs around her thighs. In time, and 111ot witlhout sweat, he achieves his pucpose. The girl has been prevented from doing harm ro herself or to others. King adopted the technique of first establishiong rapport at the treatment centre, so thait the cameras would be accepted and 111ear-enough dis.regarded. Not smpris.imgly, the few signs of embarrassment come from 1tJhe therapists rather than their patients. The considerable footage in the completed film was culled from much more, the product of five weeks of shooting, amd there is a trace of storyline to show how a crisis of emotJions is allowed to buirld up and then is used as am outlet: facing up to life, as it were, and c.ry.ing one's way through to a sa•ted, sad but possibly wise, acceptance of life's hard terms. Lnevi•tably the spectator becomes illlvolve<i: too mudi and too easHy, in my opinion. It is hardly appropriate to use such a film for the cathartic release of drama. One should be required not merC<'lY to care, but to comprehend in as mll<!h. detaU as possible tlhe nature of the _treatment. As presented, tlhmtly and with a lllmimum of explanation, the effect is so ambi8lJous •that sometimes the therapists seem aggressive. Where the ohildren aire at ooe and same moment being held and provoked, it would surely have been apt to have some form of narration, explaining over-and-above the emotional impact that the provocation bas a sallutary outcome. We should ireally be constrained to tlhink rationaMy about the purfJOSe and effect, rather than permitting our own emotions •to have a vicarious little workout a.s we watch. I should hazaird a· guess that what I complain about is tlbe automatic product of 4lhe contemporary televisioo-documentary sta.te of mind (the film was originalJy made for TV but rejected: as to that, the muoh-publicised four-tetJter word is the one you'd expect, and the 'haarowing' aspect is nowhere near as l!II'eat as you might have been led to suppose); television documentaries often tend, alas, to sensationalise as a matter of course, a:nd this one needed more than most to preserve the spectator's 'cool'. Nevertheless, within its own fra.ught idiom it is manifestly cO'llscientlious, and, on account of its subject matter, it is a film of importance. GORDON GOW
54
GONE WITH THE WIND
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Victor Fleming's 'Gone With the Wind', now released in 70mm Directed by Victor Flemio2. Produced by David 0 Selznick. Screenplay by Sidoe)' Howard from the oovd by Marearet Mitchdl. Directors of photo· graphy, Enaest Haller and Ray Reooahao. Editors, Hal Kem and James Newcom. Music, Max Steiner. Desi1ner, William Cameron Memie5. 70 mm. Metrocolor. Cert A. 220 mins. Rhett But/er, CLARK GABLE; Scarlet O"Hara, VIVIEN LEIGH; Melanie, OLIVIA de HAVIL· LAND; Ashley, LESLIE HOWARD; Mammy, HATTIE McDANIEL: Prissy, BUTTERFLY McQUEEN; Gerald O'Hara, THOMAS MITCHELL; Jonas Wilkerson, VICTOR JORY; Suellen O'Hara, EVELYN KEYES; Frank Kennedy, CARROLL NYE; Aunt "Pittipat", LAURA HOPE CREWES; Doctor Meade, HARRY DAVENPORT; Belle Watling, ONA MUNSON.
By
a painstaking shot-by-shot remasking job, Gone With the Wind has been converted to the proportions of the 70 mm. frame, with hardly any disruption of the visual compositions. The success of this part of the operation could not be illustrated better than in the memorable shot where Rhett Butler is standing behind the seated Scarlett O'Hara, during a night of insomnia, and has seized her head between his powerful hands, kneading and pressing, in an effort to blot out her obsession with the more gentlemanly Ashley Wilkes. There is Vivien Leigh's fragile-seeming face in centre-screen, edged on either side by the moving hands in their immaculate white cuffs: most stylish and dramatic. As Rhett says, 'I'll smash your skull like a walnut,' a small creaking and crunching is heard, doubtless from the chair on which she is sitting, but suggestive enough to make one fear for a second that her skull is giving way already. After close on thirty years, and making allowances for language a touch too florid to bridge the decades and a slightly too rapid delivery of the dialogue, the style survives very well, juggling its way 'twixt realism and formalism. Time and blow-ups have done the colour no good: often there is a washed-out look, and occasionally some distracting fuzz, and I cannot deny that such things are irksome. But filmic virtues remain, especially when the designs of William Cameron Menzies
are stretching the conventions of the rr.edium. That wooden fence against a backcloth of red, to indicate the distant burning of Atlanta, as Rhett leaves Scarlett with the pregnant Melanie on her hands, and declares in his tough-sentimental way that he is off to join the fight· ing men; and the three-dimensional foreground silhouettes as a blazing building collapses or as Scarlett gazes with fortitude toward the distant vista of Tara; these are images that have cleaved to the mind over the years, and they lose very little when seen again in an era of more inventive cinema which nevertheless has frequent recourse to the precepts of the Hollywood past. And when the throwback styles crop up today in a mindless defiance of progress, it isn't often that they carry through their traditional style with the assurance of Gone With the Wind. For all its size and length, and its shuffling of directors, it does have a unity. Then the characters themselves, whipping through their sundry emotions, have time over the sprawling but never slewfooted distance to be truly human, if writ rather large. Scarlett's wilfulness and strength is not unrelated to the hippie age, while Rhett's materialism is touchingly mitigated by his very sloppiness as he adapts himself to a stratified society. And Melanie, seeing no evil but being no fool, is the strongest of them all. Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable (coasting with easy star-power) and Olivia de Havilland need very little tolerance at this remove in time: they're just a mite old-fashioned in their acting, but damned good all the same. Likewise, however encapsulated, the conflict between ingrained snob values and a well-meant rebellion that brought a certain nastiness in its wake, is a lasting problem. It has as much bearing today as it did at the time of the American Civil War. Steeped in romance, it rears its troubled head and never lets us rest comfortably in the byways of nostalgia. GORDON GOW
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OPINION OF THE PEOPLE Points On Vietnam In refere,nce to your July 12 editorial "Cautious Moves In South Vietnam," I would like to state my disagreement on several points. First, you say that "Too large an increase of troops would require partial mobilization of the nation's reserve forces, a serious step." That such a mobilization would be a "serious step" is quite true. Yet, many r&Serves are now near combat readiness, which reflects the intent and scheme of the Johnson administration tion to provide readily for future escalation. Combat use of the reserve troops now or sometime in the future would merely reflect the increasingly greater impact of the war. Second, you also favor caution against troop buildup because of the possibility of the election of a new government. However, it appears ljkely the m.i).itacy coalition will stand a strong chance of winning the September elections. The militarists now have a strong tie to the United States a,nd their probable victory in September would leave little chance of our being ordered out of Vietnam. Lastly, and connected with the previous thought, it appears that "the political air" will not be clearer at the end of the Se~mber elections if the militarist coalition takes power. Moreover, there will still exist the same attitude among the
Vietnam'ese that the French in all their years in Vietnam could not alter, and that is apathy among the people. It is this which will eventually make our sta)' in Vietnam longer. Obviously, we must be cautious in the extent of troop escalation, but we must remember these additional troops will be i ,n vol v e d in pacification maneuvers as well as combat situations, and it is high time something be done about the understructure of Vietnamese society as well as its geographical integrity. I feel maximum troop deployment is the only certain way of shortening our stay in Vietnam. Steve.n Adams Evanston
Vivien Leigh Memory Back in 1960, Vivien Leigh, starring here at the Blackstone, sponsored me for a Gu g gen he i m fellowship. I showed her some photography of mine of Carl Sandburg and scenes of Chicago, as well as a cable from Dr. Tom Dooley asking me to join him in Laos. Because ¡she believed in the marvelous work Dr. Dooley was doing as well as believing in giving fellow artists a helping;hand, she did all she could in the direction of Only letters with names and addresses will be considered for this column. Signatures will be withheld on request. letters can¡ not be acknowledged or returned and ere aubied to editing.
gaming monies for my trip to Laos. Thereafter a smattering of correspondence ensued. She took back to England a photo of mine of Michigan Av. which she found "particularly enchanting." She said she would hang it back home so ~he could always _have a little of Chicago always around. Vivien Leigh loved Americans and the American V(ay of life, and it is fitting that she was Scarlett O'Hara in the movie of that great novel about America. I OWi'. a lot to this grand actress from across the sea, for all she tried to do for me. Dooley died, and the Laos trip was cancelled; but the belief Vivien Leigh had in me is a precious thing. Her death stuns and saddens me,. as it must the many whose paths crossed with hers at one time, to the many she lent her help and encouragement. The last letter I received from her ends with, "I am feeling very much recovered now, and enjoying the most relaxing atmosphere of my co1mtry borne here in England, which is most beautiful this time of year." One can only muse that at least she died in her beloved England. She will be remembered as long as there are kleig lights around. And she will never be "Gone With Thi! Wind," because there are no winds that strong. God bless her gentli; soul. Gene Lovitz
;OPENS IN LONDON
'G
With Wind':
··-:~- ..cy Production, Fo .,.Ag~ A
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By R:.iymond R. Cof y @ 1972 Chicago Daily r.cw>
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· Even in its sb0rtcnel1 ver· sion the show, which the producers hope to take to America next year, seems to 1.a~t almost as Ion~ as the Civil War itself. . And toward i11e md, the audience has sit thr0ug~ one of ~ ,. those terrll>• .' .. cute" b~ts by a \ S-year-oUI whv winds up .• convincing that W· . C. · Fields was r 01 t about all kids. ,,1g R.111 For a 11 1 .;•eaknesscs, "Gone With th, w. .u" b ilmost cer· , lain to enl(t) a long run here b e c a u s imprcssario Harolll Fielding ,.,.ows his market well. Wiseiv ;nose io open the show co1~ u;rently with the arriva1 •• e t11urist season when • , ,\ln b crammed with p~opi< who are less diff\· cult to please. . ~ Anci ;, vast ,,,,\es force 1S , alreac:, out signi .;,; up "coach parties" _ bus .oads of people · from the provinces who get theater tickets as part of a package visit to London. Other Critics ' This is what some of the Lon· don critic::. r.ad to say about the show: The Guardian: "But finally 11 ,
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LONDON. ENGLAND - A iavishly produ, rm, · version of "Gon,, With the Wind " opencu <at 1 ·ui La. ater Wednesday night. The show, mercifully trimmca this is a show 11. \\on;cn p1 oaut'from the original version, which tion values become a substitutr ran nine hours in Japan is Ifor musical content ano m 1 -splendidly staged, ~luct< the .<iuY,.~~<,;S. m ' J• 1 Thcrr is a hnr ;p :J!I olrl woorl-1 t1rntion manr bv thr ~,., ·· r burning st ram lo(;omotive that musical over the past r w <•t chugs onst age, and i:he lighting adcs al'e blithely 1gn< , ed. ! :r and sound effects used w re- afraid I. ere's infinitely Jes: 11 create the sacking of Atlanta this 'Gone With the Wind' than arc superbly spectacular. meets the eye." The whole production is won- The Daily Telegraph: '·Har- I drously engineered, Joe Lay- ?id Rome's overcrowded score 1 ton's direction is stylish and the is tuneful but lacks var1echoreography (also by Layton) ty... : None of the expensive is sprightly and imaginative trunmings, nor all the choruses , enough. contributed by old southerner:. • or people of Atlanta give subMusic Deficiency stance or reality to a wearily But this is supposed to be a p r o I o n g e d kitchenmaid ro. musical and what it is most ma nee." '.conspicuously lacking is any The Financial Times: "It is a memorable music. very fine musical indeed thougiJ There are more !h.an 20 songs it lacks one important qualib y composer-lyr1c1st Harold ty ... There isn't a really Ro~e but they all run . from tuneful song in the show, nor a ordinary to less-than-ordinary. lyric worth the bother of catch- [ ~h~ .only one. with any real feel- Ing the-words of." " mg is "Bonnie Gone," a sort of ~ · ' Negro spiritual sung by Mam- · Des Moines Tribune Pag my (Isabelle Lucas) and the Thurs., May 4, 1972 .company when Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara's daughter
fdie~he book by
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Horton Foote faithfully follows the epic civil war novel of Mar- ~ · garet Mitchell, but it is plodding and humorless. ' Harve Presnell (as Butler) , sings well, especially given the 1'material1 and he looks like : Rhett, handsome and rugged (remember Clark Gable in the :movie). But where Rhett is supposed to be a dashing, cyn- • ical war profiteer, a rakehell who hangs out at Belle Wat-' .} i n g ' s whorehouse, Presnell :comes over like an "aw-shucksAndy Griffith" sort of charae•ter. June Ritchie (~s Scarlett) is :1ovely, is sure to remind people of Vivien .Leigh in the movie, · and does better by the selfish, scheming, scandalous Scarlett .
~ pretty
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A Southern Girl
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Exerts Old Spell By JOHN CROSBY "<Jone With the Wind" la the atory of a Bouth•m ctr!. Oh, boJ', la It ever the slot!' ot a Bout.hem 1irll Prom the moment when !& opem with Scarlett O'Hara flapplna her bll areen •:res at a couple ot Soutbem 'beaus Oil tbe porch of the old plantaUoo, Tara, to the •114 (Ulree boura and forty.five minute. later>, Jookinl at the old plantatl9n from a · vantase point aufllelenUJ' far aW&J' IO that. one can - the whole house tr&llc&UJ too blood)' Mamnlf: "Yo hush :VO ~ota•&JofWethatbaa mout, chlle, befo de Lawd done vanllbed, Sc&rlett la bardll' of! the &trill :vou blind.• 'nlen there's the acrecn tor more Ulan a minute at overaeer who comea back aa a carpetbaner and tr1ea to bUJ' Tara a t.lme. Both David o. Selmtck, who who walked •traiaht out or "Uncle produced It, and Sldne:v Howard Tom's Cabin." To say nothtns ot who wrote the acrftnpla:v. were Belle WatllnJ, the town madam, lnalatcnt on hewl.D1 cloae to Mar· tallllnl to Melanie: "It ain't fttten garet Mitchell'• novel and Miss tar you to be seen talltln' to me. Mltc.hdl never Jet Scarlett out or And If :vou llU8 me on the street, [ her allht tor "17 Jons. ~ mat- YOU don't. have to ..,. hello. I'll :ter or ract, 1n the . , . lbns UDderstand•• lenl1b ot the book, 1 can onlJ rerer/.a Ca.I member one auatalmd scene with· But Vivien Lellh Is a marvcloUI out Scarlett rtsht In the middle or the acene. and that occurred mlat.ure ot tire and allure and after I.be ot Scarlett'• UtUe bltcherJ". Clark Gable played Rhett I lirL Her old Jf..,... m&mmJ' and Butler to the hilt not onlJ' m this Melanie dilCu.as a ICCD& that waa picture but lll06t or hl5 lite. Olivia apparent)J' too pa!DfUJ' to write de 11.avllland Is Jove)J', cenUe and n.n.&hand. It'a about Sl:ilrlett but a little unreal as Melanie. cbut t.brD Melanle la a little unreal). she'• not there. ' lnl.le Boward Is the very model of l'M 11'.,. F,.;,.·. Aj.r Soutben> centllit:r u A£hleJ' I can recall mild.. ~i'uc!Mna di- Wiikes. "Oooe With the WIUd" Is st.lll rected at t.he IDOJI•. w~n It waa lint rel.....S t~·1iwo :vean about !Ive times the picture "Ben Bur" la. I don't feel twentJ·"'O •co - - ~~· no scenea ot Civil War .b attie«: W•U, ~ )'<!&I'll Older, thO\lih. weren't atlJ' ·ln1 'the book. The © 1961.N. Y. /lcrald Tribu•w: Inc. n ewer and. the ttader lollo• the
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erate officer• dashing, ari•tocratic, with yellow silk IWlbes; Union officers...prosaic, bourgeoi•, no sashes; mdllnfaced black mammy-"yas'm," "•ho sho," "·'tain't jitti1t'!"-devoted and comic (Hat., tie McDaniel) ; high-spiri.ted Southern belle tossing curia, pouting, often exclaiming "fiddle-deedee !" (Vivien Leigh) ; flighty, fluttery, feathery maiden aunt (Laura Hope Crews); burning of Atlanta in full color_____. horses plunging. honies neighing, hordes of costume extras rushing past camera, towers of flame, more silhouettes; Passion for The Soil aptly symbolif.ed by close-up of fist of squire of Tara (Thomas Mitchell in his jtliciest vein) dribbling bits of H; noble, fair-haired, 'sad-eyed Southern gent ( Leslie Howard) contrasted with cynical. dark-haired, bold-eyed adventurer (Clark Gable in terrific ascot ties); in short, all the humors and heartaches and glamour and stereotypes of women'smagat.ine fiction. Such is Gone With The Wind, a reliable old prop. erty now in its fourth (or is it fifth?) international revival, a masterpiece of I ·kitsch that I found still entertaining after twenty I years. It's corny and blowsy and phony, the slide trombone in the cinematic orchestra, and yet it is not boring. Why not? I can i think of two reasons. (1) It keeps moving; if you pon't like it. wait a minute. It has the brisk tempo that Hollywood movies used to have in the Thirties. How lively and elliptical they were compared to the pedestrian languors of our fihns today; it now seems to take our directors twice as long to make their points. I this is not because they have more to 18Y; on the contrary, they nope, by laboring each scene, 9> disguise its emptinesa, .like a bore who tries to save a story by elaboration. (The clever bore cuts it short.) I Victor Fleming wae no great shakes as a director; I can't imagine even a French einia.ate pressing for a Fleming week at the Ci1timat~que. But the late Margaret Mitchell crammed so much incident and characterization into her novel tba.t Mr. Fleming wati forced to step lively merely to keep ahead of the j uggernaut of her invention. The quality or thia invention is not tine, but there Is considerable of it. (2) G WTW le an unlikely mixture of romanticism and realism. If you're going to be romantic, I think you should go all out and let · have Ii r1gbi between the
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eyes. GWTW wallows in &e11timentality, underlining every heartthrob with all the resources of music and photogra· phy, both exploited at their most vulgar level. It has the courage of its bad taste. At the same time, it is quite touch· minded. Scarlett and Rhett are stock characters, but they are also individuals; ahe is selfish, greedy, unscrupulous, and tbeole qualities are not glossed owr, '
:~ :,';,'~J~anca~~:t:~::!'°!~ his contemptuous remarks ·about the high-minded gentleman played by Leslie Howard. the very pattern of a romantic · hero, are refreshing throup out. For all its heavy Victorian romanticism, GWTW ie more realistic than any of our modem full-colored. epectaculara. lta pec)ple-except for Melanie. a Dickensian heroine so good it ia painful-d'on't all fall.into either the black or white moral slots, but are more in the grey range, like real people. In this respect, G WTW ia also superior • to the Tennelisee Williams uncolored epectacuJar-suddeal11, Lui Summer, The Fugitive Kimi- which divide the Saved from the Damned with Calvinistic rigor. In SLS and TFK one is told and told repeatedly and with great literary resource that Clift, Brando and Matrnani are Saved while Hepburn and Jory·are Damned. The dialogue in GWTW ia leaa literary, but at least there ia some doubt as to whether the heroine is a bitcbor ra\jler, as to whether she ie onlr a~tch. Thia makes it more intereeting, more grown-up. Adult entertainment, that's what I like about Go1te With The Wiftd.
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- NCV. YORK J
The 'Real' Tara Inspires Visions of Scarlett and Rhett
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Margaret Mitchell set "Gone With the Wind" in the community she knew best-Jonesboro, Ga. At right, her family's plantation home, which served as her model for Tara, bears faint resemblance to the Hollywood version.
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
ONESBORO, GA.-Eight years ago Herb Bridges, a letter carrier from Newnan, in the rural countryside about 40 miles from here, got 路into . a friendly argument <>ver who played the role of Belle Watling in the movie "Gone With the Wind." Bridges's memory turned out to be better .than his friend's; he had recalled cofrl!ctly that the role was played by Ona Munson. The dispute rekindled
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UNDA GREENHOUSE is a staff reporter
fw The
Time~.
Br 1 interest novel and movie, which he-like virtually every路 one in this area and almost> everyone everywhere else, too-had read and seen in his youth, and so Bridges began to collect editions of "Gone With the Wind." Today he owns 100 copies of the novel in 26 languages from 36 countriE!$1 including rare pirated editions froin Mexico, Turkey, Greece and Argen路 tina. Bridges's collection also includes dozens of posters that .publicized the movie in various p~ of the world. ' His major frustration, he says, has been
}lis failw'e to find a RusSiaJ\ edition, which he is ce~in exists because Mrs. Nikita Khrushchev, on her visit to the Un'ited States, declared that she had read the novel three times. Bridges's collectiQn of "Gone With the Wind" memorabilia is said to be the largest in the world, although, of course, he does not have a great many competitors. Still, interest in "G.W.T.W.," as it is known to it$ fanciers, is remarkably keen 37 years after the novel first appeared. Atlantic路 Uttle, Brown has just published
"GWTW: The ~aking pf 'Gone .With the Will<i' " by Gavin Lambert, which Is selling bri,skly, and Arch Gary, president of the Atlanta Gricy Line, says more tourists ask to see "Gone With the Wind" locations than anything else in <the state of Georgia. What most Geo.rgia tourists do not know as they set off across the countryside in search of magnolia trees and white-coluinned _plantatiqn houses, is that there really is an authentic "Gone ,With the Wind" location. It's Continued on Page 14
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right here, a little country town on the verge o( being swallowed up by metropolitan At)anta but als~happily for G.W.T.W. buffs-valiantly striving to reclaim its heritage. Historical Jonesboro, Inc., a local organization which sei:ks to make this town "worthy of the na:me---'Home of Gone With the Wind,'" is leading the drive. Meanwhile, although visitors cannot find here an antebellum Williamsburg or a real-life version of the movie set, there is a powerful evocation of the mise en scene of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara just a cannon's shot from thriving glassand-steel Atlanta, a city that has left the Civil War far behirid. Jonesboro's rightful claim to being "Gone With the Wind" territory is beyond question. Margaret· Mitchell based the setting for. her novel on this town and in the book's 1,037 pages one may follow the story of the destruction of the South mirrored in the transformation of Jonesboro. The commwiity is first seen as a prosperous tounty seat sun:ounded by tlie majestic homes of wealthy plantation owners; it then beco.Qles war-torn during the last battle in Sherman's Atlanta campaign, and finally, with the onset of the Reconstruction period, Jonesboro is overrun with scallawags and carpetbaggers and degenerates to a .point aJ!ltlY described by the fictional Will Benteen when he tells Scarlett O'Hara tfiat Jonesboro "ain't p.o pla~ for a lady these days."
THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1973
There's a ·'Real' Tara And a 'Real' Twelve Oaks In Jonesboro, Ga.
' .l'\ccuTate Scarlett, Rhett Butler, Will Benteen and the other characters who made the book spectacularly popular were, needle~s to say, Ma~aret Mitchell's creations. But in all other details. historic and geographic, the novel is so meticu: lously accurate a portrait of Jonesboro and the surrounding area that anyone who passes through here finds it irresistible to pretend the story was all true. Before setting out on a tour of Jonesboro, a few words about how Margaret Mitchell came to set her story here. (I am indebted to Gavin Lambert's book for many of the details). T«<> begin with, Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta in 1900, the daughter of a lawyer. Her father, Eugene Mitchell, had been president of the Atlanta Historical Society, and so Peggy, as she was known to her friends, grew up in an atmosphere steeped in the history and romance of the Confederacy. (Nevertheless, as Lilmbert reports with relish, she never knew the South ha!f lost the Civil War until her mother broke the news to .her when she was 10 years old.)
Choosing the Setting Margaret Mitchell worked· for four years as a feature writer for The Atlanta Journal, and then, in 1926, feeling restless as the result of confinement due to an -ankle injury, started wor~ on scattered chapter~ of a novel about the Civil War. She chose as the seWng for her novel the countryside she had known since chHdhood. An old plantation house outside Jonesboro, which still stands and is known locally as the Fitzgerald Place, was once the home of her great-grandfather, Philip fitzgerald. In 'her novel, Margaret Mitchell gave Fitzgerald Place the fictional name of "Tara, and it became the family home of Scarlett O'Hara. She placed Tara five miles outside of town. Twelve Oaks, the home of Scarlett's beloved A·shley Wilkes, was the next
The house (above) on which Twelve Oaks is based, is today occupied by Senator Herman Talmadge. Tara crops up 28 times in the local telephone book. plantation down the road. When Ashley writes to his wife Melanie from a· Yankee prison camp in the novel, he addresses his letter to "Twelve Oaks, Jonesboro, Ga." Nine years after Margaret Mitchell started work on the novel the still unfinished manuscript was moldering in envelopes when a Macmillan editor, who happened to be v;isiting Atlanta, heard about it through a mutual friend and asked the author to show him what she had written. Reluctantly, the manuscrip~ was given to the editor. He read it on the train back to New York and made an immediate offer to publish it. Macmillan planned to print 10,000 copies of the book for publication in May, 1936, but word of the novel's scope and drama had already reached
a clamoring public and publication was delayed for two months while the press run was boosted to 50,000 copies. On publicatiop., "Gone With the Wind" was pooh-poohed by a few highbraw critics, but hailed as a masterpiece by the majority. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1937 and within a year sold more than a million copies: David 0. Selznick bought the movie rights for $50,000-surely one of Hollywood's greatest bargains. The movie starred Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, the dashing, cynical native of Charleston wh.o consorts openly with the enemy, scoffs at patriotic ideals, marries Scarlett O'Hara and finally walks out on her ·with the famous line "My dear. I don't give a damn"; Vivien Leigh played Scarlett, the sheltered Southern belle who fights for survival as iher life of
plantation ease crumbles -around her; Le51ie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, a sen· sitlve, impractiC:al idealist and object of Scarlett's mi~placed passion; and Olivia de Havitland as Melanie, the reticent and ladylike wife of Asbley, who dies young after spendin& a hard me in devotion to her insecure husband and her belatedly appreciative sister-in-law Scarlett. It cost $4.25-million to pro· d\lce, has since grossed $120-million, won IO Academy Awards and has been seen by ciluntless millions of people (25 million in the first six months alone) in seven maj.or releases. The picture -lasts 3 hours and 40 minutes, and for many y~ars it held the record of being the longest ever released in the Western Hemisphere. Whatever its merits as literature~ on the level of pure storytelling ''Gone
of memorabilia); and the 12-room Robert McCord plantation house which will be renovated as a working planta.tion typical or antebellum up..countf1 Georgia. As one who spent a good part of her adolescence in search of Rhett Butle~", I was willing to make certain leaps of faith and imagination d1,1ring my explorations here in Jonesboro that might strike a more dispassionate traveler as excessive. For instance, even though I knew that the Fayetteville Academy, where Scarlett received her meager for· mal education, had in real life been blown down by a cyclone in 1892, I still enjoyed the drive of a few miles down State Route 54 to see Fayetteville's main square, graced by a 148year-old county courthouse, where the school building once stood: (Margaret Mitchell referred to the school as "Fayetteville . Female Academy." Even Plantation Homes Survive though the school in fact was co-ed In Jonesboro today, the blocks in its day, some local residents insist around the old railroad station down· that it was for girls only-a measure town have changed little in the past 70 of the novel's iinpact.) And even though I couldn't find a years, and a number of the plantation homes outside 01' town have survived historical marker on the spot on the fairly well. One of them, for example, McDonough Road in Rough and Ready is the beautifully maintained home of where Rhett abandoned Scarlett and Senator Herman Talmadge, the Georgia Melanie on their flight from burning Democrat. The Talmadge home is be- Atlanta, I did manage to track down lieved to have been Margaret Mitchell's what I know must have been the place, model for Twelve Oaks. In the last few in decorously renamed Mountain View, years, -townh<>OSe and condominium a small city between Jonesboro and complexes. have: sprung up like cotton Atlanta. On State Route 3, a few In the red clay fields on the outskirts thousand yards south of the Fulton of the city. The town's population is County line, there stands a shabby now about 5,000. And Clayton County, . white cabin on the site of what was of which Jonesboro is the seat, js the the Rough and Ready Tavern, an eating 13th fastest growing county in the place for passengers on the Macon and country; its "population at the time of Western Railroad, Atlanta's only link the 1970 census was 98,000, with the with the outside world during the siege current .estimate at 124,000. Property of the summer of 1864. values have skyrocketed accordingly The real Tara, the Fitzgerald Place, One downtown acre, that sold for $400 five years ago, is now on the market for $95,000. Jonesboro has long been aware of the use Margaret Mitchell made of it. The name Tara, for example, has been adopted throughout Clayton CountyTara Auto Sales, Tara Furniture Co., • • • Tara Mobile Home Park; I counted 28 Taras in the local telephone book. U.S. . •. to Jonesboro, you don't abso41, the county's main north-south road, lutely have to read "Gone With is called Tara Boulevard. as it skirts the the Wind" first, but the ~P will western edge of Jonesboro. mean more if you do. The book, It was not until 1968, however, that on sale as a p~ ia ¥irtttally a group of Jonesboro citizens got toevery drugstore in Jonesboro, Is gether, convinced the time had come still marvelously good reading, to take steps to preserve the town's even if it never was great literaheritage, and they formed an organizature. tion called Historical Jonesboro, Inc. A good map of Clayton County This group commissioned an archiwill help you navigate the back tectural survey of the area and within roads. An indexed map is avail· a year had succeeded in placing as able for 75 centt from the Eller many as 30 properties on Georgia's News Center in a big shopping State Historic Register and the National center in Fore9t Park, next to Register of Historic Places. Such listJonesboro. ings mean that th~e buildings cannot be tom down or substantlllly altered, The drive to Jonesboro (a car Is essential) should take you no although as Gail Talmadge; Historical Jonesboro's director of restoration and more than 30 minutes from downpreservation, says, ''There's nothing to town Atlanta. Take Interstate 75 keep them from falling down or rotsouth to the Griffin exit (U.S. 41). ting"-as a few of. the outlying plantaThere are about two dozen motels tion houses are very near to doing. The in Clayton County, including an organization's goal is to acquire as attractive 180-room Holiday Inn many of these buildings as possible, that opened this year at the Intertake care of thf!"m and open them to section of 1-75 and U.S. 41. It serves a buffet lunch where, for the public. So far, it has made three $1.90, you can fill up on all the major acquisitions: the old railroad black-eyed peas, greens and other station, built in 1867 to replace the one obligatory Southern delicacie3 you burned down In Kilpatrick's cavalry raid of Aug. 20, 1864; the old county can eat. Jonesboro's other main jail at King and McDonough Street, eating spot is the Wisteria on North Main Street. which features built in 1869 to replace yet another c&.liualty of the war (the jail will ultiSouthern Chinese cooking (that's South as in Georgia, not Canton). mately house .Herb Bridges's collection
with the Wind" ls. magic. New generation of teen-age girls discover -it a· fresh every decade. 1 myself fast saw the r:lovie three years ago, and the sigh that went up from the young girls in the theater when Rhett first cocked his eye impertinently at Scarlett was every bit as heartfelt-nineteenseventies' cynicism notwith11tandingas the sigh I released in 1961 or my mother in 1940. According to Lambert, the glare of publicity following the success of "Gone With the Wind" so appalled its author that she and her husband com· pletely withdrew from public life. Margaret Mitchell never wrote another novel and then one d!ly in August, 1949, as .she was preparing to cross a downtown Atlanta street, she was run down by an automobile and later died of injuries.
If You Go
THE NEW Y)RK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1971
is a far cry from David Selznicles romantic mansion in the movie, yet infinitely more authentic. Standing· at the corner of Tara and Folsom RQads; , in the southern "panhandle" of the county, the Fitzgerald Place is ;m L· shaped, almost Victorian looking, clapboard house, with a sagging front porcb--a fypt'Cal G&ikfa tifrmnouse WhICn, l;lollywood notwiths~ding, is precisely' what Margaret Mitchell meant Tara to be. Dates From 1820's The original back portion of the house dates from the eighteen-twenties. The front portion was built in 1873 to replace a section destroyed by fire. One of the plantation's original outbuildings is across the street. From genealogical records in the files of Historical Jonesboro, I learned that Philip Fitzgentld, alm~t certainly Margaret Mitchell's model for Scarlett O'Hara's Irish-born father, Gerald, came to Georgia from County Tipperary in 1825. He married Eleanor McGhan, a well-bred woman of Maryland Catholic stock (Scarlett's mother Ellen was a Catholic from Savannah), and by 1861 owned 35 slaves and a thriving cotton plantation of 2,527 acres on both sides of the Flint River in Clayton and Fayette Counties. ~ike Gerald in the novel who die5, soon after the war, a sad and broken man, Philip Fitzgerald. prospered after the war and died in 1880 with the family's fortunes intact.) The Fitigerald's daughter Annie married John Stephens, a captain in the Confederate Army, in 1863. Their daughter May Belle married Eugene Mitchell, a prominent Atlanta: lmvyer who became Margaret Mitihell's father. Since the Fitzgerald Place is ptivate properfy-uninvlted visitors are distinctly not welcome and since, frankly, it doesn't look like much, there are those here who believe' that what Jonesboro needs is a life-size model of Tara, copied from the movie and open to the paying public. One of those so convinced is Arch Gary, (he head of Atlanta Gray Line and a former member of the Georgia state Legislature, who says: "If Jonesf:>oro's going to be a success, it's going to hav'e to marry 'Gone With the Wind.' I(' tMy build
Mitchell, who has since joined the board of directors of Historical Jonesboro. "Selznick's' plantation houses looked like suburban Baltimore and Philadelphia country estates. Tara was a working pl;i.ntation. If it is portrayed, it should be portrayed as such--e plain upper middle-class large farm . . . I will not help in building houses that are millionaires' country estates." Gail Talmadge, who was herself raised on a plantatiop in a neighboring county, agrees. "This wasn't tidewater Virginia or the New Orleans coast," she says. "There was never a brick Greek revival house in the entire county. We could have gotten together and built a Tara and made it into a Coney Island hot-dog stand or a place to see live alligators, but we just don't want that. Too many people-north, east, south and west-see us in a light that just wasn't true. Our only purpose is to bring out our real history and to make it readily accessible." Mrs. Talmadge says that the McCord plantation house, with its nicely balanced twin parlors and its unplastered interior walls, is as close as it is possible to get to Margaret Mitchell's Tara, described in "Gone With the Wind" as "a clumsy sprawling building ... even when new, it wore a look of mellowed years . . . The house had been built acc0rding to no architectural plan whatever, with extra rooms added where and when it seem.ed convenient, but, with Ellen's care and attention, it gained a 'charm that made up for its lack of design.''
The movieland Tara, above, a far cry from the "clumsy sprawling buiiding" Margaret Mitchell described in her novel, was constructed on the M.G.M. lot. Outdoof' scenes were shot elsewhere in California, where the soil was tinted red to e red' tlay of Georgia.
Culver Pictures
anything o'ther than what was in the movie, they're OJlt of business. People are going to say they were cheated." For lack of a· convincing Tara to show to tourists, Gary has been .z:unrting a $14.50-a-person "Gone With the Wind Pil~rimage" which makes the 115-mile round trip from Atlanta to Madison and Covington, Ga: These are charming old towns whose qnly drawback ·is that, as Gary sadly admits, they have n,othing to do With "Gone
With the Wind.'' Gary says he would happily raise the $1-million to $1.5-million he estimates it would take to build Tara from scratch, if he could get clear title to the right to use the name. That right has been carefully guarded by Stephens Mitchell, an Atlanta lawy!!r who is Margaret Mitchell's brother and her closest surviving relative (she and her husband, the late John Marsh, had no children).
In a letter written three years ago to Margery Middlebrooks, the founding chairman of Historical Jonesborc, Stephens Mitchell declared that his sister "wanted everything authentic. She wanted every~ing' true to histori· cal facts. She did not want places of her relative connected with the book. She wanted nothing commercial.'' "Replicas of houses put in the motion picture would be bad, and what is more, would be ridiculous," wrote
Feel of Countryside Even without Tara, it is possible to get the feel of the pre-Civil War countryside just by driving past the Fitzgerald Place -and on into the sparsely settled panhandle in the direction of Fayette County. Many of the roads are still unpaved, more suited to horseback or Jeep than modern cars, but you can see what Margaret Mitchell saw when she wrote of "a savagely red land, blood-colored after rains, brick dust in droughts, the best cotton land in the world.'' The red clay of north Georgia in the movie was actually the plain brown dirt vf the San Fernando Valley, spe-
xx dally tinted red for the outdoor shots. Other outdoor scenes were shot in Pasadena. Tara itself was constructed on the back lot at M.G.M. Among interesting historic places in Jonesboro itself are the Warren House, a fine old wooden building with a two-story porch at the corner of State Route 54 and West Mimosa Drive, and the Blalock or Johnson House at 155 Main Street. (Neither is open to public.) The Warren House was used as a headquarters and hospital by the 52d Illinois Regiment during the Battle of Jonesboro. Bullet holes in an inside wall support the local siory that a Confederate woman shot and killed a Yankee soldier on the stairwell, a legend that Margaret Mitchell apparently drew (}n when she has Scarlett shoot a plundering Yankee on the stairs of Tara. The Blalock House, as it is now called, was the home of Col. James F. Johnson, a dele· gate to the Georgia Secession Conven· tion in Milledgeville on Jan. 19, 1861. Aside from Senator Talmadge's home, it is the finest local example of th(! architecture of the period, with eight white colwnns rising two stories to an imposing cornice. Tucked under the cornice at the· second-story level, and ~heltered by it, is a porch that helps give the house its characteristic look. Another spot worth visiting, although it bears no relation to "Gone With the Wind," is Mundy's Mill, an 83-year-old working mill · that shells corn and grinds a pound of cornmeal a minute on an ingenious apparatus powered entirely by a 12-fciot-high waterwheel. There is not even an electric light bulb in the plaee. The mill, on the dirt Mundy's Mill Road between State Route 54 and U.S. 4l, gets a lot of business from local residents who think its authentic product-five pounds of meal for 60 cents--mak~ lighter, crunchier corn bread and fritters tlian the store-bought variety. Dolen Smith, the mill's manager, covered head to foot in sweet-smelling .cthtmeal, will be pleased to explain th~ mac~ery. A Crucial Battle Finally, there is the Confederate Cemetery downtown at North McDonough and John.son Streets. ,When I first read "Gone With the Wind," I confess that in my haste to get on with the story of Rhett and Scarlett I barely paid attention to the Battle of Jonesboro. However, this battle, on Aug. 3.1 and Sept. 1, 1864, was a crucial if inevitable factor in the fall of Atlanta and th1t defeat of the Confederacy. The fighting went on up and down the streets of Joneseboro as the local troops tried to save Atlanta's last re· maining railroad link with the rest of. the South. Union soldiers prevailed, however, and the tracks were cut on Sept. 1. Atlanta surrendered on Sept. 2, and General Sherman then proceded on his 300-mile march through Georgia. to the sea. The Jonesboro cemetery is actually the site of a mass, undifferentiated grave for hundreds of Confederate soldiers. Markers were finally erected in neat rows in 1934, and a monument in the middle of the graveyard bears the inscription: "They gave their lives to parry the final thrust at the heart of the Southern Confederacy." Yankee born and bred though I am, it was impossible not to feet moved by that line, and for a minute I was glad that Rhett and Scarlett had never actually lived to endure that final sadness. Yet-after a few days in Jonesboro--it is hard to believe for very long that they never really did.
ELLIOT NORTON WRITES:
Vivien Leigh One ol fet
Real Beauties ol Stage N ONE OF HER LAST Boston appearances, the la Vivien Leigh played a Grand Duchess pretending be a lady's maid in the musical comedy version ''Tovarich." She was aptly cast, for she had the abili1 to represent a duchess with the kind of grace one expec in such a character on the stage and the kind of hmni ity that would grace a duchess in a maid's station. And when the script req~d the duchess to try tap dance she could do that, t00,, and gracefully, an with a lot of excitement. As a "Efe'rious" actress nobod had ever thought t.o ask her to tap dance: she was dE lighted. She learned a hoofer's tolltine quickly, gleeful}~ _.._ _ and when she hoofed it was something t see. "Tovarich" was a second-rate shm . even after it had been feverishly rewrittei · and overhauled in Boston, but she lent i , the charm of her presence and her art not to mention her dark beauty. · Beauty is somehow or other alway£ thought of as a necessary attribute of the stars; but the fact is, few important actresses are or ever have been, beautiful. Elliot Nori- Miss Leigh was the exception.
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Moved Freely Between Stage, Screen She was apparently radiantly beautiful as Juliet to Laurence Olivier's Romeo in 1940. That production failed in New York in '40, but she impressed playgoers. A few years later, when she and Oli\rier (not yet Sir Laurence) alternated Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" and Shakespeare's "Ant.ony and Cleopatra" on Broadway, she was dazzling. Shaw's Cleopatra was described by the author as a "scratch kitten" of sixteen; Miss Leigh was vibrantly young and darkly pretty. As Shakespeare's heroine, who is twenty years older. she took on years and the cool personality of a. great hu8sy, bedmate of kings. Like the best act.ors and actresses of EnglJM.ll!._wbo JMt. jn • g1eat "ti n, sl1e nmveaDe.tween stage and s.c.reen .and between the classics and the modern drama freely. She served with the Old Vie when it was the preeminent classical company of London, playing most of the big roles in Shakespeare, but she was ready and willing when Tennessee Williams offered her the role of Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," and was so successful in it that she took over the movie role, too. In her last Boston appearance, as the abused wife of an unhappy Russian landowner in "Ivanov," she was rather overwhelmed by the role and by the play, which is the least attractive of all those written by the great Russian. Anton Chekov. The woman, Anna Petrovna, is a Jewess who had given lip her religion and her family to marry the young Ivanov who is now tired of her and of hiniself and of life.
Further Troubled by Illness In the central role, as Nicolai Ivanov, Sir Jol9 Gi gud failed to stir much sympathy: the character is ous. As Anna, who should be sympathetic, Miss
was not brilliant. That she was handicapped by quate rehearsals is likely. That she was further by illness is a possibility. That she had recurrent bouts with ill heal secret. 'lhese she didn't discuss; there were never any excuses for failure to act with full success, She wasn't a crybaby, though she might weU have been. It was given out that she had suffered from tuberculosis, and this was true. But she had ernotiorial ~ too, and these were grievous. More than once, she ended an engagement in a play because she couldn'.t go on: she had to be hospitalized. Her friends in the theater, who were d~eply devoted to her, maintained a stubborn Silence about her .problems. But some of the secrets were pretty well 1mown. In the last few years, when she took arif role in the films or on the $1:age, there was always the possibility that she might not be ab1e to last through the filming or for an extended run. Managers were always delighted to take her for whatever time and energy she could give, and grieved to $ee lier go when she had. t.o quit-as she did after six months of playing "Tovarich,". for example, or, in certain flhns. . · :;; . She was not really a great ac.t ress, but she --~a fine one, and a true star: ~.... grac~fql. se'!SW'e
and often aatifing.
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Scarlett O'Hara is Here with the Wind Last weekend when I found myself with a big swatch of reading time, I should no donbt have tackled something full of current socia:l significance. There are a lot of such hair-shirt books around. I could, for example; have subjected myself to all the bad news about old age from Simone de Beauvoir (The Coming of Age), or the terrors of suicide from A. Alvarez (The Savage God), or the endless beginnings of a long military career (Volume I of the George S. Patton papers). But it was too nice a weekend for such mournful self-improvement, and I turned in- ~,.. stead to Gone with the Wind. I could still remember when, as a young teen-ager, I finally got that great, fat volume away from other members of the family, curled up in an easy chair-and simply vanished for a week. This no doubt happened to practically everybody who read it then. At least it was taken for granted by my family that I could be counted on for days of gla:ied inattention until I finally came, halfway down page 1,037, to ''I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara.... After all, tomorrow is another day." _ It was one of my great childhood reading events, ;-;and I had to put Scarlett O'Hara right up there with Captain Horatio Hornblower and Tarzan of the Apes. I am happy to report that the old yarn is still packed with excitement and color. Rhett Butler has lost none of his dash, Scarlett none ofher compelling selfishness, and Ashley Wilkes is still a fink. But what I didn't expect-,-and certainly didn't remember-was a big load of social significance. If Gone with the Wind were published today, it would land smack in the middle of two major social movements of our time: black pride Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and women's liberation. Gone with the Wind would be denounced by every black leader in the country. It is patronizing, condescending and insulting to its childlike "darkies," who are fond of chitlins and taters and their beloved "white folks." The only black in the book who isn't a Stepin Fetchit cancature is Dilcey, and that's becavse Dilcey is proudly part Indian. (But her "wuthless" daughter, Dilcey f:'Xplains, is "all nigger" like her father.) My favorite sample ofM~ga~tt,,ulitchell's yuk-yuk watermelon humor is provided by Scarlett's mammy on the occasion when Rhett Butler asks for a peek at the red taffeta petticoat he has given her: ''Mist' Rhett, you is bad! Yeah-0, Lawd!" I caqjust imagine Miss Mitchell's 1972 editor saying, "Look here, Margaret, you better take out some of this stuff." On the other hand, Gone with the Wind was way ahead of its time on women's rights. Scarlett O'Hara is eloquent and convincing in the belief that she is as smart and capable as any man; that she has every right to go into business for herself and make money, and that women should not be condemned merely to get married and ¡bear children. Of course, everyone in her Old South society is outraged by her behavior, to which Scarlett's reply is a cheerful "Fiddle-dee-dee." Her independent defiance would put her in the front lines of the women's movement today. Happily, none of this social significance interferes with a great story. But it does make me wonder what Horatio Hornblower thinks about long wars in faraway places, and just where Tarzan stands on environmental pollution.
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Critics were asked not to review Metamorphosis, by Charles Dizenzo, at the American Place Theater, so I will only say that particularly in the second play, a dramatization of Kafka's famous short story of the man who turns into a cockroach, Mr. Dizenzo displays his fastdeveloping comic writing talent to considerable advantage.
Gone with the Wind Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
triumphant, a foot-stamping joy who talks when she sings and sings when she talks; a heartless bitch fuH of charm , humor and full-blooded determination, she never lets go of center stage, and this star part is given the full star treatment. In bold contrast, Harve Presnell is unbelievably bad-as a ·caricature of a bad performance, it's almost laughable-and ' he succeeds in conveying Rhett as a sleepwalking stick fi.gure. With the exception of Isabelle Lucas' wonderfully strong, soulful Mammy, the other char-
June .Ritchie as Scarlett O'Hara beats a Yankee soldier to the draw and does him in-in Joe Layton's spectacular stage musical production of "Gone with the Wind" at London's Theatre Royal. {Photo by Barnet Saidman)
Joe Layton's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind is everything you thought it would be, cou·ld be, or should be-and then some. Not all of it is good, but then very little of it is bad, and everything is epic enough to make most other mµsicals look like kiddies' puppet shows. U~fr)g the 1938 movie as his synopsisas well as Ns visual crutch-Layton has humanized MGM in a big way and put it all out there right before our very eyes like a loud, three-dimensional technicolor movie. The burning of Atlanta, the long; hungry maroh, the glittering parties, the interminable deaths, horses, steamengines, children, fiddle dee dees and birfin' babies-you name it and Layton can claim it, and all tricked up, interwoven and sped along like a handtooled racing car. The production moves at a fast a'nd easy clip so that one never needs to think-thankfully-and it's always beautiful to look at, but ·when the huge sets aren't miraculously changing, things do tend to get a bit restless. Harold Rome's music is pleasantly unmemorable but service.able, while Horton Foo1e's book is non-existent, but again serviceable; yet ' rione of this matters since they both take the rumble seat to the overall production, and here Layton is king. But while his staging ·is second to none, his choreogra,. phy is a lesser matter; a sucker for the cakewalk and a good ole hoe-down, much of it revolves like sub-Agnes DeMille. As Scarlett, June Ritchie is totally
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Gene with the Wind
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Che show, featuring a precocious London, M':ay 4. Shirley Temple-like moppet, which Harold Fleldin1 pr-ntltion of musl· pnwes to be ·a ·pandering bit for cal d111ma In two acts (30 numbers), with aeatimentalists. · book by Horton Foote (based on the As an evocation of ante-bellum Marpret Mitchell novel, "Gone with the n.1.-i •ts lif d tim Wind"), words end music by Herold _.ue, l e an es, the ah ow Rome. Stapd end choreo1111phed by blrely scratehes lthe surface, which Joe Laf.ton; settinp, David Hays, Tim mUbt have been less of a flaw bad Goodchild: costumes, Patton campbell; It &en peopled more convincingly, dance and chOl'lll arranaements, Trude _ _. had 'ts t" al ts t Rittman· lilhting, Richard Pilbrow; or· ....,. I emo ion momen no chest111tlons, Keith Amos, Meyer Kupfer· .aefmed like so many tableaux. At man; musical direction, Ray Cook. Stars ie.t .by way of partial remedy, Harve Presnell, June Ritchie, Patricia ·aome of the 20 numbers mig:bt be Michael, Ro1?9rt Swann; in favor of more atralght Lucas, Marion Ramsey,tutu~ BessieIsabelle Love, .A--ed .... Doreen Hermitage, Ronald Adam, Hllrry dramatic tension. Goodier, Ian Hanson, Brian Davies. Com- -All technical credits seem sharp, pany manarrFJoan Prestoni s,tage manparticular praise ls"due David ~~~~n:'Tt~'; lu~7~1 ~t ~.;. Jb)'s and Tim Goodchild for the Lane Theatre, London; $6 top. 'elever settings and stage effects. scartett O'Hara • . . . . . . . . . June Ritchie To make the commercial Judgment Mammy · · • • · · · · · · · · • • · · •Isabelle Luoas licit the show should do well Prissy .. . .. • . • • . . . . . • • Marlon Ramsey Jn Lo d A t uring American Gerald O'Hara .. . ......•.. Harry Goodier n on. o Frank Kennedy •• , .. , . . . • . . Brian Davies .Ution is projected, starting in At. Ashley. Wilkes ....•....... R!>1?9rt !!wann lulta late this year. As a hlnterMelan1e Ha"'llton . . . . Patricia Michael ·led attract.ion, the forecast is upCharles Hamilton . • . . . . . . . . Ian Hanson - · Pit Rhett Butter . . . . . . • • . . . . Harve Presnell ,,,_t, • Dr. Meade . ........ , . . .. Ronald Adam Aunt Pi~t • • .. •.. . . . . •• • Bessie Love Belle Wathng .. •. .. . . Doreell Hermitage Others: Melanie Parr, Mary Chilton Doreen Croft. Andrew Norman, Christopher Beechln11, Jeannette R1nnr, 1 David Hepburn, Stephen Holton, Paddy Mcintyre, Chris Blackwell, Matt Zim• merman, Geoffrey Collins, Jeffrey Benton, Terry Mitchell, Cerio Mansi, Glyrt Adams, Dudley OWen, Petra Siniawskl, Jenny Kearney, Clare Fem, Sean Bart· ley, Joyce Rae, sam M1nsaray, Ala., Quashi. Anni Domingo, Lorenza John· son, Florllyn Waddell, Cynthia Morey. Lyn Doul!las, Patricia Hall, Mercoa Gtossop, Berry Winsett, Peter Rhodes, Jane Bartlett. Eileen Bates, Joannf Horfock, Kim Leon, Gillian Shepherd, Peter Boyce, Roger Farrant, Philip Graham, Berwick Keler, Richard de Meath, David Selwyn, Eddie SomlTMl!i Jeremy Wallis. Neville Ware, Nips Winder, Donald Britton, Maurice Lana, t:llnbeth Lowry, Minoo Golvala, Cerolyn Gray, Bill Drysdale. Zoe Carylf Anf!!ll Gillett. Susan King, Sh1ro11 Smith, Celina Fredlana, Lusi1 Fredi1na, Romana Kyrl1kou, Bonnlee Langford. Musical numbers: ''Today's the Dey,., "Cekewalk." "We Belong to You," ''Tara." "Bonnie Blue Flaa." "Bazaar Hymn," "Virginia Reel," "Quadrille," "Two of a Kind." "Blissful Christmas," ''Tomorrow Is Another Day" "Ashley's Departure," "Where Is My Soldlllf Boy," ''Why Did They Die?" "John Is My Darling," "LonelY Stranpr," " Time for Love," "Atfanta Burning."" "A Soldier's Goodbye," "Which W Is Home," "If Only." "How Often, H ' Of'ten;'" --rtte Wedtllng." "A Southe lady," "Marryln§ For Fun," "Stran• and Wonderful.' "Blueberry Eves,•• "little Wonders," "Bonnie Gi>ne,'i ~"It Doesn't Matter Now." I
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Since comparisons with the novel and film are inevitable, let it be said that the stage musicallzatlon of "Gone With the W"md" ruu third best. It is too fragment817 and overlong, musically too bUSJ' and lacking in sock production numbers. Harold Rome's score mq suit the operatic form opted by stager Joe Layton, but it is not memor&ble. The show's title would appear to be its most potent boxoffice asset. Less discriminating audiences, for whom the show is presumably designed, may find it sufficiently entertaining on the basis of its -strong visual values, These include the burning of Atlanta, a troop train beldiing fumes, and a real horse. Layton has, in fact, mounted U. show was achmaltzy lintaglnetiOD, and bis telescoping of the narrative action, aided by backdrops aQd the score, ls' clever and effecti"'-' As spectacle, .the "GWTW" is at its best. Character values tend to be slighted -by the sight stuff, however. Given that, It is agreeab~ played for the most .pir.t, not.ably by June Ritchie as Scarlett O'Hara. It ls the meatiest of the major parts, and the British actress prov• to be gifted in her fl.nit bigtime musical stint as the headstro1t1o immature belle of the plaptatioa. Less compelling as the rascalq Rhett Butler is Harve Presnell. Who makes for anything lbut a magnetkl, commanding presence. It is not aJ.. together the actor-singer's fault since Horton Foote's libretto provides blm with minimal scope little more than a foll for Scarlett. Vocally, however, the actor is oa firmer ground, with at least one engaging number in "Marryjna for
Fun."
Patricia Michael and Robert Swann are effective as Melanie aD4 Ashley, and she in particular ~ the show's moet pleasing voa Isabelle Lucas ls fine as the Nqro maid, and Marion Ramsey as w dauchter Pday scores as . . show's comic relief. "Bllsaful Christmas," with Ma» JD7, Prisa)' and some other ladlel, seems the moat charming procla9tlon number. Tbere's another, lltl
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rEs. SUNDAY, MA l" zt. 1972
Theater In London
Burns ....... Scarlett Sings, .Atlanta fa.ci
Continued from Page 12 Harold Rome hasn't got round to "Mules m Horse Harness" or 'TU Never Be Hungty Again," but "Tomorrow Is Another Day" ls there, a "Tara" ballad for Gerald, and Scarlett and Rhett sing a duet called ·~ of a Kind." Much of the design, by Tim Goodchild, David HaY. and Patton campbell, recognizes that for most people the show will be a Stage ver· slori of the film, and June Ritchie's costumes and hairstyles as Scarlett are modeled carefully on those that Walter Plunkett and Monty H''.'"''''""'·'·""''·'"''>' Westmore contrived for Vdvien Leigh. But here and there Layton ,,,,,,,,..,...,.,..,.,,, _, ,.,.,,, and his librettist, Horton '.,',,:,,::.'./,.,,,,.,:·:r'/'''''''i: Foote, go back to the novel itself for some telling effects. There's a splendidly grotesque ballet of Belle Wat· ting's whores among the flames of Atlanta. and Ash· ley's Christmas leave during the war produces an excel\:\: \\ \('/:{{' Qi} lent tree-decorating quintet, "Blissful Christmas." <""'"''''/-""'',:.':':'i:'' ':::,:·s :': It's a pity Harold Rome
Scarlett Sings, Atlanta BU rn By RONALD BRYDEN LoNDON.
OOD
.n otices? Bad notices? Who's counting? As Joe Layton freely confessed to a London interviewer, he didn't tum "Gone With the Wind" into a wide-stage musical for critics or the West End and Broadway regulars who read them. Now \hat his British pilot..production has opened at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane. he will st.a.rt work in earnest-on a traveling U.S. version ito tour those hinterlands normally trodden only by ice shows and "Disney on Parade." '"lbey'll come to it anyway," out of curiosity or nostalgia," Layton says. They obviously will; and young mockers who do so in a spirit of ~p will pay just as muoh for their seats as old straights bent on a good cry at Maqaret Mitchell's Civil War romance. All ·t hat devotees of both Imnds will want to know is whether their favorite bits are there to giggle or weep over. They all are, pretty near. Scarlett O'Hara still queens it, crinolined, over the barbeoue interrupted by the shots at Fort Sumter. Rhett Butler 5till scandalizes war-time Mlanta by bidding $150 to dance with her, widow's weeds and all, at the charity bazaar. Melanie Wilkes tears her petticoat to bandage the Kennesaw wounded, Belle Watling offers her tainted earnings to the Confederate cause and Prissy squeals "Ah doan know nothin' 'bout birthin' bllbies!" As a concession to tlhe seventies, Scarlett ts now nearly raped by whlite shanty riffraff, not a freed slave, and Frank Kennedy dies pursuing them, not riding with the Klan. But Atlanta still bums, Mammy rustles 'her red taffeta petti· coat and Rhett still departs sneering, "My dear, I don't give a damn." Perhaps Layton should have trusted his Invention more. The first half of the show is vivid mUSlical thea· ter. It takes some adjusting to lbhe idiom of a oardboMd Tana, with the pantaletted , belles or Clayton County · oakewaitklng on the lawn. But once the green floorclotti is hoisted to reveal a giant Confederate flag on ·Ks reverse, the story starts to grip. One forgets for aH its nonsenae. Marauet Mitchell's novel had a superbly power· ful eub)ect-tbe death of a nation. The hammer strokes
G
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"FRANKLY, MY DEAR, I DON'T CIVE A. DAMN"-Harve Presnell, as Rhett Butler, walks out on June Ritchie, as Scarlett O'Hara, in Herold Rome's musical · "Gone With the Wind," now in London. which pref&c.e the Wllg list of names fallen at Gettysburg end the entr.y of the wound· e(i remnants of Lee's shattered army strike with the authentic dhill of history. If the projected flames and stage-smoke in which Atlanta oonap&es don't quite justify the subtitle "The Epic Musical," 11hey'Te first-rate melo· drama. 'Fite DnJ.ry Lane stage, scene of many a sen-
sational Victorian train cra'S'b and shipwreck. seems to expand and revel dn the return to it of shunting locomotives, real horses (the realistic deportment of Scarlett's bGrse stopped the Show the first night) and the tramp of armies.
For months the In game at partJies lbas been guessing the song titles. No, Continued on Page S3
London
didn't lean similarly on and sow his score with more authentic Civil War min· strelsy. He provides some clever 19th-century musical putiche--a mock-sentimen· t.al duet, Y'fhe Sudden Thought of You," for Scarlett'• jail reunion with Rhett, hl her mother's green velvet curtains, is hia best number, but nothing to rival the thrill or "Dixie," "Bonnie Blue Flag" or "Marching Through Georgia." As you'd expect et the composer of "Pins and Needles," "Ca>ll Me Mister" and "Fanny," it ill exceeding· ly competent show music, but . seldom memorable.
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And after intermission, the show sorely needs the tang of reality. Once the war is out of the way and the book gets down to Scarlett's Bef life, a 900.py odor of synthetic romance overwhelms it. The lyrics put into Rhett's mouth for his big -love song on the riverboat honeymoon ("The close of a wife, the De811' and dear of you") are enough to drive any Clark
Gable fan from the theater. And they're vinegar beside hit iubsequent, cloy(ngly saocharine song..and-dance with the 5-ysr-old Bonnie, a lhrl1l, rlngleted stage moppet whose horrific knowingness outdoes the mfant Shirley Temple.
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Harve Presnell, of ''11he Unsinkable ·Molly Brown," makes a tall, personable Rhett and bas a resonant baritone, but he scarcely qualifiea as an actor. Robert Swann la better as Ashieybetter, marginally, than Les-lie Howard-and Patricia Michael at least offers her own Melanie-blonde, gawky• with a shy, toothy smile. Bessie Love is an outst.anding Aunt Pittypait and Marion Ramsey an uproariouSly fea· ther-brained Prissy. But the burden of the evening has to be carried by June Ritchie as Scarlett. She's confined by tlhe im· posed resemblance oo Vivien Leigh, and a three-hour musical doesn't allow the subtleties of a four.flour film.
But where she's allowed, she lhowa a lhaip brilliance all her own. Her Scarlett fs fun. nier than the film's, bu a better Southern aooent, and traces more ftrmly the growth from a .elfisli 16year-old mad for dancing tio a tired. bitter woman who bu never known what she wants• The peformances eren't comparable, but she commands respect. Harold Fielding, the show's British impresario, clearly hoped for a 1tablemate to his enormously successtia London revival of "Show· boat." He hasn't achieved it qualitatively - even Jerome Kern never matched his score for that, and Rome is no K'ern. The only points at whic:b. Joe Layton's prod~ tlon seems likely to be mem· orable in its own right are its dances and some of its swift, spectacular staging. But as he says, his "Gone With the Wind'! Isn't aimed at eritics, but at the box· office. There, It's obviously as unstoppable as Sherman's
army.
Scarlett O'Hara, at center stage, stands between Rhett Butler, right, and Ashley Wilkes as the Japanese cast of "Scarlett" takes a curtain call in Tokyo.
'Scarlett' CoJDing DoIlle 8
The .Japanese produced it first - the musical ••Gone With the Wind''
SINCE 1936, when it thundered from the presses like a tidal wave, "Gone With the Wind" has touched many shores and many lives. It tossed Margaret , Mitchell to the pinnacle of celebrity, lifted Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable to the high crest of their careers, washed the wounds"of the South in the balm of a golden time remembered. In 1939, it engulfed Atlanta in the glamour and spectacle of a premiere still considered the cinema event of the century. Before the last hurrah had faded, before a city grown giddy from star-watching· at last calmed down, the country got the bulletin it nervously awaited : "Gone With the Wind" Triumphant! Scarlett and Rhett have been seldom out of sight in this Everest of epics for all these years. Now they will love and lose again, and also dance and sing, in " Scarlett," a musical version of the novel. "Scarlett," already a hit in Japan, is destined for Broadway. It will begin the dazzlement of America in the fall of 1971, and will tour the country for months prior to its opening in New York. Where the premiere will be held is still to be resolved, although Atlanta is the first choice of Joe Layton, who will pr0duce, direct and choreograph "Scarlett." "I think we all prefer Atlanta but there's much to consider," said literary agent Kay Brown, who represents the Margaret Mitchell estate. "California's Civic Light Opera Ass0ciation wants the pre)lliere (for Los Angeles or San Francisco); we have to raise $1,000,000 for 'Scarlett,' and we can get a great deal of money from California." Who will play Scarlett? Who has the fire, the loo1cs and daring to follow Vivien Leigh in the movie role she embodied to perfection? Who has the pussy-eat voice to memorably meow, as she did, "I just love tO make all the other girls absolutely pea-green with envy?" Who, for that matter, can play Rhett with the invincible masculinity and charm of Clark Gable? Who can match the shattering wallop of his curt farewell to a hoyden finally conquered? "Finding a new Scarlett will be a tremendous problem," said Harold Rome, the musical 's composer-lyricist. "I'm not going to think about it." As the lady herself might say, in fact did, he'll think · about that tomorrow. "After all, tomorrow is another day." Producer-director Layton has ideas, lots of them, incl.uding a rather startling one-Barbra Streisand. "Scarlett is not an ingeriue role; it needs somebody with a bit of .fire and a chest voi~e," he said. "It's not, say, a Florence Henderson role. Barbara Harris (who blitzed Broadway in "On a ·Clear Day You Can See (Continued on Next Page) Next year the musical version of "Gone With the Wind" will be staged in America .
Frotn .Japan
. By Rebecca Franklin Morehouse
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine
ll-l-70
9
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On their honeymoon, Scarlett (Sakura Jinguji) and · Rhett (Kinya Kitaoji) sing "Strange and Wonderful," favorite ballad of composer-lyridst Harold Rome. (Continued From Page. 9)
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would be ideal and so would Barbra Streisand. Barbra can play anything, she has no limitations, and she can be beautiful. "But we plan to do 'Scarlett' with unknowns. Vivien Leigh was a fine British actress but as far as we were concerned she was unknown before she played Scarlett. Our search will narrow down to professionals, as it always does, because Scarlett is an enormous, powerhouse role. She is never off the stage."
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present intent is to audition actors in New York next May or June; begin rehearsing in August; open "Scarlet't";in October or November, 1971-wherever. "Our cast will be younger than the movie's, which will give the show a whole new look," Layton continued. "After all, Scarlett is only 16 when the novel begins, Rhett is in his 30s, Melanie Hamilton is 17, Ashley Wilkes is 22 or 23, and Prissy is only 12 years old. We had a child play Prissy in Tokyo." As it oddly happened, Margaret Mitchell's Civil War classic was performed for the first time as a stage play, and for the first time as a musical, not in the country whose past it brightly illumines but in Japan, in the Japanese language, by actors who wore crinolines and Confederate gray as though born to them. To begin at the start: There lives in Tokyo a gentleman of formidable drive and imagination by the name of Kazuo· Kikuta. He is a prominent playwright-director-producer. It was his audacious notion to open Tokyo's i~ :>ressive new Imperial Theater with a dramatization of "Gone With the
Wind" which he, undismayed by its 1,037 pages, would write. Kikuta sought the stage rights from Kay Brown, who discussed the proposal with Stephens Mitchell, Atlanta lawyer and Margaret Mitchell's brother. The deal was made. When the play premiered as the Imperial's first production in November, 1966, Kay Brown and Stephens Mitchell and his wife. were there. "I didn't know what to expect," Miss Brown said. "I certainly didn't expect to see the burning of Atlanta and a real horse being driven through the flames. It was an astounding spectacle; the Japanese are genius at spectacle. By using earphones we cOuld hear an English translation of the play but I soon stopped listening. It was absolutely magnificent." The play was done iri two parts. Part 1 ran five months, an all-time record in Japan; five hours long, it ended with the burnjng of Atlanta and Scarlett's return to Tara. After a three-month interval, Part 2 opened. It lasted four hours, ran four months. Total playing time, both parts: Nine hours. Total audience: 700,000. EMBOWENED further by the play's success, Kazuo Kikuta had another ambitious notion: A musical version of "Gone With the Wind." He turned for help to Kay Brown and, as the saying' goes, she put it all together. "American musicals have been produced in Japan but this was something quite different," she said. "Mr. Kikuta wanted to create this musical in Japan. He asked me to get an American composer and director and everybody I (Continued on Page 12)
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Melonie and Ashley, just engaged, do a duet, "You Belong to Me." (Continued From Page 10)
spoke to thought it was a crazy idea. 'Gone With the Wind' had just been done as a play in Tokyo. Would they want to see it again as a musical? "Harold Rome thought ~t was a crazy idea, too. But be agreed to go to Tokyo ; they showed us about six hours of the play and be was tremendously impressed. Joe Layton had wanted to do 'Gone With the Wind' as a ballet, so l called Joe about it and shipped him out to Japan." "Scarlett," as the musical came to be tilled, bowed at the Imperial on Jan. 2, 1970, and swifUy enraptured Tokyo. It was directed and choreographed by Joe Layton. Indeed, says Harold Rome, ''The whole conception was Joe's and it was brilliant." Rome supplied 20 songs; Kazuo Kikuta wrote the adaptation.
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T was gorgeous, marvelous, the actors and dancers were fantastic," Layton said. "Their enthusiasm for work surpasses anything I've seen; Broadway is jaded by comparison. Dance, as we know it, is new to them but ~ talent is there. " 'Scarlett' is based on the novel; we were not allowed to use movie dialogue. I tried to keep it flowing smoothly. I eliminated some of the deaths and turned Bonnie BuUer's death (she was Scarlett and Rhett's four-year,.old daughter) into an enormous funeral march. "We have the concept now and we know it works. It Win be rewritten in the English vernacular by an American. I've talked to several playwrights about it and they're all very interested." Some of Japan's shiniest stars, from stage, movies and television, had roles in "Scarlett." 11tey were among the 400 actors and dancers who auditioned for it. · "We insisted on auditioning all the people and this bad never (Continued on Page 28)
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been done before in Japan,'' said Rome. "It had to be done in a polite way; we gave each person 30 minutes. There were a few shaky moments when we had to say, 'We cbOose the people we want or we don't do the show,' but we got the cast we wanted. We had the most beautiful Melanie you ever saw, quite similar to Olivia de Havilland (the movie Melanie)."
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. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine
11-1-70
SAKURA Jinguji, who played Scarlett, bad been the star performer of male roles in a female opera company whose members were forbidden to marry, a curious cus. tom explored cinematically in "Sayonara." When she defiantly took unto herself a husband, she had to leave the company. "She's an accomplished actress, dancer and singer, with a low, fruity contralto,'' Rome said. "The actor we chose for Rhett is a six-footer, which is rare in Japan; he's part Chinese. Twelve days before we were to open he slipped off a train, while moonlighting on a movie, and had a compound fracture. He was heartbroken. In 12 days Kinya Kitaoji learned six songs and Rhett's whole part and he was wonderful. He had to wear elevator shoes. "I've never seen anything like the labor put forth in rehearsal; they never complained. This was the first original American musical they'd done in Japan, and they were ecstatic. I took over my own staff; that was a stipulation I made when I took the job. They had no idea what it takes to create a musical, and I do." As orchestra leader he en. listed· Lehman Engel, the highly regarded Broadway conductor, a naUve MissiSsippian. Other Americans in key posts were Patton Campbell, who designed the eostumes, and David Hays, the set designer. " 'Scarlett' was three hours and 45 minutes long," Rome said. "The opening was an experience. Japanese audiences do not applaud during a show as we do; they do not laugh, either, except behind their hands. They applaud at the end and sit there-they don't tush out. ''The scene at the Atlanta terminal, where they call the
names of the war dead, was one of the most electric thqlgs l ever saw on stage. The whole Civil War set-up was enough to break your heart." Toho, Ltd., a giant of the entertainment field, produced "Scarlett" at a cost of $1,300,000, more than was spent on "Coco," one of Broadway's costliest musicals. Toho owns the Imperial Theater which has nine stories above ground, ~ below, and a seating capacity of 1,867. It is the largest legitimate house in the Orient
"The Imperial is almost too much," said Joe Layton. "It's just the most modern theater in the world, totally equipped for sound, lighting, the moving of scenery, everything you can think of." Harold Rome remembers something else: A backstage shrine where actors bow good.evening and leave gifts of sake on opening night. A.ccusTOMED to quick decisions from New York producers, the Americans found Toho not merely inscrutable but sorely·vexing. "Getting the show on was a series of frustrations,'' said Rome. "Instead of dealing with one man we were dealiiig with a corporation, a group of men, who never say no and never say yes. We even had to chase the paper for the orchestrations." Layton made another rueful obiiervation :
"The press is evil, evil;
I've never seen such rotten people. They have lots and lots of newspapers and hundreds of magazines devoted to gossip. The stars have a terrible time: they can't breathe without copy being made of it. A lot of publicity was done on me; I was constantly giving interviews, and you really have to watch your step." Tall, lithe and dark-haired, Layton is a rapidly rising theatrical talent. Renowned composer Richard Rodgers hired . him to direct and choreograph bis new musical, ''Two by Two," which stars Sammy Kaye. He directed and choregraphed •'George M!," the musical biography of George M. Cohan. Since 1963 he has directed Paul Green's "The Lost Colony," presented each suminer at Manteo, N.C. Harold Rome has impressive credentials, too. A Yale grad from Hartford, Coon., he is the composer-lyricist of "Pins and Needles," which ran four Broadway years; "Sing Out the News," "Call Me Mister," "Wish You Were Here," "Fanny," "Des try Rides Again,'' and "I Can Get It for You Wholesale." His "Scarlett" score is popular in Japan, particularly "Blueberry Eyes,'' which celebrates Bonnie Butler's birth, and the title song "Scarlett." His own favorite Is the love ballad, "Strange and Wonder-
As the show opens, Scarlett sings in front of her admirers, including some Japanese Tarleton twins.
The lemon is nature's own cosmetic
Chieko Boisho, left, os Melonie, resembles Olivio de Hovillond who hod the movie role. Here Melonie, Rhett and Scarlett are at a birthday party for Bonnie Butler.
fol," which Scarlett and Rhett sing. Rome and his wife, Layton and his wife and their infant son Jeb, lived in Tokyo from September, 1969, through the "Scarlett" premiere. Mrs. Rome, first name Florence, describes the experience in "The Scarlett Letters,!' a book Random Hoiise will publish next spring. {''It'1t -hilarious!" blurbed Bennett Cerf, the Random House executive.) "It's a log of how the show was done and of our life in Tokyo," said Florence Rome. "I wrote letters to everybody and kept carbons. Our children (Rachel, 13, and Josh, 17) were in school and couldn't be with us, so some letters were written to them and others to friends. "I loved the Japanese bet. ter than I can tell you. They are sometimes frustrating because they don't think it's a virtue to be frank, but I have an enormous respect for them. We long to be in Tokyo again and we are going back."
&ROLD Rome added his own glowing testimonial: "I didn't hesitate to send Florence home alone at 11 o'clock at night because I knew she'd be safe. I never saw a panhandler or a jaywalker, -never saw a person lose his temper, never saw a drunk except after dark and they were happy. The people are unfailingly polite, the waiters, clerks, everybody, and they're so clean." To prepare for their as. ' signment in Tokyo, the Romes and the Laytons began in New York to study Japanese,
not the world's simplest language. "I could read and write Japanese before we went there for 'Scarlett' and my wife knew more than I did," said Joe Layton. "Japanese speak quite a bit of English, we all had translators as we worked on the show, so communication was not the prob- . lem we thought it would be." He spoke of the long Japanese love affair with "Gone With the Wind." The movie is exhibited in Tokyo almost every year; the novel has never ceased being popular in Japan. "Japanese are wonderfully warm people, but it's hard to see because they put on a totai face," he said. "They're very sentimental, they like sad, sentimental stories, and they're very land and family conscious, so they respond to Tara and the O'Haras and the unconquerable Scarlett. "The Civil War period fascinates them. They were going through tremendous change and strife at about the same time, after Commodore Perry landed there and opened Japan to the West." Those who saw "Gone With the Wind" as a play in Tokyo received, for their enlightenment, a synopsis of the plot written in Far East English. It reads in part : "Time is in April, 1861. Place is in Tara which is 10cated in the Northern part of Georgia in the Southern part of America. At the mansion of the Wilkes which is popularly known as Twelve Oaks, the annual event of an open-air ball is being held. "At . the ball Scarlett O'Hara is the center of every-
body's attention. But she is shocked to know that the marriage engagement between Ashley, the eldest son of the Wilkes, and his Cousin Melanie Hamilton, is to be announced at the ball. Be.. cause Scarlett is in love with Ashley. She is furious with anger. "Seeing Scarlett in such a mood, Rhett Butler from Charleston makes advances to her. But she hates him as she thinks he is forward and vulgar."
~OTHER
passage describes Scarlett's flight from burning Atlanta to the sanctuary of Tara, finding, when she gets there, not only deso. lation but a father "gone insane because of his indignation against unruly conduct of the Federation Army." Producer David 0. Selznick, who brought "Gone With the Wind" to the screen with a masterly hand, spent the' rest of his life trying vainly to top it. (He died of a heart attack at 63 in 1965.) A few months before the movie opened, he said it would have to gross $5,000,000 to make a profit. It has grossed $125,000,000 in the U.S. alone. Margaret Mitchell died on August 16, 1949, five days after she was struck by a taxi as she walked across Peachtree Street. SborUy before her book was published by Macmillan, she told friends she hoped it would sell at least 5,000 copies. Thirty-four years later, it has sold 14,500,000 copies worldwide, in . hard cover and paperback, in 25 languages. Year in and year out, it sells. It just goes on and on and on.
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~¡ SKIN FRESHENER The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine
11-1-70
29
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'Gone with the Winil Top Tokyo Stage Hit
'Gone with the Wind' Tokyo's T~p Stage Hit
[Continued from page 91
wheels, and once in a while a whinny or a neigh thrown in.
Amid all this panoply, bow is the play? It starts at 5:30 p. m. and concludes at 10:30, with a ccq>le of those long
By WiWam LeonNd
T
OKYO-[Speclal) - The orchestra,. SO men strong and symphonic In tone, riaing alowly from the pit on a plat· form, appears only long enough to play a vigorous overture, then sinks out of sight again. On a vast motion picture screen, a .lull color map of the 80Utheast portion of the United States becomes speckled with Japanese wording as the great orchestra plays on. The picture narrows down to a spot in Sol.ab Carolina marked "Fort SUmter." It explodes in a burst of name, and the fire crawls across the map. The stage, in front of the screen, springs to life. Union and Confederate soldiers, some of them on horseback, charge agalnat one another, amid billowing clouds of smoke and deaf· eDing cr.uhes of gunfire that drowns the symphonic uproar. The baWe scene fades, giving way to another motion picture projected on the back drop-a panorama of desolate Georgia farmland, so bleak and barren that the crows wheeling above it do not even bother to light. Up tbru the fioor comes a stage setting, the interior of an olcl Southern manse, much the worse for the ravishment of fOW' years of civil A drunken Union soldier is prowling
war.
intermissions which permit the hungry theatergoer [who obviously bas not bad time for dinner] to go downstairs and choose from among nearly a dozen dining places and tea houses in the basement of the big new office building which houses the Imperial.
• • •
Aside from being lengthy and over-acted, it is dramatically strong and compelling. Wataru Nacbi, a moderately pretty actress, is an extremely appealing Scarlett, and Kohji Takabuhl, thumbs in
ata" at Lincoln Center, designed Tokyo's "Gone With the Wind" and did it well
enough to satisfy even those American tourists who see it.
•••
Audiences at the Imperial, a lovely showplace that will remind a Chicagoan of the Arie Crown theater at McConnick Place, love Mar-
garet Mitchell's old tale. of that glamorous, exotic land, the United States. This fivehOW' drama is Part n of the story, adapted from the novel and produced by Kazuo Kikuta, veteran Japanese thea· ter figure. Kikuta's version of the first half of "Gone With the W"md" opened the Imperial last November and bad a five-month nm that la almost unprecedented in Tokyo. The current production wfil run thru August, and "Fiddler on the Roof'' will succeed it at the Imperial on Sept. 6 for a mere eight-week engagement.
vest pockets, is a swaggering Rhett Butler whose superciliousness dies as be loses bis daughter and finally rejects the fickle heroine. They • • are a well matched pair. MeanwbQe, just to indicate AuthenUclty of sets and bow strong "Gone With the costumes is amazing, and one Wind" still is in this city, almost forgets that these rebthe 1939 motion picture, with els and carpetbaggers and Vivian Leigh and the late freedmen and Georgia belles · Clark Gable, is current are speaking Japanese, so on a downtownstill screen. It is well do they portny the post- llhowing at the Scala-za theabenum Soulh. Patton Camp- ter, three tlines a day on a bell, who c.'CilltmDed the Broad- reserved seat buis, at a top way produetion ol "Man ol price of 650 yen [$1.110], comla Maacba" and the New pared with a acale :reacblnl York City Opcn'a "La Tra'Vi- as high u 2,000 y_en [$5.561 for the huge spectacle at the
•
Imperial.
Wataru Nacbl
about, when Scarlett O'Hara appears' on the staJrway. They draw .on one another, be IWU up the steps, ahe shoots bim in the bead. Hla back to the audience, 1119 claps bis band to bis forehead with a shriek, and when be turns and falls, bis face bas become a gory mess that shocks the spectators as much as it doea Scarlett, trembling on the stairs with the IUD still in her hand.
• • •
Thil la "Gone With. the Wind," as presented at the Im· perial theater, Tot,o's beautiful, modern pleyboule which bas become the home of the big Diualcal shows. But "Gone With the Wind," altbo it bu that big or~. la not what we know u a muaical. None ol lta leadina characters ever breab into IODI- The Gr'dleltra1 score bas the same function as a movie sound track, swelling up for polpant love scenes, punctuatlq IOli1oqulu and emotional erlaes, never becoming an1tbinl more than bacqrouod muaic. A1l ~tjye.AJ'- too ~ to identify matches from "fve Been Workln' on the Railroad," ''lllrcblq ~Georgia," or "The Yellow Rose of Tau," but the recurrent accoqwnlmeat ia, on the whole, aa ori8inal u it la melodiOUI. Thia la a fme, practical asset for the lpObn drama. And we'll never get to aee It In the United Statel, because no producer in America could afford It. Tfle melodrama established at the outlet seldom lapses. The adinc la broad and Oamboyant, with our herome given to rolling on the floor as a means of expreuing her anglJish. AlBlCllt ewry one of the two dozen scenes ends with the figures freezlDI Into a tableau for a slow blackout. And, be,cauae there la no lowering or raising of a <'llrtain between ~enes, COrple8 and characters who have swooaed must scramble to their feet and get off$tage as best they can In the darkness, st.ill partly visible to the audiences. Stage baoda spin ponderous settings off and on in the dimouta. Some scenes rise tbru the Door, others are lowered from above, a few seem to asaeDlble themselves from all directioua, before your eyes. The motion picture background appean only once acain in the play, for a realistic forest fire in which eeveral cabins on the stage go up in startlingly allltic Jlamea and collapse.
---JU'Jlt
re-
• • •
'l'he ecenic efforts are aomeUmes charming, sometimes naiw. When Scarlett and Ashley are engaged in the woods in a conversaUon about love that never can be fulfilled, leaves drop about them aa they talk. Toward the end of their sad meetlq, a cloud of d"8t blows acroaa the stage, swirling tJie dead leaves with it. A military band marches across, playing full blast, In an Atlanta street scene. Scarlett drives a horse and carriage tbru a crowd of unruly ruffians, in another. AncS few char· act.era 81Tive or depart without the accompaniment of the recorded sounds of horses' hoofs, occasional grinding of wagon lContif&~4 on pGg,e 101
The movie versloa of "Gone With the Wind" will be in Chicago's IAIOP again, one of these days. Tatyo's stage version positively never will.
IN SURVEY
'G~TW'
Tops List Of Important Films By VERNON SCOTf HOLLYWOOD (UPI) - A group of highly qualified film ~UCers and .critics oominated the 50 most significant [roevies in American cinema lfijtory and concluded the two ~ important were "Citizen lfane" and "Gone With the Wind." ••<Fhe group was selected by ~ersity of Southern California's Performing Arts ~il, which asked the panel '" dtoose milestone pictures - thooe which gave .new conrei>ts and .advanced the art -and technique of filmmaking. ~ponses were mostly predictable as the professi()llal moVie makers came. up with a total of 53 landmark films. Pemaps, it indicates a decline in movie quality but only a handful of the 53 all-time great Ill()Vies selected were fiUmed in the past decade. 'Among them were:
HOW WOUID you personal choices rate witlh the 53 films ranked in order of vote!! they received.:
1. "Citizen ·Kane," "Gone With the Wind." 2. "The Birth of a Nation." 3. "All Quiet on the Westen; Front." 4. "The Best Years of Om Lives." "Midnight Cowboy,' "Stagecoach." · · 5. "High Noon," "On ThE Waterfront." 6. "2001: A Space Odyssey." 7. "The Treasure of Sieni Madre." 8. "The Jazz Singer." "The Informer,"' ' 'West Side S.t ory," " T h e Grapes of Wrath." 9. "The Gold Rush," "It Happened One Night." 1 O. "The Big Parade," "Casablanca," "Fantasia." 11. "G r e e d," "Intolerance, u "King Kong." "MIDNIGHT Cowboy," 12. "The Great Train Rolr "2001: A Space Odyssey," bery," "Who's Afraid of Vir'.'Who's Afraid of Virgin:la ginia Woolf?" "Sunset BouleWQl>Lf?" "'lbe Graduate," vard," "The Wizard of Oz," 4"Fhe Sound of Music," Dr. "The Graduate." Strangelove," "Easy Rider," 13. "Nanook of the North," '"111.e G<>dfa1her" and "Bonnie "Little Caesar," "The Bridge aOd CJ.yde." on the River Kwai," "The An interesting footnote is Sound of Music." that of th<>se nine recent pic1 4 . "City Lights," "Ben tures only Dustin Hoffman Hur'' 1925, "Forty Second among tlhe stars appeared in Street," "The Maltese Falmote than one of the elite con,'' "Public Enemy," "Dr. "Midnight Cowboy" and "The Strangelove." Graduate." 1 5. "Ben Hur" 1959, "A Silent movies made a sur- Streetcar Na in e d Desire," prise showing with "The Birth ''An American in Paris," - of a Natioo," '"lbe Gold "The Robe," "I Am a Fugi·Rush," "Greed," "Intoler- tive from a Chain Gang," ance "The Great Train R~ "The Lost Weekend," "Easy ']:1ery," "City Lights," "Ben Rider," "Bonnie and Clyde.. " 1 6 . "Covered Wagon," HUl"," '"Ibe General" and ','Nanook of the North." "Snow White and the Seven Another quirk is the appear- Dwarfs," "The 39 Steps," ance of ''Ben Hur" twice on ' ' The General," "Shane;" j I list - the original in 19'l5 "The Godfather,'' "Lost Hori' witli Ramon Navarro and the zon.' 1859 film with Ohaxlton Hes'-'. ~. PURPOSE OF the poll was to gather mait.erials on each of :i~A glaring O'\lersight was the ~on of "The Oxbow Inci- t h e films and make 1hem ;an!," perhaps the most available for students of the :lnOO-setting, radical western arts and for special public exhibitions. --~ed.
Hollywood's King--an·d Some of His Quee
ar a e: I've ·Spurred
Life a Little HOLLY\VOOD, CAL.
~
Cl.ark Gable, whose crackling voice, rough-hewn face and husky frame became the symbol of American manhood to the world, has died of heart failure at 59. He was king of the movie world from the moment he slapped Norma Shearer in "A Free Soul" in 1931 until death came late Wednesday night. Thought to have been recovering from a heart attack, he had eaten a good dinner and had been taking . an e v e n i n g n a p • He breathed two short gasps and died without apparent pain before his wife could be summoned from across the hall at Hollywood Pres· ~yterian Hospital Mrs. Gable, herself a heart patient, is five months' pregnant with the actor's first child. Even since he was stricken with coronary thrombosis 10 days ago-two days aft~r completirtg Ns 1 a s t fil,m Gable had told his wife repeatedly: "I feel terrible doing thist<> you and the baby." When death came, Mrs. Gable was enveloped in the arms of her maid I:ouisa, who murmured to her: "You're going to have his baby. Don't you worry." Certain of Recovery Mrs. Gable was taken to the 20-acre Encino Ranch where the star had lived for his last 23 years. She had soent the entire time of his illness with him at the hospital and had been certain of his recovery. He had been heartened by good wishes from President Eisenhower and hundreds of fans. Wednesday had been his best day since he fell ill.
Clark Gable, king of the movies who died Wed· nesday night, appe~red with most of the top actresses, such as Jean Harlow, here in "Saratoga."
His own favorite role was in 1934's Oscar-winning "It Happened One Night," with Claudette C o 1 b e r t. Gable played the wise-cracking newsman.
Gable's first wife, Josephine Dillon, a drama coach 17 years his senior, married him on Dec. 13, 1924. They separated Apr. I, 1930. the prime star with enough authority and c h a r m to tame Scarlett O'Hara and to walk out with the remark that he didn't give a damn what happened to her.
~e two real loves of Gable's life were ac~ess Carole Lombard, his third wife, who perished in ~
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• • • the former Kay Williams Spreckels, his fifth wife, who was with wit.en he died. Their baby-Gable's first child-is due next March. "1 is a dividend that bas come to me late in- life," he said.
ina' Role Was ~ot Ga le s Favorite
one lJy Harold Heffernan
-Asked for hia reuons, be ters. I didn?t e'Y8Jl &ee the fin.. said: ished picture ttntil JU?S later. BoJlywood-The standard At the big Atlanta worlc1 Pft"I guess becauae in both qiiesliDn always being aaked their whims. of e,,..Y star ia, "\\'hat is 'San Fraiicisco' and 'Test Pi- miere, I just cl.Oied my eyes." your own favorite role?" The Anyone asking Clark Gable lot' I was with Spencer Tracy. Elizabeth Tayler got' more answer is quite often not what •hich of hia roles be liked We were great frieJlds and he or lesa of a ''tok'en" award in WU enect.ed. mt of all would naturally was euy to get along with. In the Academy race of 1960 for 1t 'Wlllbr nem logical to as- have felt it a silly que17, that m a k i n g 'It Happened One "Butterfield 8" because the aume that an actor would It would simply have to be Nipt,' I felt I was being pun- film C 0 10 D y admired her automatically feel that Ute "Gone With the Wind." Not ished by the 1tudio for de- plucky fight' ag~ a grave part that won him the mast true. Gable felt hia selection mandln• more money. 'nley illness. But Liz personally accoladea would get his im-· as Rhett 1'1itler, even though farmed me out to Columbia, thinka "A Place in the Sun" mediate eall. Not neceuarily book re•den throughout the you know, as punishmenl I and "GI.ant" w~ one-two in world made him their unani- was miserable there all the her own book. IO. mous choice, was complete stars have their own pet mtscastmt. Hehad no relish, time, trying to ·be jolly with Shelley Winters WU Olcarmovies, no matter what the either for "It Jfappened One Claudette Colbert. acclaimed in supporting cate.boxoffice says, and they'll of- Nlabt," which brought the "As for 'Gone With the gory for both "A Patch of ten araue their point convtnc- orily·Otcar in hla career. Wilid, • the public preuure Blue" and "The Diary of in*1f. It should be noted, howthat I was the 'only one' who Anne Frank," "1lt lhe scarceWhat Gable liked best was could play it, aave me the jit- ly got a nod for her- work in e\ier, that hi the long run actors have piled up a pretty "San Franciaco." And he shabby rec0rd as judges Of named "Test Pilot," one of their own mat.erial-u many his leuer ll'OIHrl, u second I Of tblb' _ . . I ·ltorv selec- cbolce. _ _ __ Nllrth Atlltrican NIWSMDtr Alliance
tions h•ve so dlautrously pointed up to llO!TOWing studios that played along with
Liz Tay 1 or• s fav91'it!!, "A Place bl the SUn." A& the
doomed "ether" woman in Monty Clift'• schtrri.i.na rue, Shelley . delivered what she still feell was the high performance of her busy career.
Rock Hudson offered son1e plt.Jw .Gomm•t on thia not·soearth .shattering eul'lject. A 1
cinch, you aay, that he'd *1m· ply have to .call "(Hant" IUa all·Ume topper. He-deesn't.
"I remember different films for different thinp, but I have no favurites;" he ep18fillif. "Among my best were 'Giant,' 'All 'nlat Heaven Al· Iowa~' and my latest, 'Pretty Maida All in a Bow.' "
--------------------~·
Film K11dos. On Dec. 28 New York's motion picture critics announced their annual awards for 1989 as follows: Best Picture: W uthering Hei,ghis (aee cut). Best Performances: Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind and James Stewart in Mr. Smith Gou to Was~
ington.
It I••~ made by Scarlett in a WBf!OD pulled by a broken-down horse, across the battlefield of Rough
Tn IJti
Best Direction: John Ford's Stagecoach. Best Foreign Film: Harvest. ' WUTHERING HEIGHTS"
News of· Gable's death drew a Dodd of. sorrowful comments from fellow stars. "My God, I'm so terribly sorry," said Lana Turner. "He was always a w0nderful man," said Heel· dy Lamarr. "A decent human IM!lng," said Mar· Uyn Monroe, bis last C()oo star. "I was sadder than I can tell," said Vivien Leigh,-with whom he starred in "Gone With. the Wind" - greatest money maker in Hollywood h. tory. more than UJ ofher fihD . , , ~bfe projected a sense of communication to moviegoers-not by acting, because he was admittedly no great actor, but bY the electric charge of his person· ality. An Extra Hollywood w a s s 1 o w in realizing his value. After a boyhood of following his father around lumber camps, Gable came to the movie town in the '20s to wcfrk as an extra. He .recalled later; -"Everybody said, 'You~ll never do anythlhg in pictures; y o u ' re not handsome and your ears are too big.' I said, "Okay, maybe my ears won't look so big on the stage,' and went' to New York.'' He had fair success on Broadway and was touring In ''The Last Mlle" when Hollywood decided to give him a chance. Big ears or not, he was sought by an 1 n du s try converting to sound and needful of 'actors who could speak. •
Curiously, Gable didn't want the role. He explained later: "By the · time the picture started, the incredibly romantic Rhett Butler was as alive in people's imaginations as any of the actual figures of the day. To try and give substance to this dream pmed to me impossible." Nor was he eager to do "It Happened One Night," which won him an Academy Award in 1934.
the brilliance of his early well suited for Gable. He WI ones. hard hit when she died in ' He still drew top salary- wartime plarie crash $750,000 for his last f~ plus After ~ ~ three weeks of overtime at Ing career following act $48,000 a week. force service, he married Gable always looked tall Lady Sylvia Ashley, widow in the saddle, a commanding of Douglas Fairbanks, sr. figure who disliked the foo- It was a mistake; Gable faraw that went with being couldn't take the cbi-cbl a lfi?vie star. Asked once how world In which she trav· he hked being called the King eled. of Hollywood, he said: "That's a lot of bal°'" Gable's marriage to the forDo ms Best mer Kay Spreckels seemed to "Although I was at home In ~1?.-.':,t=:: suit him. The vital, doWJL-tocQlllllCly Oil the - . . I fliM,'t ean.b a~ thaw ti'ft':9ftfnt abciilt long as I Jceep gettinP. trill} it on the screen," he said. He paid." - edy, and he treated her tW told director Frank Capra he children as his own. would do the best he could The king refused to accept The great:eSt Joy of his last ~'but you can take me out the trappings of his office. months was the prospect of after four or five days if you ~e sel_dom a~d at par- becoming a father for the fhink I'm no good." ties and prenuere!J, had only first time at 60. He checked with Capra a . small n~r of old~e Services after that period and was fnends . he h.ked .to be ~th. told, "Keep going as you are, In keepmg Wtth his reputation After finishing ..The Misboy." as a man's man, he liked the fits" two weeks ago, he ~outdoors life. nounced "rm taking off until Such he often ...,,. hi · 1 , the baby is born m· .., __"' rkedIncidents,the .,..,..... rlS ng is a azy mans &no&'IOU. ~ llf • were ~--·1 sport and that's me-a lazy I want to be there when it 0 s e. man," he once explained. "I happens and for a good many "I've always given life its like to hunt, but there's a lot months afterward." head, maybe tickling it once of walking involved. Fishing Funeral services were set in a while with a spur and is easy; you can just sit and for 9 a. m, Saturday in the reining it over a rough spqt, wait." . Church of the Recessional at but mostly just hanging on," Forest Lawn Memorial Park he once said, adcltng: First Two Wives in nearby Glendale. They will "Well, maybe that's not He always conducted him- be private, for members of quite right. But I've tried to self with dignity and though the family and close personal ride the Sa.ddle well.'' ht" had five marriages, his friends. Heydey In •30s nam~1 was never tinged with ------scanaal. His first two wives, ANCIEN'r SKUIJ.s Tbough he never appeared Josephine Pillon and Maria BERLIN, GERMANY~ to push his career, he re- Langham, were older than he; Human skulls, believed to be mained a top stat for a gt!n- both div:orced him. about 3,700 years old and eration. His heyday was in Then came his marriage .to showing signs of surgery, the '30s when he made a long vivacious Carole Lombard, have been found near Magdeseries of hit films, mostly as whose love of :life seemed burg in F.ast Gennany. a hard-'fisted man of a:ction. It was a tribute to his retha hi 5 1 · silience . t popu anty J never declined althOUCh none of his postwar films matched
Le'gend has it that Gable first stru!=k the public consciousness with that w e 11aimed smack at the face of Nonna Shearer. It was a bold approach in a medium. that had generally treated the fem a 1f! w i t h deference and respect. But men and women alike In theater audiences seemed to be intrigued with the crisptalking, completely masculine actqr. Men Envied Him Mastery o.ver the female was 'Gable's stock in trade. Men envied it. Women desired it. And throughout his 3Q·ye'ar career Gable always won over his feminine ad· versaries in the films. In "It Happened One Night," he was taming t h e m a d c a p heire'Ss, Oaudette Colbert, spanking her o v e r his knee when necessary. In ' "'Red Dust," he ·was splashing .lean Harlow to cool her 1
down.
Everyone agreed th at only Gable fOuld p I a y Rhett Butler in "Gone With the Wind." He was
__P:..1_an_e_cras_n_ana __•_•_·~.:::::::::_-_-_-_-_-_-_-- -- - -_ - - -_ - _- _ ~· 1
I
After 45 years, theres has b\.~n nothing like 'Gone With the Wirnd' -~y EDWIN
McDOWELL
"11981 The New York Times Book Review
VERY FEW YEARS a novel is published. that bas intimations of immortality for book and author. But no novel bas come close to exhibiting the remarkable staying , power of "Gqne With the Wind," Margaret Mitchell's epic tale of the Civil War, which is now f5 years old. 路 When it was published in 1938, "Gone With tbe Wind" carried a then-hefty $3 price tag for its 1,037 P.flges. But the boot, which bas not been out of print amce, has sold more than 21 million copies in the United States, bas been translated into two-dozen languages and continues to sell 25,600 hardcover and ~o.ooo paperback copies a year. Mitchell never published another novel, yet sbe remaim.one <If the best-selling authors of all time. :'There's a new audience for it all the time, and everybody wants his own copy," said Faith 路 Brunson, longtime book buyer for Rich's departinent store in Atlanta. "Many people in this town have at least two or three hardcover copies of the book, and some have as many as they have been able to get their hands on." .Many would like to get their hands on a first edition, which is said to be worth eeveral thousand dollars. Be that as it may, there have been more than enough editions to satisfy the most voracious appetite. 1.'t\lacmillan bas published at least H - it is no lenger ~rtain e?ctly bow many - in everything from a two-volmne paper edition (1939) to a $00-copy limited~ edition (1958) to a larp-print edition (1967) to a $1US slipcased edition wltla an introduction by James Michener (1975). "Gone With the Wind" is the only novel, ucept for current bestsellers, that Rich's always keepe in irtcX:k in all its lS stores in three states. "Once in a while we bad trouble getting a particular edition, but there ,was never a time when we couldn't get cople8 in some edition," said Brumon, who bas been 'ii the book department for 23 years. Yet the book almost was not published at all -because Mitchell, a onetime feature writer for Tbe Ailanta Journal, laid it aside in 1929 after working qjJ It for three years. Lois Dwight Cole, a ltlacmillan editor who bad run the company's Auanta lrade department for a time, knew Mitchell well and wrote to her in 19SS saying Ille would like ---~~ th~e;,:no ::;v~ el. Mitchell replied that she doubted lf
was Margaret MitcbeJ ti. and路 beside her was the btaest manuscript I . bad ever aeen," recalled Latham. "The pile of 1beets reached to her sbouldera. Sbe rose and u dd: 'Here, take the tb1ngo before I change my mind.' '"
E
.
.
Latham bought a suiW.'te to bqllle tbe manasc:ript, wbicb be said was met~. lacked an opentna chapter, was titled "Tomom'w 11 Another Day'' and which bad a heroine nam~ Pansy. Mitcbell wired him in New Orleans, ukb\..9bim to return the manuscript, but be forwarded it to New York instead.
Reviews of the massive boot f . - generally
rbapeocllc, wltb one reviewer sa~ '"l'he tbree
best novels I read this year were-"Gone With the. Wind.' " J. Donald Adams, in The New York Times Book Review of July 5, 1936, wrote: ''This is be)'QDd a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best. I would go so far as to say that It ii, in narrative power, lo sheer readability, IUl'pllled by notbinc in American fiction." Two months after publication, two print101 , plants were wortln& round the clock to try to keep up with demand. One New York bookstore placed a alngJe order for 50,000 copies. From an Initial printing of 10,000 copies, U million copies were ID print within a year. It was the No. 1 naUonal best seller for two coaaecuUve years. and It won a Pulitzer PrUe for fiction. M late as 1949, when Mitchell WU killed by an automobile wblle croutnc an Atlanta street, two aecretaries were required to cope wltb ber fan Margaret Mitellell and ber trlampll
the book would ever be flnlsbed or ever worth seeing, but added that If she ever cbaqed her mind Macmillan would have flnt look. In a booklet commemorating the novel's 25th anniversary, Macmillan editor Harold Latham tecalled bow, on a acoutlng trip to Atlanta in 1935, be twice asked Mitchell If be could see the manuscript, but both times she refaled. FlDally, tbe night before be was to leave for New Orleana, Ille telephoned bis hotel room and uked lf abe coa1d aee him. "I went to the lobby, and there, sitting on a dtvan,
mail.
Yet Atlanta-born Mltcbell, wbo路learaecl much of her Civil War bJstory from Iler parents (and did not learn of the Confederate defeat unW Ille was 10), seemed unable to understand tbe novel's brold appeal. Sile said of her relactance to show Latlaam the manUICl'ipt, '1 just coaldn't believe tbat 1 Northern pubUsber would accept a novel about tbe War Between the states from the Southern polnt of view." "Oar favorite thlnl down here," said BruDloa with a laugb, "ii for a Yankee boot repreaentaUft to walk into my office and 111 be bas a Civil War novel that's bettP.r than 'Gone With tile Wind.' "
David 0. Selznick Dies Of Heart Attack HOLLYWOOD (AP) A its leading lady, Vivien Leigh. heart attack has taken the life His brother Myron, an agent, of film producer David 0. Sel- visited the set with Miss Leigh znick, who gave up millions in and Laurence Olivier. 1939 to get Clark Gable for his "Here's your Scarlett," said cinematic masterpiece, "Gone Myron, who didn't even repreWith the Wind." sent her. The next day Selznick Selznick, 63, was stricken in signed her for Scarlett O'Hara. his lawyer's office Tuesday. Ac- The role gave her the first of tress Jennifer Jones, his second her two Oscars as best actress. The picture won eight Acadwife of 16 years, was with him. She accompanied the producer emy Awards. to Mt. Sinai hospital, where he 'l'he late Margaret Mitchell, author of the Civil War epic, died about an hour later. Selznick made many famous was offered $50,000 by Selznick pictures, but "Gone With the for the screen rights. Another Wind" exemplified his high re- producer offered her $55,000 but gard for quality and his willing- she sold to Selznick. Later he ness to spare no expense. He sent her another $50,000 "as a was determined to have Gable token of my esteem." for the role of Rhett Butler Selznick was a perfectionist in when the production was being all his productions, taking parreadied 'l:l years ago. ticular care in casting. Besides Gable - who died in 1960 - Miss Leigh, his discoveries inthen was at MGM. Selznick was eluded Katharine Hepburn in then married to Irene Mayer "Bill of Divorcement," Joan Selznick, daughter of Louis B. Fontaine in "Rebecca," Ingrid Mayer, and Mayer was boss of Bergman in "For Whom the MGM. Bell Tolls," and Freddy BarthMayer, now dead, told Sel- olomew in "Little Lord Fauntznick he could bave Gable pro- leroy." vided that re-issue rights to Selznick's last picture was "Gone With the Wind" would go "Farewell to Arms" in. 1957. not to Selznick but to MGM. The He was the son of Lewis J. film now is in its tenth re-issue Selznick, a movie pioneer in and has grossed an estimated silent , picture days who was $60 million at the boxoffice - edged out by younger, more agthe all-time champion money gressive producers in later days maker. of the industry. David was born Selznick once said: "I have in Pittsburgh, Pa., and studied never regretted it. I wouldn't at Columbia University. His have made the piCture without first work in movies was in pubClark." ¡ licity, and he never failed to The film was already in take advantage of this aspect of productio~ when Selznick found the business.
Actress Vivien Leigh Dies At 53 in London Apartment 'Succumbs After Battle With Tuberculosis
The film ClOJDllUY had aked scene." He released ier for a .file Engtilh actress 'ID attend fortnllht on the Rivier. with
'68 felllJlve opening d. the CMI the man llbe aimed to marry, Wu epic in Atlmlta, Ga., this Launmce Olivier - they were laW, • lhe bad done at the pre- bodi ma'l'l'ied to dlhen at the mlere tn 1939 and the wv cen- time. When l!he returned tio Holblallial nleue In 1961. Now it lywood, l!he was 1Dkl file film 9JJ18W8 bt Olivia de Bavtl- had been completal.. lqil wil haw 1he sad duty of . l'fJlreMatfng the film tr 0 up• MISS LEIGH MARRIED Oh-
screen, was found dead in her
London apartment today. She had been in ill healdl for some
time.
Hamilton."
Miss Leith was divorced by her first husband, London lawyer Herbert Leigh 'Holman, after eight years of marriage. Miu Leigh and Oliver made theatrical history In 1951 and 1952 with their appearances in t w I n productio111 of Shakespeare's ".Antony and Cleopatra" and G e o r g e Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleo})!tra,"
HCU.YWOOD, Aug. 5 (IAP) 11IE .DEATH OF VIVIEN LEIGH ci11ne 111 MGM was prepaclltt·for fhe llizth nMlule of her greeteBt ~. "Gane W'i1il the
J!i!d."
LONDON, July 8 (A:P)Vivien Leigh, star of 8tage and
Miss Leigh, former wife of Sir Laurence Olivrier, had long .-dfered kom tuberculosis. She had a re!oapee recently and was under medical care. She wu 53 years old. Doctors had adviled her to rest last week after a recurrence of her illness. She was to haw begun rehearsale next month for Edward Albee's play, "A Delicate Bahmoe." Was Scarlett O'Hara Miss Leigh roH to world acclaim for her role of Scarlett O'Hwa oppolite Clark Gable in the movie ''Gone With the Wind." She was picked for the part in the place of some of the bifteat names in the movie industry. When casting for the movie, ~rectJOr George Cukor aid of the role and the star he was hunting: "The girl I select must be pouessed of the devil and charged with electricity." · Cukor decided the nlattvely •litt~ English actrea had .·"what he wanted. Although "Gone With the Wind" brought her acclllim, Miss Leigh reached the peak of her acting career in association willh Olivier, who was to become her 1econd hUllbancl. They toured the United States together in "Hlamlet" w i t h Olivier in the title role and Miss Leigh as Ophelia. They waited together In Sir A I e x a n d e r Korda's movie pr.oductlon "Lady
Leigh Was Exhausted the Role ol Scarlett O'Hara ·
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AQl9liaa • fuorite movie. to aHow her career 'ID be domfMost al 1he other major· fig· nated by Scarlett O'Hara When connected .ih "Gone wHh l!he retmned to Hollyw~ in
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Vivien Leigh ltJaged both in London and New
York. Miu Lelgb wu ltricken with tuberculOl!is in 1845 and 9P8Dt two monthl in a anatarium. The illness from then on forced her to rest periodically. Two Movie Awardl She wu uvarded an o.car In 1939 for her performance In "Gone With the Wind" and In 1951 won a econd Academy Awud for her portrayal of Blanche du Boi1 In Tennessee William•' "A St!'eetcar Named Desire." Miss Leigh's Hfe from 1945 on was dominated by the illness that finally took her life. She suffered frequent collapaes and lost the baby she was expecting shortly before her divorce from Sir Laurence in 1980. She had a daughter by her first marriage. Mi• Leigh was born Vivian Mery Hartley In Darjeeling, &ldia, Nov. 5, 1913, the daughter of an English 1tockbroker and an Irish mother. She WU educated In England. France, Italy and Bavaria. and stpdied drama at the Fnnch Comedle Francaise and the British Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She changed her flnt name to Vivien beeaWle lhe laid it wu more femmine and bonowed her second name from her fint hUlband, whom she married at the age of 19.
~ W Ind" are dead: Miu ~ Ouk Gable, Leslie Howm:rd, p r o d u c e r David 0. Se!m1ick, di~ ViCllOr Flem•..tzi& ICeDlritt Sidney :f!owlll'd, ~'ftlomla MiCdtel, Hattie McDant e I, Wanl Bond, Laur. a,.. CIWll, Harry l>IMmport. Mi. Leigh. died at 53 l'eOl!ln6y If! her l.onlbl home. She hid . . . . • return al dle tli>erUUo8 dlllt bad .nlicted her In ;-as years followmg die t11mtng "Gom Wildl the W'md."
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1951, it was in an entirely different role - as '91e bedevi1ed Blanche DuBois in "A Streetca·r Named Desh'e " which won her
second Acad~y Award. The actnss relurned 'ID HoM wood for ..Elepiant Walk" ~ 1953 but lhe llUffered a nemius
~ and Wiii teplaced by Etizabeth Ta,tor. Miss Leigh's marriage .., Olivier Milt falling a p a r t, and 8he was troubled with m beld1h. Stfl, she sum-/ moned the ~ for more
"'I AM CONVINCED 'lhat Vi- 8ippeltl'llDOell OD 1he stage and 9'len contN.ded TB u a 19Ult in fihns, her last one here being, rJf her nmdown condition after "~ fl Fools." In ft she gave . . picture," Miu de Hawtand a remarkably poignant portrait jtid recently. "I've never seen d. a wann-hearted woman reccmchd 'ID a life of lonelineu. e,.one wodt as tmd as she did Some ay it was taken from her on 'Gone wi'lh the Wind.' By the time lie pictlft w111 over, lhe wu a lbaclow of her former -.elf." . Vivien Leigh mw.,. pve un, . . . of ber flllll8ies H an **'-• but nevoer more bn in lier role a1 Scarlett O'llara. She !'9d2led 'l!m lhe bad 1lo ~ ~. Bince there WU wide:l!Pf9ad criticiem 1!at a vlrtualJy .tDmwn British actrell wodd .... given . . role al 1he fiery :$Julilem belle. h worked hard at llDf!lenlng her Engtilh. accent 'ID Soucbern blel, 1llen labored fiw long modila el 11 boun • day lllllt waa when the s tu d i o 1 wodmd a .,. a week, not Im. She .... tn vllelaHy fl'l8ry MqUeDCe al the tum. and inwlttld hard '*"9icai adion. TowMd the encl d. production, Belmlck walllled a retake of a ecene that took place at dte beailmln1. But he took a look at 6ia __. and told her: "You _look ..., atd and floo iM for the
mar
life.
Died. Vivien Leigh, 53, brilliantly versatile actress; after a long siege of tuberculosis; in London. A fragile (5 ft. 3 in., 100 lbs.) British beauty, she spun to international fame in 1939, when David 0. Selznick chose her to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind; that part won her an Oscar, as did her Blanche DuBois in 1952's A Streetcar Named Desire. No movie could match the historic 1951-52 London and Broadway stage performances of Anthony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra with Laurence Olivier, her longtime lover, second husband and most ardent tutor. The triumphs were fewer after their divorce in 1960, though she still won plaudits as the vixenish divorcee in Hollywooo's Ship of Fools two years ago and as the consumptive Anna last year in Broadway's Ivanov.
••hfw...,.t.-~·-·1:'• 1 WON
FAME AS. 'SCARLETT'
·Vivien Leigh Found Dead LONDON (AP) - Actress Sir Laurence, wo·n internationVivien Leigh, who won an al acclaim in the twin producOscar in 1939 and.,rose to in- tions, Shakespeare's "Anthony temational stardomoy playing and Cleopatra" and George Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and the Wind" and won another Cleopatra." Oscar 12 years later for her 1 She was the first actress in portrayal of neurotic Blanche theatrical history to try Shakesdu Bois in "A Streetcar Named peare's and Shaw's Cleopatra Desire," died Saturday. , in sequence, and succeed in The 53-year-old actress was both. found dead in bed in her Miss Leigh and Olivier were London apartment after a re- married in 1940 following her currence of tuberculosis, an I divorce from her first husband, illness that had dominated her Herbert Leigh. Holman, a Brilife since 1945. She suffered I tish lawyer, after eight years frequent collapses and in 1960 of marriage. Sh~ had a daugblost a baby she •was expecting ter by that mamagc. An Olivier Visit shortly before her divorce Olivier, now married to acfrom Sir Laurence Olivier. Strkken Month AID I tress Joan Plowright and himMiss Leigh was stricken ill self under treatment for proa month ago as she was to state cancer, visited his former start rehearsals for the London wife's home for half an stage production of Edward hour after her death was anAlbee's "A Delicate Balance.'1 nounced. She was one of Britain's Slim, with a heart-shaped most accomplished and versa- fare and twinkling gray eyes, tile modern actresses. Miss Leigh was born in India She and her second husband, of an English father and Irish mother. She left an English convent school at 14 and studied drama in Germany and France. Her London stage d e b u t came in 1935 as Henriette in ''The Mask of Virtue." Film p1oducer Alexander K o r d a was so impressed that between acts on opening night he went backstage and signed her to a $140,000 five-year film..:ontract She appeared in Britishmade "Sidewalks of London" and "A Yank at Oxford." A Promise Miss Leigh was appearing on the London stage when she read Margaret Mitchell's massive Civil War no v e I "Gone With The Wind.'' She promised fellow actresses that if she ever went to Hollywood it would be to play Scarlett O'Hara. In late 1938 the filming of ''Gone With The Wind" had begun but the lead actress not yet chosen. Hollywood's t o p actresses, such as Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis, were scrambling for the part. Then little - known Miss Leigh, who was in Hollywood on a two-week holiday, took 1
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Vivien Leig~, co-starring with Clark Gable, received an Academy Award for her performance as Scarlett O'Hara in the movie "Gone with the Wind."
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a screen test and won the part. She played opp"Osite Clark Gable's Rhett Butler and the film went on to set box-office records for a generation. Miss Leigh received only $16,800 for her Oscar-winning role. Entertained Troops She first met Olivier when they played "Hamlet" in Denmark in 1935. During the war, while Olivier was a navy pilot, Miss Leigh toured the fronts entertaining troops. She
returned to the London stage in 1945 and a &hort' tfine later was stricken with t\'lberculo· sis. She spent two months in a sanitarium and had a long convalescence. Her last film role was in "Ship of Fools." She won a 1966 French Film Af.lldemy award playing a middle-aged alcoholic who wound up dancing a solitary Charleston on the deck of the night-bound ship her las(. lonesome kick of lif.e.
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lt'.J a fine ha.by hoy, and Mi.M Scarlett and me, we hrung him. .. it wtM nwt1tly me/ Scarlett helped me a Little.
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&h!ey doNn 't know I lore him! I'fL teLL him I lore him and then he can't marry her/
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Rhett .Jaying goodbye to Scarlett at .JurMet /Jefore going off to join The CaU.Je.
Ad God iJ my witnet1a, /'ff never be hungry again.
You 're been marrieo to a hoy ano an o!J man. Why oon 't you try a htubano the right age with a way with women?
None of the foou you hare erer known hare kiMed you Li/ce thu, hare they?
If I'm pal.e, i.t'.! your fault ... not becau.Je I've been miMing you, but becatMe. . .i.t'.! becatMe I'm going to have a baby!
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ALL of our money can't buy what I want for Bonnie.
TM & © 1998 Warner Bros.
Land if the only thing in the wor& worth working for and worth dying for, becatMe it'.! the only thing that iaJt.:J.
Nothing turned out Like I expected it, A.lhley. Nothing!