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Gone with the Wind (1939) More at IMDbPro »

• When Gary Cooper turned down the role for Rhett Butler, he was passionately against it. He is quoted saying both, "Gone with the Wind (1939) is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history," and, "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #6 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".
  
  
• The movie's line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." was voted as the #1 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• The movie's line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." was voted as the #2 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• The movie's line "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!" was voted as the #76 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• The movie's line "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthing babies!" was voted as the #28 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• First color film to win the Best Picture Oscar.
  
  
• Of all the many actresses who tested for the part of Scarlett, only Paulette Goddard and Vivien Leigh were filmed in color.
  
  
• Although he was dismissed from the production, George Cukor continued to privately coach both Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland at their request on weekends.
  
  
• The estimated production costs were $3.9 million. At the time, only Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Hell's Angels (1930) had cost more.
  
  
• The film had its first preview on 9 September 1939 at the Fox Theatre in Riverside, California. In attendance were David O. Selznick, his wife Irene Mayer Selznick, investor John Hay Whitney and editor Hal C. Kern. Kern called for the manager and explained that his theater had been chosen for the first public screening of Gone with the Wind (1939) though the identity of the film was to remain undisclosed to the audience until the very moment it began. People were permitted to leave only if they didn't want to hang around for a film that they didn't know the name of, but after they'd gone, the theater was to be sealed with no re-admissions and no phone calls. The manager was reluctant but eventually agreed. His one request was to call his wife to come to the theater immediately, although he was forbidden to tell her what film she was about to see. Indeed, Kern stood by him while he made his phone call to ensure he maintained the secret. When the film began, the audience started yelling with excitement. They had been reading about this film for nearly 2 years, so were naturally thrilled to see it for themselves.
  
  
• Sidney Howard agreed to write the screenplay, but from his home in Massachusetts, 3000 miles away from studio interference. His first draft would have made a 5 1/2 hour movie. Howard reluctantly agreed to leave his Massachusetts farm and come to Hollywood to work on another draft with Selznick and then-attached director George Cukor. As Selznick was preoccupied with problems on the set of The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Howard had to wait 5 weeks before he was able to start working on another draft (in the meantime contributing some rewrites for "Zenda"). The second draft turned out to be 15 pages longer than the first.
  
  
• David O. Selznick traveled to Bermuda in September 1938 to finalize the script. He reportedly brought four suitcases full of drafts with him.
  
  
• The Ku Klux Klan was written out of the screenplay as the organization to which Frank Kennedy turns after Scarlett is attacked in Shantytown. Producer David O. Selznick said that he had no desire to remake The Birth of a Nation (1915), telling screenwriter Sidney Howard in 1937, "I do hope you will agree with me on this omission of what might come out as an unintentional advertisement for intolerant societies in these fascist-ridden times. . . ."
  
  
• Olivia de Havilland was a contract player at Warner Brothers when MGM made the call to her for the part of Melanie. De Havilland was very keen to take the part and managed to convince her boss Jack L. Warner to let her out of her contract, mainly by getting his wife to exert her influence.
  
  
• Half a million feet of film were shot. This was all edited down to 20,000 feet.
  
  
• Leslie Howard privately felt that he was much too old to play Ashley Wilkes (the character was supposed to be about 21 at the start of the film). He wore extra make-up and a hairpiece to make him appear younger. Selznick was only able to persuade him to take the part by offering him a producer credit on Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939).
  
  
• There are more than 50 speaking roles and 2,400 extras in the film.
  
  
• Contrary to popular belief, this is not the first film to use the word "damn". The expletive was used in numerous silent intertitles and in several talkies, including Cavalcade (1933) and Pygmalion (1938).
  
  
• For the premiere in Atlanta in December 15, 1939, the governor declared a state holiday. Ticket prices for the premiere were 40 times the usual going rate.
  
  
• Margaret Mitchell's inspiration for her book title came from the 13th line of the Ernest Dowson poem, "Cynara" - "I have forgot much Cynara! Gone with the wind."
  
  
• One of the few remaining scenes directed by George Cukor to survive into the final cut of the film is the birth of Melanie's baby.
  
  
• At one point, five film units were shooting scenes. Directors involved were Sam Wood, Sidney Franklin and stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt.
  
  
• The only four actors David O. Selznick ever seriously considered for the role Rhett Butler were Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn and Ronald Colman. The chief impediment to Gable's casting was his MGM contract. Gable was not drawn to the material; he didn't see himself in a period production, and didn't believe that he could live up to the public's anticipation of the character. Eventually, he was persuaded by a $50,000 bonus which would enable him to divorce his second wife Maria ("Ria") and marry Carole Lombard.
  
  
• David O. Selznick bought the rights to the best selling novel for $50,000. Louis B. Mayer, Selznick's father-in-law and head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, was determined to make Gone with the Wind (1939) an MGM film. Mayer initially offered to buy Selznick out at a handsome profit. Warner Bros. offered Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and advantageous financing. Selznick's own distributor United Artists showed interest in providing a production financing package. However, none of them had an actor capable of portraying Rhett Butler except MGM, which offered a deal that included Clark Gable. After much vacillating on Selznick's part, a deal was struck with MGM on January 19, 1938 that gave Selznick Clark Gable and $1.25 million toward production costs, in return for giving MGM distribution rights and 50% of the profits, which were further reduced by Loew's Inc.'s 15% interest and a requirement to pay Gable's $4,500 per week salary and one-third of Gable's $50,000 loan-out bonus. "GWTW" was, of course, a box office triumph, grossing over $20 million during its initial release alone. Selznick eventually earned $4 million on the picture. Unfortunately, a few years later he sold his rights to John Hay Whitney for a paltry $400,000 to keep his independent production company afloat. John Hay Whitney later sold the rights to Gone with the Wind (1939) back to MGM for a $2.4 million.
  
  
• All four principal characters appear together in the same scene only once, after the raid on Shantytown, when Rhett tells the anxious group of the fate of Scarlett's second husband, Frank Kennedy.
  
  
• One of the reasons that Clark Gable hesitated to do the film was his participation in a previous costume drama Parnell (1937) in 1937. The film was a terrible, embarrassing failure and Gable regretted accepting the role.
  
  
• To portray Melanie, Olivia de Havilland spent most of the film in drab, dowdy costumes. She wore 2 elaborate dresses in the film: one when Melanie and Ashley announce their engagement, and a striking blue taffeta dress that Melanie wears to Scarlett's first wedding. Unfortunately, due to film aspect ratio at the time (long before the advent of widescreen), the screen could not accommodate two dresses built up with hoop skirts, so they had to be removed. Thus, de Havilland's rare appearance in a beautiful dress was shot from the waist up, with the skirt hanging limp.
  
  
• In 1939, the Hollywood Production Code dictated what could and could not be shown or said on screen, and Rhett Butler's memorable last line presented a serious problem. A few of the suggested alternatives were "Frankly my dear... I just don't care," "... it makes my gorge rise," "... my indifference is boundless," "... I don't give a hoot," and "... nothing could interest me less." Although legend persists that the Hays Office fined Selznick $5,000 for using the word "damn", in fact the Motion Picture Association board passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, to insure that Selznick would be in compliance with the code. Henceforth, the words "hell" and "damn" would be banned except when their use "shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore ... or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste." With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett's closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
  
  
• 1,400 actresses were interviewed for the part of Scarlett O'Hara. 400 were asked to do readings.
  
  
• Among the many famous actress considered for the part of Scarlett were Jean Arthur, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Katharine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, and Margaret Sullavan. Bankhead (an authentic "Southern Belle" from Alabama) was the clear front-runner, but her unsavory personal life made producers reluctant to hire her.
  
  
• Of all the actresses considered for the role, Louise Platt, Tallulah Bankhead, Linda Watkins, Adele Longmire, Haila Stoddard, Susan Hayward (at the time using the name Edythe Marriner), Dorothy Mathews, Brenda Marshall, Paulette Goddard, Anita Louise, Margaret Tallichet, Frances Dee, Nancy Coleman, Marcella Martin, Lana Turner, Diana Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivien Leigh were given actual screen tests for the role of Scarlett O'Hara.
  
  
• Judy Garland was the leading contender for the role of Scarlett's sister Carreen before her "Andy Hardy" series co-star Ann Rutherford was cast, but she was tied up with commitments to another film directed by Victor Fleming: The Wizard of Oz (1939). Ironically, Fleming would replace George Cukor on both The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939).
  
  
• Production began with Robert Gleckler playing Jonas Wilkerson. After a month of filming, Gleckler died. His scenes were re-shot with replacement cast member Victor Jory.
  
  
• One month after the book was published, David O. Selznick purchased the movie rights from Margaret Mitchell for an unprecedented $50,000. At the time it was the highest sum that had ever been paid for an author's first novel. Realizing he had underpaid Mitchell, Selznick gave her an additional $50,000 as a bonus when he dissolved Selznick-International Pictures in 1942.
  
  
• The premiere was held in Atlanta, Georgia on December 15, 1939. It was reportedly the first time that David O. Selznick had been in the South.
  
  
• Nothing in the internal memos of David O. Selznick indicates or suggests that Clark Gable played any role in the dismissal of director George Cukor. Rather, they show Selznick's mounting dissatisfaction with Cukor's slow pace and quality of work. Almost half of Cukor's scenes were scrapped or later re-shot by others. From a private letter from journalist Susan Myrick to Margaret Mitchell in February 1939: "George [Cukor] finally told me all about it. He hated [leaving the production] very much he said but he could not do otherwise. In effect he said he is an honest craftsman and he cannot do a job unless he knows it is a good job and he feels the present job is not right. For days, he told me he has looked at the rushes and felt he was failing... the things did not click as it should. Gradually he became convinced that the script was the trouble... So George just told David he would not work any longer if the script was not better and he wanted the [Sidney] Howard script back... he would not let his name go out over a lousy picture... And bull-headed David said 'OK get out!'" Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor ("a very expensive luxury") for not being more receptive to directing other Selznick assignments, even though Cukor had remained on salary since early 1937; and in a confidential memo written in September 1938, four months before principal photography began, Selznick flirted with the idea of replacing him with Victor Fleming. "I think the biggest black mark against our management to date is the Cukor situation and we can no longer be sentimental about it.... We are a business concern and not patrons of the arts... ."
  
  
• Margaret Mitchell was dismayed at the scale of the Tara and Twelve Oaks sets, writing to her friend, technical advisor Susan Myrick, "I grieve to hear that Tara has columns. Of course, it didn't and looked nice and ugly like Alex Stephens' Liberty Hall [in Crawfordville, Georgia]." And, "I had feared, of course that [Twelve Oaks] would end up looking like the Grand Central Station, and your description confirms my worst apprehensions. I did not know whether to laugh or to throw up at the TWO staircases.... God help me when the reporters get me after I've seen the picture. I will have to tell the truth, and if Tara has columns and Twelve Oaks is such an elegant affair I will have to say that nothing like that was ever seen in Clayton County, or, for that matter, on land or sea.... When I think of the healthy, hardy, country and somewhat crude civilization I depicted and then of the elegance that is to be presented, I cannot help yelping with laughter... "
  
  
• The first scene to be shot was the burning of the Atlanta Depot, filmed on 10 December 1938. If there was a major mistake during the filming, the entire film might have been scrapped. They actually burned many old sets that needed to be cleared from the studio backlot, including sets from The Garden of Allah (1936) and the "Great Wall" set from King Kong (1933). The fire cost over $25,000, and yielded 113 minutes of footage. It was so intense that Culver City residents jammed the telephones lines, thinking MGM was burning down. Scarlett was stunt doubled by Aline Goodwin and Lila Finn, while Rhett was doubled by veteran stuntmen Yakima Canutt and Jay Wilsey.
  
  
• There is historical dispute and ambiguity over exactly when Vivien Leigh was contracted to play Scarlett O'Hara. One theory holds that David O. Selznick had already secretly signed her for the role as early as February 1938, and that the nationwide "Search For Scarlett O'Hara", during which thousands of dollars were spent "testing" aspiring actresses for the part, was actually a well orchestrated publicity stunt on the part of David O. Selznick to keep alive interest in a very expensive film for which he did not yet have the money to produce. The other, more dramatic and interesting story is that Selznick's brother Myron Selznick, an agent, introduced Vivien Leigh to David O. Selznick during the filming of the Atlanta fire and said "David, meet your Scarlett O'Hara". The truth of the matter is unknown, and may never be resolved.
  
  
• The 222 minute running time excludes the Overture Music (played before the credits), the Entr'acte Music (played during the intermission) and the Exit Music (played after the film ends). All three were especially recorded for the film soundtrack, and were heard at the film's original 1939 world premiere. They were seldom played by exhibitors until the 1997 New Line Cinema edition of the film restored them. They are also included on the DVD.
  
  
• The film has never been cut. Recent releases are longer because of the added Overture, intermission, and exit music, not because any deleted scenes have been restored.
  
  
• Very few of the principal cast members liked the characters they were portraying. Clark Gable was induced into accepting his role through arrangements to divorce his current wife and marry Carole Lombard. Rand Brooks, who played Scarlett's first husband Charles Hamilton and died early in the story, was actually a rough outdoorsman who objected to playing a wimpy character. Butterfly McQueen disliked the negative stereotype of her character. Leslie Howard felt he was too old for the role of Ashley Wilkes and complained that his costumes made him look like "a fairy doorman" at a hotel.
  
  
• David O. Selznick begged Margaret Mitchell, author of the novel, to critique every aspect of the production. An intensely private person, Mrs. Mitchell gave one criticism of the facade of the design for Tara, which was ignored. Afterward, she refused to comment on any aspect of the film during production.
  
  
• Producer David O. Selznick and production designer William Cameron Menzies also directed parts of this film, uncredited.
  
  
• One of the first promising candidates for the role of Scarlett was Adele Longmire, who was seventeen at the time. Her parents did not permit her to travel to New York for a screen test, so Longmire did not appear in a film until several years later.
  
  
• In a March 1939 newspaper article, David O. Selznick was reported to be considering producing Gone with the Wind (1939) as two films, as it was felt that the novel was far too long and complex to be successfully made into a single motion picture for the time.
  
  
• For the scene in which Scarlett escapes the burning of the Atlanta Depot, a horse was needed to play woebegone, an old nag on the verge of collapse. A suitable candidate was finally found, but weeks later, when the horse was brought to the set, it had gained weight and its ribs were no longer visible. There was no time to find a replacement, so the makeup department painted dark shadows on its ribs to give the appearance of malnourishment.
  
  
• In the scene where Scarlett searches for Dr. Meade, making her way among 1,600 suffering and dying Confederate soldiers, to cut costs and still comply with a union rule that dictated the use of a certain percentage of extras in the cast, 800 dummies were scattered among 800 extras.
  
  
• The crane shot where Scarlett searches for Dr. Meade, making her way among suffering and dying Confederate soldiers, was Val Lewton's idea. He had previously been Selznick's assistant editor and went on to produce a string of B movies though the 1940s.
  
  
• In the scene where Rhett pours Mammy a drink after the birth of Bonnie, for a joke during a take, Clark Gable actually poured alcohol instead of the usual tea into the decanter without Hattie McDaniel knowing it until she took a swig.
  
  
• The first rough cut in July 1939 ran four and a half hours - 48 minutes longer than the final release.
  
  
• All seven of Hollywood's then-existing Technicolor cameras were used to film the Burning of the Atlanta Depot. Flames 500 feet high leaped from a set that covered 40 acres. Ten pieces of fire equipment from the Los Angeles Fire Department, 50 studio firemen and 200 studio helpers stood by throughout the filming of this sequence in case the fire should get out of hand. Three 5,000-gallon water tanks were used to quench the flames after shooting.
  
  
• Female costumes were made complete with petticoats, although they wouldn't have been missed had they not been there.
  
  
• In the scene after Scarlett returns to a decimated Tara, digs up a radish in the garden, then retches and gives her famous "As God is my witness... " line, the vomiting sounds were actually looped by Olivia de Havilland. One version of the story is that Vivien Leigh "could not" produce a convincing enough retching sound. Another version of the story is that Vivien Leigh "would not" make the retching sound because "it simply was not lady-like".
  
  
• Vivien Leigh worked for 125 days and received about $25,000. Clark Gable worked for 71 days and received over $120,000.
  
  
• Margaret Mitchell wrote her novel between 1926 and 1929. In her early drafts, the main character was named "Pansy O'Hara" and the O'Hara plantation we know as Tara was called "Fountenoy Hall."
  
  
• A few of Margaret Mitchell's working titles for the novel included "Tomorrow is Another Day," "Not in Our Stars", "Bugles Sang True" and "Tote the Weary Load". The most famous working title was, "Ba! Ba! Black Sheep".
  
  
• The film sequence that is commonly referred to as "the Burning of Atlanta" was not the actual burning of the city by General Sherman in November 1864. Instead, the scene represents the night, two months earlier, when the retreating Confederate army torched its ammunition dumps to keep the Union army from capturing them.
  
  
• David O. Selznick asked Alfred Hitchcock for help with the scene in which the women wait for the men from the raid on Shantytown and Melanie reads "David Copperfield". Hitchcock delivered a precise treatment, complete with descriptions of shots and camera angles. Hitchcock wanted to show Rhett, Ashley, etc. outside the house, dodging the Union soldiers. He also wanted an exchange of meaningful glances between Melanie and Rhett inside the house. Virtually nothing of this treatment was used.
  
  
• Clark Gable was so distressed over the requirement that he cry on film (during the scene where Melanie is comforting Rhett after Scarlett's miscarriage) that he almost quit. Olivia de Havilland convinced him to stay.
  
  
• The final shooting script dated 24 January 1939 had a price tag of $25,000 by late 1939.
  
  
• The horse that Thomas Mitchell rode was later Silver of "The Lone Ranger" (1949) fame.
  
  
• Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to be nominated for, and win, an Academy Award.
  
  
• Priscilla Lane was considered for the role of Melanie Wilkes.
  
  
• Mickey Kuhn, who played Vivien Leigh's nephew Beau Wilkes, also played the young sailor who helps her onto the streetcar in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). When Kuhn mentioned to someone else on the set that he had acted with Leigh as a child, word got back to her and she called him into her dressing room for a half-hour chat. In an interview in his seventies, Kuhn stated that Leigh was extremely kind to him and "one of the loveliest ladies he had ever met."
  
  
• Rhett was not allowed to say, on film, "Maybe you'll have a miscarriage" right before Scarlett falls down the stairs; the line is changed to "Maybe you'll have an accident."
  
  
• If box office receipts for the movie were adjusted for inflation, it would be the top grossing movie of all time; Star Wars (1977) would only be the second most successful movie of all time. According to the Guinness World Records homepage the total gross in 2005 figures would be $3,785,107,801.
  
  
• The reminiscent wounded soldier in the makeshift Atlanta hospital talking to nurses Scarlett and Melanie about his "brother Jeff" was played by Cliff Edwards. Edwards later provided the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's classic Pinocchio (1940) and introduced the Academy Award winning song "When You Wish Upon A Star". Edwards is only heard, not seen, as the reminiscent solder in Gone with the Wind (1939).
  
  
• If the number of total admissions are calculated, this is the most popular movie of all time in the US. While having the advantage of being released several times in theaters, the shocking thing is that there were half as many Americans alive when it was released, compared with Titanic (1997), Star Wars (1977) and Jaws (1975).
  
  
• Three of the four prinicipal actors, Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh, and Clark Gable, died at relatively young ages. Olivia de Havilland is the only one who remains alive as of this writing (May 2008). Ironically, her character is the only one who dies in the film.
  
  
• David O. Selznick was required to give MGM the distribution rights in exchange for the use of Clark Gable and $1,250,000 in financing.
  
  
• None of the interior sets had ceilings. These, and the upper parts of many exteriors, were optically added or modified with matte paintings. This is most noticeable to the modern discerning eye in the last shot of the scene showing the many dead and wounded Confederate soldiers. The tattered Confederate flag, previously seen in the astonishing pullback crane shot blowing in the breeze, is now represented by a matte painting, hanging limp.
  
  
• When Melanie says that Bonnie's eyes are "as blue as the 'Bonnie Blue' flag", she is referring to the popular name of the single-star secession flag that was flown over Georgia after it seceded from the union (as well as over all other states that did so). Is consisted of a single white star over a field of blue. Tradition holds that it flew over Georgia for the first few months of 1861 before being replaced by the better-known "Stars And Bars" Confederate flags of later years.
  
  
• Billie Burke (best remembered today as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939)) was considered for Aunt Pittypat Hamilton, but the producers thought she was too young (she was 54).
  
  
• When Scarlett receives the letter that her husband Charles has died, the letter is signed Wade Hampton. He was Charles' commander in the war.
  
  
• Barbara O'Neil was only 28 when she appeared as Ellen O'Hara (Scarlett's mother). Vivien Leigh was 25 when she appeared as Scarlett, who is only 16 at the beginning of the film.
  
  
• Prominent Atlanta preacher Martin Luther King, Sr. (father of Martin Luther King) was invited to the cotillion ball held in Atlanta at the film's premiere. King, Sr. had been urged to boycott the festivities by other community leaders because none of the black actors in the film were allowed to attend. A forward thinker, King, Sr. attended because he was invited - and brought along his famous son with him.
  
  
• At nearly four hours long, this is longest running of all movies to win the Best Picture Academy Award.
  
  
• Was voted the eighth greatest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
  
  
• Voted #4 film of all time by the American Film Institute.
  
  
• The American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-1940, lists this movie as having been filmed in Black and White instead of Technicolor.
  
  
• In 2004, the movie was completely restored from the original three Technicolor negatives. This time, digital technology was employed to create results impossible to achieve with traditional methods. The negatives were scanned in at 2K resolution and digitally combined to remove all previous alignment problems and achieve perfect registration despite different amounts of shrinkage in the masters. The resulting digital master is of higher quality than any prints available so far - including the original prints from 1939. The color was timed to be identical to that of the surviving answer print of David O. Selznick, which is the color reference for the film. Reportedly, Selznick's original answer print was lost but it turned up five weeks into the 2004 digital restoration process. The color timing of the new digital master was subsequently stopped and started all over again from scratch. This 2004 digitally restored version looks truly astonishing, particularly when projected with a digital projector. An improved version, this time working at 4K resolution is already approved and should be finished in 2005.
  
  
• Before casting had actually started, Margaret Mitchell was asked (during an interview) who, she felt, should play Rhett Butler. She replied, "Groucho Marx." This was obviously a joke, and Margaret Mitchell's way of reiterating that she wanted nothing to do with the making of the film.
  
  
• To add to the publicity, fans were asked to vote for the actress they think should play Scarlett. Out of hundreds of ballots cast, Vivien Leigh got only one vote.
  
  
• Came first in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas, with an estimated two-thirds of the UK's population going to see it
  
  
• Ranks third in the Academy Award most nominated films list with 13 nominations.
  
  
• The character of Ashley Wilkes was based on Margaret Mitchell's cousin by marriage John "Doc" Holliday. Melanie was based on Mitchell's third-cousin, and Doc's first cousin and close friend, Mattie "Sister Melanie" Holliday. Doc moved West and became the gambler and gunfighter we know. Mattie joined a convent and became a nun, but maintained a correspondence with Doc.
  
  
• The character of Rhett Butler was partially inspired by Mitchell's husband nicknamed "Red", to whom she had a short and passionate marriage. Rhett Butler's initials on the handkerchief given to Melanie by Belle are "R.B." or "R.K.B." in the novel, which were the same as Red's- only rearranged.
  
  
• Hattie McDaniel was cast as Mammy after Louise Beavers, Etta McDaniel, Ruby Dandridge, and Hattie Noel were briefly considered.
  
  
• While directing the scene where Prissy says "Oh Miss Scarlett! I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies," director George Cukor told Vivien Leigh to actually slap actress Butterfly McQueen and to make it as realistic as possible, and directed Butterfly McQueen to scream. After many takes, McQueen broke down in tears, complaining that Vivien Leigh was hitting her too hard. In a later interview, Butterfly McQueen said that she "bargained" with the others, stating that if Vivien Leigh hit her, she would NOT scream, but if Vivien Leigh's hand only passed close to her face with the illusion of hitting her, she would scream as loudly as she could. McQueen also giggled and said that she thought "Prissy should have been slapped often, because she was horrid!"
  
  
• Writer Sidney Howard was paid $2,000 a week to do the screenplay. Many other writers contributed to the final script, with the final sum paid to every one of them being $126,000. Sidney Howard received sole screen credit. David O. Selznick also wrote much of the screenplay.
  
  
• During filming Vivien Leigh reportedly smoked four packets of cigarettes a day. Clark Gable smoked three packs a day throughout his career.
  
  
• According to Newsreels, there were a handful of Confederate Civil War veterans who, though quite old, attended the premiere in Atlanta.
  
  
• The two leads ranked #7 on Moviefone's 'The Top 25 Sexiest Movie Couples'. [May 2008]
  
  
• Cinematographer Lee Garmes was fired a month into production because his footage was deemed to be too dark. He was replaced by Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan.
  
  
• The fact that Hattie McDaniel would be unable to attend the premiere in racially segregated Atlanta annoyed Clark Gable so much that he threatened to boycott the premiere unless she could attend. He later relented when she convinced him to go.
  
  
• When Victor Fleming came on board in February 1939, he rejected the script. Production was shut down for 17 days while it was rewritten by Ben Hecht. Hecht used Sidney Howard's original script (which he felt was superb) as the basis for his rewrite.
  
  
• Leslie Howard was one of the few cast members not to attend the premiere in Atlanta.
  
  
• Vivien Leigh wasn't happy with Victor Fleming's brusque style after the careful nurturing she had enjoyed with George Cukor. When she asked him for direction in one scene, he told her "Ham it up". On another occasion when she asked for his constructive advice, he told her to "take the script and stick it up her royal British ass". After Cukor's departure, Leigh had to fight hard to keep the movie's Scarlett true to her view. Fleming's interpretation of her was that she was an out-and-out bitch as in the novel and that he had no desire to create any sympathy or insight for her.
  
  
• Margaret Mitchell personally approved of Vivien Leigh's interpretation of Scarlett.
  
  
• Super macho director Victor Fleming wanted Scarlett, for at least once in the film, to look like his hunting buddy Clark Gable's type of woman. So, when wearing the stunning low-cut burgundy velvet dress with rhinestones that Scarlett wears to Ashley Wilkes' birthday party in the second half of the film, to achieve the desired cleavage for Fleming, Walter Plunkett had to tape Vivien Leigh's breasts together.
  
  
• Vincent Price and Melvyn Douglas tested for the part of Ashley.
  
  
• Margaret Mitchell's first choice to play Rhett Butler was Basil Rathbone.
  
  
• The four principals were billed on the film's posters in this order: Clark Gable, followed by Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland and then "presenting" Vivien Leigh. This changed when Leigh won the Oscar.
  
  
• The first film to credit a Production Designer, mainly to highlight the major contribution from William Cameron Menzies who not only art directed the film but also directed some of the second units.
  
  
• After the opening titles, there is a scene-setting crawl which was originally written by Ben Hecht. Nothing like this appears in the novel and, privately, Margaret Mitchell was none too enthused by it.
  
  
• Lillian Gish had originally been approached to take on the part of Scarlett's mother.
  
  
• Olivia de Havilland always meticulously researched her roles. As she had not yet had a baby in real life, she visited a maternity hospital to study how various women coped with the stresses of childbirth for the scene where Melanie has her baby. Off-camera, the scene's director, George Cukor, would occasionally pinch her toes to make her feel pain.
  
  
• Sidney Howard's screen writing Oscar was the Academy's first posthumous award. Howard died in an accident in August 1939 while the Civil War epic was still being filmed.
  
  
• David O. Selznick, in a memo from October 1939, about the movie's writing credits: " [Y]ou can say frankly that of the comparatively small amount of material in the picture which is not from the book, most is my own personally, and the only original lines of dialog which are not my own are a few from Sidney Howard and a few from Ben Hecht and a couple more from John Van Druten. Offhand I doubt that there are ten original words of [Oliver] Garrett's in the whole script. As to construction, this is about eighty per cent my own, and the rest divided between Jo Swerling and Sidney Howard, with Hecht having contributed materially to the construction of one sequence."
  
  
• While still in production, Selznick wanted to evaluate an audience's response to the film. Months before the official gala premiere, the movie was given an unannounced ("sneak") preview screening in a small theater in Riverside outside Los Angeles. The theater was scheduled to show Beau Geste (1939). At this time, many elements of the film were still unfinished, including the opening titles and musical scoring by Max Steiner. For this sneak preview, the studio quickly filmed a "makeshift" opening title sequence. These opening credits, still surviving today, show a woman's hand turning the pages of a large book with colorful drawings of Southern scenes accompanied by printed text of the opening credits, accompanied by the opening title music from David O. Selznick's own production of The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) (music by Alfred Newman).
  
  
• Although he played Brent Tarleton in the film, the screen credits mistakenly list Fred Crane as playing Stuart Tarleton.
  
  
• Fred Crane's first filmed acting role. He spoke the first line in the movie.
  
  
• The scene where Scarlett makes a dress out of a curtain later was later spoofed on "The Carol Burnett Show" (1967) in what became one of the most memorable comedy bits in TV history. Carol Burnett as "Starlet" O'Hara wears the curtains with the rod still in them. Harvey Korman as "Rat" Butler says: "Starlet, that gown is lovely", to which she responds: "Thank you. I just saw it in the window and couldn't resist it!"
  
  
• In 1994, Judy Lewis went public with the information that she is indeed the love child of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, which had been the subject of speculation in Hollywood for years. (Loretta Young always claimed she went away for a while, found the girl, and adopted her.) Thus, in an interesting coincidence, Clark Gable's real life daughter Judy Lewis is a close friend of Gable's on-screen daughter in this film, Cammie King (Bonnie Blue Butler).
  
  
• During the casting, Erin O'Brien-Moore was suggested for the role of Scarlett, although she was ultimately never auditioned or given a screen test.
  
  
• Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Stagecoach (1939), Beau Geste (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Gone with the Wind (1939).
  
  
• A leading contender for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), Katharine Hepburn lost out, but later served as Maid of Honor at Vivien Leigh's and Laurence Olivier's wedding.
  
  
• Clark Gable disliked this, his most famous film, which he regarded as "a woman's picture."
  
  
• The Tara plantation façade was located at the NW corner of the Forty Acres backlot in Culver City, CA and was dismantled in 1959. The location was later used for the Stalag 13 outdoor set of "Hogan's Heroes" (1965).
  
  
• The entr'acte music is played entirely on a Novachord, the first use of an electronic synthesizer in a Hollywood feature film.
  
  
• The first all-color film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as the longest.
  
  

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