Why We Love Gone With the Wind

The epic novel – Margaret Mitchell was born on 8 November 1900 into a segregated Atlanta, Georgia. She worked as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal Magazine, but was forced to quit because of arthritis. While spending time at home in bed, she began to write about what she had learned from the stories told to her as a child, eventually producing what turned out to be one of the most popular novels in the history of publishing, Gone With the Wind, a 1,037-page “story of the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction”. Published in June 1936, by October GWTW had sold one million copies. In 1937 Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her first and only book. After the film premiered in Atlanta, in 1939, she spent her life and wealth working on a variety of charitable projects, including funding black and white emergency clinics at an Atlanta hospital. She died in 1949, after being hit by a cab while walking to a theatre. The novel is now one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies.

The epic movie – David O Selznick’s 1939 production of Gone With the Wind won a then-unprecedented ten Academy Awards and has sold more tickets than any other film in history. Selznick acquired the film rights to Margaret Mitchell’s novel for $50,000 – a record amount at the time. But with 50 speaking roles, 2,400 extras and a record $4 million budget, “Selznick’s Folly”, became cinema’s greatest epic, shot in three-strip Technicolor and boasting an immortal cast in a timeless tale of tortured romance, and all underscored by Max Steiner’s soaring soundtrack. A three-year casting search for Scarlett ended in young British actress Vivien Leigh landing the role, after more than 30 others had been considered, including Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Lucille Ball and Mae West, while MGM star Clark Gable was the obvious Rhett Butler. Directors came and went, including George Cukor after less than three weeks. Victor Fleming, who had just directed The Wizard of Oz, completed the picture and MGM director Sam Wood was also involved when Fleming pulled out due to exhaustion from working on the greatest blockbuster of all time.

The epic story – Headstrong heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, struggles to find love during the catastrophe of the Civil War and as the wind of change sweeps through Georgia she finds refuge at the family plantation, Tara. As the Yankees march triumphantly against the losing side, Scarlett takes control, defending Tara and fighting starvation, finally marrying her “bad lot” admirer Captain Rhett Butler, although her frigidity towards him in their marriage, fueled by her unrequited passion for her sister-in-law’s husband Ashley Wilkes, dooms their relationship. When Rhett is about to walk out, she begs, “Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” His answer? “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” But Scarlett is not down. She returns to Tara, declaring, “Home. I’ll go home, and I’ll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!”

The epic theme – According to Mitchell, “If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people able to come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those who go under…? I only know that the survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption’. So I wrote about the people who had gumption and the people who didn’t.”

The other theme – Mitchell captured the social hierarchy in the Antebellum South, where black plantation slaves were segregated at the bottom of the pile. Even Mammy, the family house servant (Hattie McDaniel in the film), sees herself as a cut above field girls like the childlike Prissy (Butterfly McQueen). McDaniel, the first black woman to sing on the radio in America, won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Mammy, the first time an African-American had ever been so honoured. But when GWTW premiered in Atlanta, black actors in the film were barred and excluded from being in the souvenir programme. McDaniel did, however, attend the Hollywood premiere and the Oscar ceremony. When, later, she was criticised for playing beneath herself, she replied, “I’d rather play a maid than be a maid”.

Gone With the Wind on stage

In the new musical of Gone with the Wind, American Jill Paice and British recording star Darius Danesh star as Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. The premiere production is directed byTrevor Nunn and designed by John Napier, who worked with Nunn on blockbuster page-to-stage adaptations of Les Miserables and Cats, the latter finishing its 21-year run at the New London in May 2002. The piece has music and lyrics by Margaret Martin, making her theatrical debut.

But this is by no means the first time that Mitchell’s epic has been brought to the stage. Previous offerings include the following…