While public debate raged over who should play Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind,” producer David O. Selznick was trying to figure out how to get the movie past Hollywood’s morality censors by tamping down the novel’s racist overtones while portraying the South in the Civil War.
Thousands of fans sent letters about wanting to play Scarlett, and the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan offered to serve in an advisory role on the film. Black activists implored Selznick not to make the movie, with the African Youth Congress calling it “un-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Negro, pro-KKK and a glorification of Southern lynch society.”
Of course, Selznick pressed on and made one of the most popular films in history. And on Tuesday, hundreds of items that he saved, including dresses worn in the film, scripts, story boards and other things, will go on display at the University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center as part of a 75th anniversary tribute, “The Making of Gone With the Wind.”
The Selznick collection is one of the largest at the Ransom Center, which has been gearing up for the exhibit for about four years. In 2010, the center launched a fundraising campaign to help preserve several of the original costumes. That effort raised more than $30,000 with donations coming in from across the globe. Among the costumes on display will be three original gowns worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, including her iconic green curtain dress.
A cinematic journey The exhibit, which runs through January 4, 2015, takes visitors on a journey from the 1936 purchase of the movie rights through production and the film’s eventual premiere. It examines the casting of the movie and the decision to remove any mention of the Klan from the screenplay and avoid the use of racial slurs, which Margaret Mitchell used throughout her novel.
Much of the exhibit is dedicated to the casting of Scarlett and the rumours that swirled about the candidates from Bette Davis to Katherine Hepburn before Selznick finally settled on British actress Leigh.
Several letters in a section titled “I am Scarlett” showcase the personal connection Southern women felt with the Scarlett character, Wilson said.
The letters included hard luck stories from women who detailed their low-income or even homeless living conditions, or heartbreak in their personal lives.
“There’s something in this character that really grabbed people,” Wilson said. “A lot of women feel they’re right to play the part because they’ve had the same kind of romantic problems Scarlett had… ” In one telegram, the United Daughters of the Confederacy noted the group would “protest vigorously against any other than a native born Southern woman” for the part.
But Southern critics soon decided that Leigh wouldn’t be a bad alternative, Wilson said.
