GONE WITH THE WIND_ You Only Think You Know This Film_ WEP Post

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Controversy stormed about this film long before HBOMax removed it from its inventory.

The fact that Hattie McDaniel would be unable to attend the premiere in racially segregated Atlanta outraged Clark Gable so much

that he threatened to boycott the premiere unless she could attend. He later relented when she convinced him to go.

The Los Angeles Sentinel called for a boycott of “every other Selznick picture, present and future.”

Under that pressure, Selznick agreed to the N.A.A.C.P.’s suggestion of hiring a technical adviser “to watch the entire treatment of the Negroes.”

In fact, he hired two — both of them white.

Hattie McDaniel became the first black person to be nominated for - and win - an Academy Award.

Hattie McDaniel was criticized by some African-Americans for playing in a supposedly racist film.

She responded that she would "rather make seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars being one".

STRANGE FACTS:

Vivien Leigh later said that she hated kissing Clark Gable because of his bad breath, rumored to be caused by his false teeth, a result of excessive smoking.

According to Frank Buckingham, a technician who observed the film being made, Gable would sometimes eat garlic before his kissing scenes with Vivien Leigh!

Vivien Leigh worked for 125 days and received about $25,000. Clark Gable worked for 71 days and received over $120,000.

Because of those ”garlic” kissing scenes alone she should have been paid $100,000!

Max Steiner was given only three months to compose the music, considering that 1939 was the busiest year of his career!

 In that year he wrote the music for 12 films.

In order to meet deadline, Steiner sometimes worked for 20 hours straight and took Benzedrine pills to stay awake.

(Selznick insisted that the director and actors of his THIRD MAN do the same to make the film’s hectic schedule.)

With almost three hours of music, "Gone with the Wind" had the longest film score ever composed up to that time.

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 of "Gunfight at the OK Corral" fame.

Mattie joined a convent and became a nun, but maintained a correspondence with Doc, who died of tuberculosis in 1887, 13 years before Margaret Mitchell was born.

AND HERE YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ALL ABOUT GONE WITH THE WIND!

(Amazing the things I’ve learned while doing research for my DARK HOLLYWOOD series.)