Once the movie finished, she struggled to deal with friends and strangers alike who “fought and trampled little children and connived and broke the ties of lifelong friendship” to get tickets to the premiere.īut through it all, she retained her sense of humor. During the film’s production, she corrected erring journalists and the producer’s over-the-top publicist who fed the gossip mills, accuracy be damned. Mitchell also wrote to thousands of others-aspiring actresses eager to play Scarlett O’Hara fellow Southerners hopeful of seeing their homes or their grandmother’s dress used in the film rabid movie fans determined that their favorite star be cast and creators of songs, dolls and Scarlett panties who were convinced the author was their ticket to fame and fortune. Selznick, director George Cukor, and screenwriter Sidney Howard, to cast members Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland and Hattie McDaniel. Her ability to weave a story, so evident in Gone With the Wind, makes for delightful reading in her correspondence with a who’s who of Hollywood, from producer David O. In this collection of her letters about the 1939 motion picture classic, readers have a front-row seat as the author watches the Dream Factory at work, learning the ins and outs of filmmaking and discovering the peculiarities of a movie-crazed public. However, driven by a maternal interest in her literary firstborn and compelled by her Southern manners to answer every fan letter she received, Mitchell was unable to stay aloof for long. Scarlett seduce General Sherman,” she joked-the author washed her hands of involvement with the film. Fearful of what the studio might do to her story-“I wouldn’t put it beyond Hollywood to have. One month after her novel Gone With the Wind was published, Margaret Mitchell sold the movie rights for fifty thousand dollars.

Gone with the wind author