She was a young and innocent flirt to the boys she grew up with; a pillar of strength to her family during their time of need; and a vision of beauty and spirit to the man who loved and left her. She was Scarlett O'Hara, and this year she is in the spotlight, along with numerous other characters from Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind," as fans celebrate the 70th anniversary of the film.
Scarlett Sloane, a Nacogdoches resident named for the famous protagonist, doesn't remember when or how she first became a "Gone with the Wind" enthusiast, but did recall making frequent visits to the theater on North Street to see the film throughout her youth.
Christy Wooten/The Daily Sentinel |
Scarlett Sloane, named for the Gone With the Wind character of Scarlett O'Hara, shows two of the original movie programs from the release in 1939. She hopes to one day own a rare version of the program which features a photograph of Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel, on the bottom right of the back cover, where other cast members are featured. The most common versions of the programs feature India Wilkes, played by Alicia Rhett, instead or a blank back cover.
|
Christy Wooten/ The Daily Sentinel |
Scarlett Sloane decorated her guest bedroom with her Gone With the Wind collection. Sloane said she has been collecting memorabilia since she was little with her antique dealer parents' help.
|
"Every time it played there, my mom, my sister and I would go to it," she said.
Sloane's keen interest in the story led her to collect trinkets, dolls and other memorabilia from both the 1936 novel and the subsequent film. Today, her collection is kept in a theme-inspired room in her house, where she has everything from promotional items for the film to framed to autographed portraits of the cast.
Bobbie Hardy, the owner and operator of Scarlett O'Hardy's museum in Jefferson, likewise, started her collection in 1980 as a result of her fervent interest in Margaret Mitchell's novel.
She said the parallels she found between Mitchell's life and the events in the book interested her.
For instance, Hardy said Mitchell's favorite childhood activity was pony riding, and at one point, she injured her leg when she fell off. Similarly, in "Gone With the Wind," Scarlett's daughter, Bonnie Blue Butler is killed when she falls off her pony during a jump.
"That is a just one example of her telling a story of something that happened in her life," Hardy said. "... Things like that caught my interest and the more I learned about Margaret Mitchell, the more interested I became in all those things, and the more interested I became in collecting."
Seventeen years after she started her collection, she and her husband moved to Jefferson, where they built a house on a lot adjacent to the former high school agriculture building.
"We didn't know what to do with the building," she said. "One thing led to another and I said, 'How about a 'Gone with the Wind' museum?"
Today, her 1,700 square-foot museum, is home to more than a dozen antique cabinets displaying memorabilia, a pair of original seats from Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, the site of Gone With the Wind's 1939 world premiere and a one-of-a-kind Gone With the Wind doll house, which Hardy regards as one of the unique pieces in her collection.
The front of the doll house pictures the Wilkes' plantation house, Twelve Oaks from the exterior and the interior showcases rooms from the plantation house, the O'Hara's home, Tara and Scarlett and Rhett Butler's Atlanta home.
In celebration of 30th anniversary of her collection, Hardy will host a Tara in Texas event April 23 and 24, 2010, which will feature Cammie King, who played Bonnie Blue Butler in the 1939 film and a deep south-themed dinner theater and costume gala, among other events. To find out more on the two-day event, visit www.scarlett0hardy.com.
Both, Sloane and O'Hardy had some interesting tidbits to share about the film and novel. Here is a small sampling of what these enthusiasts told Charm.
Because of racially-tense times in the south, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammie, was removed from premiere programs. Sloane said there are three different versions of the program. The ones that contain Mammie are very rare, and were only given out at the initial Los Angeles premiere. Alicia Rhett, who played India Wilkes, replaced the vacant photo in all of the other premiere programs.
As a promotion for the film, LUX Soap offered replica cameos of Scarlett O'Hara's pin in her scene with Ashley and Melanie as they go up the stairs to go to bed. The broaches were offered for 15 cents with a soap wrapper.
Clark Gable did not initially want to do the film, according to Sloane. She said the young actor felt there had been too much hype involved in the production of the film, and that he would not live up to what audiences imagined Rhett Butler to be.
Four different actors played Beau Wilkes, Melanie and Ashley's son, during filming.
The well-known movie poster of Rhett Butler holding Scarlett O'Hara in a provocative, off-the-shoulder dress was an art work that emerged in the 1960s during the re-release of the film.
There was a large anticipation of the release of Margaret Mitchell's book in 1936, and as such, nine printings were released that year. While many people may contend they have a first edition of the novel, it may not actually be. Sloane said the first printing of the novel occurred in May 1936.
Hardy said Margaret Mitchell was quite similar in character to Scarlett O'Hara, and the novelist used herself, her mother and maternal grandmother to create the vivacious character.
