Actors - Gone with the Wind

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	Actors - Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name. It went on to win 8 Academy Awards and is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time. As of 2005, Gone with the Wind has the highest box office take in movie history, after adjusting for inflation.

Behind the scenes

Producer David O. Selznick, head of Selznick International Pictures, decided that he wanted to create a film based on the novel after his story editor Kay Brown read a pre-publication copy in May 1936 and urged him to buy the film rights. A month after the book's publication in June 1936, Selznick bought the rights for $50,000, a record amount at the time. A well-publicized casting search for an actress to play Scarlett resulted in the hiring of a young English actress, Vivien Leigh, although many other famous or soon-to-be-famous actresses had been auditioned, considered for the role, or tested, including Katharine Hepburn, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward, Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, Irene Dunne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine, Loretta Young, Miriam Hopkins, Jean Arthur, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, and Lucille Ball.

Several actresses were given screen tests for the part, but only two finalists — Paulette Goddard and Vivien Leigh — were tested in Technicolor, both on December 20, 1938. Selznick had been quietly considering Vivien Leigh for the role of Scarlett since February 1938, but for publicity reasons he arranged to meet her for the first time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of the Atlanta Depot was filmed. Her casting was announced on January 13, 1939.

For the role of Rhett Butler, Clark Gable was an almost immediate favorite for both the public and Selznick. But as Selznick had no male stars under long-term contract he needed to go through the complex process of negotiating to borrow an actor from another studio. Gary Cooper was thus Selznick's first choice, because his contract with Samuel Goldwyn involved a common distribution company, United Artists, with which Selznick had an eight-picture deal. However, Goldwyn remained noncommittal in negotiations. Warner Bros. offered a package of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland for the lead roles in return for the distribution rights. However, Selznick eventually found a way to loan Gable from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Selznick's father-in-law Louis B. Mayer offered to fund half the movie's budget in return for a powerful package (50% of the profits would go to MGM, the movie's distribution would be credited to MGM's parent company, Loew's, Inc., and Loew's would receive 15 percent of the movie's gross income). Selznick accepted this offer and Gable was cast.

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Actors - Gone with the Wind

Behind the scenes

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