Margaret Mitchell (1936-1938)




Margaret had never had any desire for fame and now it had been thrust upon her rapidly. Bessie recorded that within one day of the publication, the phone rang every three minutes until midnight, then about once an hour; the doorbell chimed every five minutes through the day, a telegram arrived every seven minutes; and a line of at least ten people crowded around the front and back doors of the apartment house. They were all waiting for one thing: to have the author of Gone With the Wind sign their books. The postman began delivering Margaret's mail in huge satchels. She could not go out into the streets without being recognized.

(This part is just to show how obsessed people were with her, and it is a direct quote from the book.)

'. . . once, when she was in a dressing room at Rich's department store trying on a dress, five women flung back the curtain, to reveal her only half dressed. "She's small breasted like a boy!" exclaimed one as Peggy grabbed something to cover up her nakedness and demanded that they leave her cubicle at once.'

(Yucky! Fame sure does have its price. That is the end of my direct quote.)

The book, although she would have been pleased if it had sold a thousand copies, had sales of 18 000 by the end of three weeks. Macmillian was soon convinced that close to a million copies would be sold by the end of the year. Margaret, despite warnings, was very surprised that a book that cost three dollars, which was enough to buy a family of four a more than a day's worth of food, would sell so many copies.

Reporters would beg her for interviews, while readers, thousands of them, called to ask if Scarlett and Rhett ever got back together. Others would telegraph their congratulations or questions. The most annoying fans, though, were the ones that gathered around the doors to her apartment house. They tried to ask advice on personal matters, beg for loans, or leave manuscripts that they wanted her to read. The mail was flooded with requests for Margaret to appear in public, give lectures, and endorse organizations, books, and products. By the end of the first week, more than three hundred copies of her book had been sent to her to autograph. Most fans expected her to return them at her own expense.

Margaret had not had time to prepare herself for such fame. She had started her novel with no grand plan. She wanted it to be published someday, but she never considered her book was anything but a historical novel. She had repeated how otherwise "rotten" it was. She was unprepared partly because of her lack of self-confidence, and partly because there had been no outside editor. Margaret had just wanted to publish the book with the "sole and innocent intention of making a few honest dollars."

'Perhaps Gone With the Wind succeeded on such a grand scale for exactly those reasons. It had been written sincerely and spontaneously, and it never smacked of clever artifice, jingoism, or social dogma.' (That was directly from the book.)

The effects of the Depression were comparable to those of the Civil War. That fact made the book uncannily up-to-date. 'Scarlett O'Hara's refusal to be blown away by the winds of change, her impressive strength, her vow that "As God as my witness . . . I'm never going to live through this, and when it's over, I'll never be hungry again," strongly appealed to readers who had struggled to keep life and home together during the long Depression.' Many letters said things along the line of 'if Scarlett did it, so can I.'

All of the press statements said that her married name was Marsh, and John Marsh's number and address were listed in the local telephone directory. The apartment house had no doorman or security system, and when John went to work Margaret and Bessie were left to attend to the phone and the door. Callers were shocked to find that they had reached Margaret Mitchell directly, and uninvited visitors were equally so when the door was opened to their urgent rings by a small woman who had to be Margaret herself. But, through all the fame, Margaret changed her appearance little. She drove a 1929 car, wore four-year-old cotton dresses and fifty-cent stockings.

On Monday, July 7, in the morning a short time after John had left for the office, Red Upshaw telephoned Margaret. Margaret later described their conversation:

"After reading your book I figure you still love me," Upshaw said.

"Why would you think that?" she asked.

"Because Rhett Butler is obviously modeled after me, he replied.

She denied it and asked him what he wanted. He promised to tell her someday and then hung up.

Margaret, soon after that, went into hiding in the mountains, in a place called Gainesville. She wrote a letter to Herschel Brickell, who, John had told her, was coming to the South to meet her. (In case you don't remember, he was the one who did a shining report about the book in the New York Post. It took me a while to find that out, but I eventually found it!)

'As you may observe from the postmark, I'm not at home in Atlanta. I'm on the run. I'm sure Scarlett O'Hara never struggled harder to get out of Atlanta or suffered more during her siege of Atlanta than I have suffered during the siege that has been on since publication day. If I had known being an author was like this I'd have thought several times before I let Harold Latham go off with my dog-eared manuscript. I've lost ten pounds in a week, leap when telephones ring and scurry like a rabbit at the sight of a familiar face on the street . . . Utter strangers collar me in public and ask the most remarkable questions and photographers pop out of the drains.'

She told him, however, that she would come home with the greatest pleasure when he came to Atlanta. She continued to hide, until she received a telegram on July 9, saying:

"We have a wonderful hideaway place come an hide out here. You are most welcome no newspapers only other writers Edwin and Mabel Granberry, Blowing Rock, North Carolina."

(Edwin Granberry wrote a report for the New York Sun. There are too many people mentioned to give them the proper introductions and explain their relationships with Margaret, but when an unfamiliar name comes up, I'll try and find out who it was.)

Margaret called John the next morning to tell him that she was going to Blowing Rock, and that he should make the proper arrangements for her to arrive July 13, and to keep her plans a secret. The number of calls and visitors had not diminished during her absence. But it was not necessary to stay with a couple she barely knew. Lois had begged her to come to New York, John's sister Frances had offered her shelter in Washington. There was no shortage of places for Margaret to hide, but she wanted to make sure she wouldn't be easily found by one person. It was not the public that worried her. It was this:

'In the matter of Captain Butler, I may yet have a lawsuit on my hands despite my protests that I didn't model him after any human being I've ever heard of.'

Margaret was running away from her first husband, Red Upshaw. Now that he knew about Rhett Butler being modeled after him, and the last time she had heard from him he was suffering financially, she had no idea what he would do. In New York and Washington, she could be found. But in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, it wasn't nearly as easy. No one would look for her there, and so she agreed.

The Marches had their eleventh anniversary on July 4, 1936, but because of Margaret's fame and the upset caused by it, they had not exchanged presents. Medora had sent Margaret's favorite flowers (roses).

'The marking of more than a decade of marriage to John prompted Peggy to reassess their relationship. For the first time, she discussed her marriage in her personal letters. To Lois Cole, she joked that she and John might have grown like Darby and Joan, so mutually dependant they were upon each other. To a family member, she confided that her marriagfe was sound because she and John could reveal to each other what they could tell no one else. They both did, indeed, thrive on the secrets they shared about each other's lives. With Peggy, it was Upshaw; with John, his epilepsy.

David O. Selznick had made an offer on June 14 for $50 000 to Annie Laurie Williams for the film rights. Macmillan had passed it on to Margaret, who wired her acceptance. As soon as she had done so, she began to have doubts. News of this had not been released to the press. The contract arrived in Atlanta a few hours before her departure for Blowing Rock on the thirteenth. She left John to read it and explain it to her, refusing to look at it.

The press began casting Gone With the Wind for two weeks, listing Clark Gable and Janet Gaynor as the favorite choices for Rhett and Scarlett. As soon as Margaret had heard of this, she wrote to Lois Cole "Not Janet Gaynor! Spare me this last ignominy!" This was written the day she left for Blowing Rock. She also wrote: "I wish Charles Boyer didn't have a French accent for he's my choice for Rhett. Next to him, Jack Holt [a Western star] is the only person I can think of."

There were a few problems with the contract. John wrote continually cooler and cooler letters to her. The signed the last letter "John," no "Love," or "Best Love," or anything. And the letters were not like the affectionate ones he had written at the beginning. Margaret arrived home on the twenty-second. She received a telegram asking when the contract would be signed. She read it, and was in "a later of rage about the contract, and ready to throw it in the movie company's face." It held her liable "for so many things, such as damage suits." It was not only worded "idiotically," but was the "stupidest contract" she had ever seen. This was all written in a letter and sent to Latham, who was upset by the letter.

Margaret soon went to New York with "no clothes, no hats, not even a change of underwear or an extra pair of stockings," to see Macmillian. And, she told them, she would not sign anything If they told anyone about her coming. This letter was written to Lois at 1:00 a.m. on the night that Stephens and John had made the plans for her to come to New York. She told Lois about in interview in her letter, which was written in scrawling hand, for John was asleep and she dared not wake him. This interview was supposed to be on modern fiction, but the reporter had asked her what kind of uplift brassiere she wore, and when she said that she didn't war on eat all, he was "terribly shocked."

Margaret and Stephens arrived in New York (Stephens was acting as her lawyer) early on July 29 (that is my birthday, only I wasn't born then, I was born in 1983!!). They checked into a hotel near the Macmillian offices and attended their first meeting. Annie Laurie Williams was in attendance, and it was the first time Margaret had met her face to face. She was cool as they sat facing each other.

'That night, Stephens and Peggy had dinner with Lois Cole and her husband, Allan Taylor. Lois and Allan, who were more knowledgeable about such matters, pointed out that Selznick had given her radio, television, and dramatic rights, and that the purchase price of $50 000 was to be paid immediately upon signature. They impressed upon her that no one would pay more than Selznick, that if she pressed too hard, she would lose the deal altogether, and that David O. Selznick was a man of good taste who had successfully brought novels like David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, and A Tale of Two Cities to the screen. It seemed unlikely that he would not employ experts to assure the authenticity of the background and of the speech. This sounded sensible to Peggy and she went into the meeting on the second day ready to cooperate.'

The contract was rearranged so that Margaret could sign it. (By now, you may be wondering why the text that I have quoted differs from mine because they refer to her as Peggy and I, Margaret. I have never thought of her as Peggy. She has always been Margaret Mitchell to me, and, even if Peggy is quicker and easier to type, I will not change my opinion in that way. And, you have my upmost respect if you have read this far. I know that this is too long, but I couldn't stop once I started. It has been too interesting. This is my 31st page of writing, and I just want to thank you so much for reading this far. You have no idea how much work goes into one of these pages, and this is the seventh. I hope it will not go on for too long, but I am only halfway through the book. I will try to shorten her life but keep the details.)

The contract was signed! Stephens returned to Atlanta, and Herschel Brickell took Margaret to Ridgefield. When they arrive, Margaret was suffering a "stroke of blindness." She was in a "bad way" when Brickell put her on a train to Atlanta on August 2. She was forced to stay in "a dark room with a black bandage over [her] eyes." She was just glad that she did not go blind. When Louella Parsons wrote in her Hollywood column that Margaret was going blind, she replied, "I am not going blind and never intend to go blind."

From the $50 000 dollars offered for the book, Margaret received $45 000 of it. For the first time, Margaret knew that Annie Laurie Williams was her representative. She wrote Harold Latham about what she considered reprehensible action on the part of Macmillan, who knew her feelings toward Annie Laurie Williams. Margaret also found out that she did not have the rights for Scarlett O'Hara dolls and other such products that she could make money off of. Selznick felt that she had sold these rights.

Another problem came when the Under Secretary of the Interior Harry Slattery had taken offence at the "slanderous use of his family name," referring to the "white trash" Emmie Slattery. Margaret did not know there was such a person as Harry Slattery.

'Four or five days later, Peggy wrote Slattery, pleading with him to ask the Washington Post to print a retraction of the statement that her husband had collaborated with her in the writing of Gone With the Wind. "I am so upset about this error I have been unable to do anything but cry since I read the clipping," she wrote. "I have given so many years f my life to the writing of this book, injured my eyes, endangered my health and this is my payment -- that I didn't write it! And I did write it, every word of it. My husband had nothing whatever to do with it. In the first place he is not a Georgian (he was born in Kentucky) and no one but a Georgian with generations of Georgian ancestors could have written it. In the second place, he had a very responsible position and works very hard and he seldom gets time to play golf much less to write books.

'"In fact," she stated, "he never read the whole of my manuscript until after the Macmillan Company had bought it." She explained that it was not that she did not want him to read it, but that the book had not been written in chronological order and he could not have been expected to follow the story. "Not all the financial rewards I may receive can make up to me for this," she wrote in conclusion. "Moreover, it puts me in such a dreadful light before the world -- that I had concealed my husband's work on this book. And he actually had no part in it except helping me with the proof reading when my eyes gave out and my deadline was upon me . . . . Of course, the story has already gone out into the world, to rise up and plague me all my life but a retraction would help some. You see, it is my whole professional reputation which is at stake -- my reputation which has been ruined through no fault of my own."'

(That, of course, was a direct quote.)

An apology but not a full retraction was printed, and Margaret was never able to wipe out the rumors that John had helped with the writing of her book. An apology was written to Harry Slattery.

(I am skipping a huge portion now -- I skimmed through it and nothing earth-moving was mentioned. There is only the fact that she was famous and hated it through these pages. As this biography is too long as it is, and I don't want to spend the rest of my natural life on it, I will cut it short if I can. I said that before, I think, but now I am actually going to do it. I hope!)

Harold Latham visited Atlanta on May 3, 1937. (I finally got out of 1936!! YAY!) He was once again scouting manuscripts. After finding Margaret's book here, he had a good feeling about the place. After all, her book, that he discovered, sold 1 370 000 copies in one year. He thought that the sales might have been boosted by the news that she was to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize the next day. But, then again, it was the greatest novel ever written. It was awarded to her, (she had no idea that she was winning it until she was told about it the same day that Latham came) and she didn't believe it until the $1000 check came on May 8.

The book went off the best-seller list after twenty-one months on April 8, 1938. Over two million copies had been sold in the United States, and a million abroad. Margaret did not consider herself a professional, but a :lucky amateur." She now had time to redecorate the apartment and re-do it in shades of apple green and Georgia peach. John continued his daytime job, came home, and had his nighttime job to do -- Margaret's foreign accounts. The strain was sapping his strength. (John hadn't been well, and in the hospital several times, but this is Margaret's biography. I didn't write these things in. I am sorry if this causes any problems for those of you who are writing a report on Margaret Mitchell. The first thing you should do once you copy this into another package is find all the brackets and erase all the useless junk I write in them. Then, make it your own.) His breathing was labored and his weight had dropped to 132 pounds.

Margaret had the idea of writing "a story about a girl who went wrong and certainly did regret it," after reading some books she thought lacked this component. But the ambition was short-lived, and she never did sit down and write it. The making of the movie fascinated Margaret, and she was, although she didn't admit it, as bad as any fan. She read about it, wrote to Selznick's employees about it, and all kinds of things. She had inside news written to her, and was very pleased when a letter from David O. Selznick himself (they had not yet met) came in the mail. On August 11, she was relieved to read that Norma Shearer was not going to play Scarlett O'Hara after all. Gable was officially signed on as the part of Rhett Butler a few days later. The filming was set to begin February 1, 1939.

Eugene was ill and demanded a lot of Margaret's attention. She was hounded by reporters, who were hoping that she would have news from the inside about the casting of Scarlett O'Hara. A woman named Sue Myrick was coaching all possible Scarletts in their Southern accents, and Margaret only knew who the latest hopeful "Scarlett" was being tested.

'What Peggy did not know about were the financial problems besetting Selznick at this time. In the three years since he and his backer, John Hay Whitney, had bought the property for films, he had spent a fortune of the investor's money and Whitney had finally lost his patience. Either Selznick must set a definite starting date and stick to it, or he would withdraw his support. Selznick, always a big gambler, took a daring chance. On a clear, crisp December evening shortly before Christmas, he ordered the burning of Atlanta scene to begin on the back lot of his studio. The scene was to be shot with doubles so it did not matter that he had not cast the female lead.

'A large robust man, well over six feet tall, Selznick stood on a high, railed platform and gave the order to his crew to turn on the gas jets that would start the fire. As seven technicolor cameras began to roll, flames leaped up to devour the false fronts that had been created to simulate the Atlanta of the American Civil War period. Doubles for Scarlett and Rhett jumped on a buckboard and raced alongside of the fire. Sweat poured down Selznick's face and he had to remove his glasses to wipe them clean. An assistant swore his boss had actually shed tears as the shooting of Gone With the Wind finally began with an incomplete script and no Scarlett O'Hara.

'Selznick stood for a moment, squinting, as the flames consumed what remained of the set. The back lot was a maze of men and fire equipment. Suddenly, as he replaced his glasses, he caught sight of a woman, dressed starkly in a black dress and a wide-brimmed black hat, coming up the steps of the platform. Beside her was Selznick's brother Myron, an actors' agent. A wind had risen, fanning the flames and making it hard to stand too close to the railing. The woman turned her head to one side and held on to her hat as she approached him, and he could not see her face.

'"Here, genius," his brother said. "Meet your Scarlett O'Hara."

'Selznick turned with stunned disbelief as the woman turned to face him, tilting her head back and removing the halo hat so that her dark chestnut hair blew wildly behind her. Here, indeed, was his Scarlett O'Hara -- English film star, Vivien Leigh."'

And so a rough test was shot of Vivien. Then, after Sue Myrick coached her on her Southern accent and another test was run. The role of Scarlett O'Hara was set.

A photograph of Vivien was sent to Margaret, and she was surprised to find that Scarlett O'Hara looked amazingly like her in her early twenties. (There is a picture of this that will, hopefully, appear on my picture page that I am having SO much trouble with. My scanner, a flatbed, refuses to work for me as it does for everyone else, and I refuse to let anyone help me on my page. So, hopefully, soon I will have a picture of Margaret alongside of Vivien Leigh, from my reference book.)

So, the Margaret Mitchell look-alike, Vivien Leigh, was cast as Scarlett O'Hara, and history was made!




Margaret Mitchell (1900-1909)

Margaret Mitchell (1910-1919)

Margaret Mitchell (1919-1925)

Margaret Mitchell (1935-1936)

Margaret Mitchell (1935-1936)

Margaret Mitchell (just 1936)

**Margaret Mitchell (1938-1939)**




Bibliography

Edwards, Anne. Road to Tara - The Life of Margaret Mitchell. New Haven and New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1983.


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