John Wiley Jr - The Scarlett letters: the making of the film Gone with the Wind

The Scarlett Letters

The Scarlett Letters

The Making of the Film Gone With the Wind

Edited by John Wiley, Jr.

Taylor Trade Publishing

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Taylor Trade Publishing

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Margaret Mitchells letters 2014 by GWTW Partners, LLC.

Notes and commentary 2014 by John Wiley, Jr.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mitchell, Margaret, 19001949.

The scarlett letters : the making of the film Gone with the wind / [edited by] John Wiley, Jr.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58979-872-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-58979-873-1 (electronic) 1. Mitchell, Margaret, 1900-1949Correspondence. 2. Mitchell, Margaret, 19001949. Gone with the wind. 3. GeorgiaHistoryCivil War, 18611865Literature and the war. 4. Novelists, American20th centuryCorrespondence. I. Wiley, John, 1938 II. Title.

PS3525.I972Z48 2014

813'.52dc23

2014001554

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in Canada

In memory of

Margaret Mitchell and David O. Selznick

a marriage made in movie heaven,

and

Herb Bridges,

keeper of the GWTW flame, Georgia gentleman, and friend.

Foreword

Turney Allan Taylor

M ost people immediately associate author Margaret Mitchell with her sweeping historical novel Gone With the Wind , which was published in 1936 and became a huge, worldwide best-seller. However, for meand I count myself very fortunatethere is a far more personal connection to this illustrious southern writer.

* * *

My father, Allan Taylor, was born in Tennessee and always wanted to be a newspaperman. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, he worked on a paper in Chattanooga and then moved to Atlanta to join the Atlanta Journal . He met Margaret Mitchell for the first time in December 1922, when she was brought down to the newsroom. She had just been hired as a feature writer by the editor of the papers Sunday Magazine , Angus Perkerson, and the only available seat was the desk she would share with my father. They soon became fast friends. (My father already knew John Marsh, who would become Mitchells second husband, since they were roommates briefly after Marsh first moved to Atlanta.)

My mother, Lois Cole, met Margaret Mitchell for the first time at a luncheon in 1927. Mother had relocated recently from New York City to be the office manager of the southeastern branch of the publishing firm The Macmillan Company. To present her to Atlantas female literary society, Medora Perkerson, the grand dame of Atlanta literati, gave a bridge luncheon at the Piedmont Driving Club. When my mother was introduced to her partner at one of the tables, she learned that her name was Margaret Mitchell Marsh, affectionately known as Peggy. As the cards were dealt, my mother asked whether her partner followed any particular bridge conventions. Mitchell said somberly that she didnt know any and that she just led from fright. She then asked my mother what she led from, and my mother replied, Necessity, at which Peggy grinned. They won the first hand, upon which they rose, solemnly, and shook hands across the table. With that, they became fast friends.

Months later, at one of the usual after-dinner coffee gatherings hosted by Peggy and John, Mitchell introduced Allan Taylor to Lois Cole with the words, to the effect, that she thought Allan had seen enough southern belles, and she wanted him to meet a really great northern gal. The two of them wed in 1930, and I was born several years later. Thus, I am present due completely to the good graces of matchmaker Margaret Mitchell, who was asked at my birth to be my godmother.

* * *

I met Margaret Mitchell for the first time in 1938, when I was just a few weeks old and she visited my parents on one of her infrequent trips to New York. Of course, I have no recollection of that event, nor really any other meetings when my godmother came north. I do remember that she regularly sent me birthday and Christmas giftsa camera, a compass, and savings bonds that were put toward my college fund. She also gave me a wonderful set of stamps printed during the Nazi occupation of Slovakia and sent to her after the war by the foreign minister in gratitude for her book giving so many people encouragement to survive the German occupation. My earliest memory of Margaret Mitchell in person was when I was ten during the summer of 1948. Instead of going to our familys summer home in the Adirondacks, my parents took me and my sister, Linda, on a lengthy car trip to the Southto Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia and back through North Carolina. Ostensibly, it was to inspect many of the battlefields of the Civil War, from Manassas to Fredericksburg to Richmond, and to visit the homes of several of our presidents, from Thomas Jeffersons Monticello to James Monroes Ash Lawn. From Virginia we drove farther south to Knoxville and then down to Chattanooga, where we socialized with friends of my parents, as well as took in the sights, particularly the magnificent Lookout Mountain.

From there we motored on to Atlanta, where we connected with Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh. I remember Aunt Peggy as a short woman with tremendous vivacity, the most sparkling blue eyes I had ever seen, and a lively interest in all that we had done on our trip and all I was doing, from school to sports to my piano lessons. All of us had lunch at the Piedmont Driving Club, where Peggy escorted me and my five-year-old sister out to the pool. The three of us removed our shoes and socks (stockings in Peggys case) and piddled our feet in the water. Our excursion turned into an all-out talkfest. The next day, Peggy took us to the Cyclorama, the huge amphitheater whose cylindrical walls are covered with a very realistic, detailed mural history of the Civil War battle for Atlanta. As she began to describe all the events depicted there, my sister kept tugging on my mothers dress until she got her attention. Linda said we should join the crowd of tourists being escorted by an attendant who was explaining the battle on the other side of the room. Im sure my mother wanted to shush my sister and remind her that we had the worlds greatest expert on what happened during those days in 1864, Peggy Mitchell, right with us. My mother was about to reprimand my sister when Peggy interrupted. She said that Linda was quite correct and that we should join the others in hearing the description from the official guide. So we all trooped over to the visitors, with my sister being very happy that she had made her point.

In retrospect, this incident at our visit to the Cyclorama illustrated how much Peggy Mitchell was concerned about what other people wanted, particularly if they were friends or family.

After our visit with the Marshes, we drove to Covington, Georgia, where we stayed with my fathers elderly stepmother, and then drove through Asheville, North Carolina, and the Great Smoky Mountains on our way back to New Jersey. It was one of the most memorable trips that our family ever took together, especially our time spent with the spirited, thoughtful Peggy Mitchell and her kind husband.