Work on Gone With the Wind halted suddenly when tragic news from the East Coast reached Selznick International Pictures: Gone With the Wind’s original screenwriter was dead. Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Sidney Howard owned a 700-hundred-acre cattle ranch...
During August 1939, special-photographic-effects artist Jack Cosgrove and the assistants he supervised at Selznick International Pictures worked day and night to create a virtual reality for Gone With the Wind. The movie magic that Cosgrove conjured for producer David...
On August 14, 1939, producer David O. Selznick sent an inter-office memo to Henry Ginsberg, vice president and general manager of Selznick International Pictures, informing him that “Max Steiner should go on our payroll immediately and should start composing all his...
As July led to August 1939, producer David O. Selznick decided that Gone With the Wind deserved the grandest main title in movie-making history. He shared his desire with film editor Hal Kern. Kern came up with a brilliant idea: Have the G appear, fill the screen and...
In late July 1939, producer David O. Selznick and film editor Hal Kern were feverishly editing Gone With the Wind, cutting scenes, adding different takes of scenes and pruning the existing footage. So from day to day the running time of Gone With the Wind went up and...
Rumors swirled around the city of Atlanta that Hollywood planned to debut Gone With the Wind in Los Angeles. Or maybe New York. But definitely not Atlanta. These claims were so upsetting to local merchants, who had dreams of a business bonanza resulting from an...
Working through the steamy days of July 1939, producer David O. Selznick and film editor Hal Kern had compiled a five-hour rough-cut version of Gone With the Wind that was shown to cast and crew. Selznick presented to each of his stars a leather-bound copy of the...
In July 1939, producer David O. Selznick and film editor Hal Kern undertook a staggering task: Review all of the footage filmed for Gone With the Wind and assemble a rough cut of the movie. The various units had shot approximately 449,512 feet of Technicolor film,...
On Wednesday, July 5, 1939, Gone With the Wind’s postproduction action was focused on Scarlett and Rhett’s daughter, Bonnie Blue Butler. On the MGM studio lot at the Cohen Park location, production designer William Cameron Menzies directed four-year-old Cammie King in...
On Monday, July 3, 1939, Vivien Leigh was on holiday in New York City reunited with Laurence Olivier and in the audience for his last performance of No Time for Comedy. Those remaining on Gone With the Wind’s set had little time for a holiday and no time for comedy as...
