Request Your Autographed Bookplate

For Gone With the Wind’s 75th anniversary, I’m offering personally inscribed and autographed bookplates for readers of The Complete GONE WITH THE WIND Trivia Book (2nd edition). Here’s how to receive your free bookplate:   Type or print clearly the desired inscription...

Loose Lips Make Max and MGM Mad

Soon after producer David O. Selznick discreetly talked to Herbert Stothart, MGM’s musical director and composer, about taking over Gone With the Wind’s score from Max Steiner, all hell broke loose. Stothart blabbed that he was being hired to fix Steiner’s work. This...

Gone With the Wind’s Last Scene Filmed

Producer David O. Selznick reviewed Gone With the Wind’s footage and realized he needed one last scene for the “Casualty List” sequence. He trimmed the existing footage to accommodate the new scene that was filmed on Saturday, November 11, 1939. Assistant director...

Selznick Seeks a Backup Score for Gone With the Wind

 On Thursday, November 9, 1939, producer David O. Selznick wrote to John Hay Whitney, chairman of the board of Selznick International Pictures, about the situation with Gone With the Wind’s composer. Max Steiner had issued yet another warning that he would not be able...

The “Damn” Resolution

Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America and the enforcer of the Motion Picture Production Code, issued a stern warning to his board of directors at its meeting in late October 1939. Waiving the profanity rule and...