99 Fun Facts About Gone with the Wind

In Gone with the Wind, what does Scarlett have made into a fine dress when she has no money?

Velvet curtains from Tara's windows became the green dress Scarlett wore to charm tax money out of Rhett. Carol Burnett's 1976 parody left the curtain rod in, and that costume now belongs to the Smithsonian.

Gone with the Wind sold a million copies in six months during which era?

The Great Depression had not yet lifted, and the 1,037-page novel cost three dollars, yet about a million copies had gone by the end of the year.

Which honour did Gone with the Wind win for its author in 1937?

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction went to a first novel whose author never published another: Mitchell spent much of her remaining twelve years answering every fan letter and fighting pirated editions abroad.

Gone with the Wind takes its title from what?

A love poem: in Ernest Dowson's 'Cynara' a man sick with an old passion says he has 'forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind'. Scarlett borrows the phrase to wonder whether Tara still stands.

What was Scarlett O'Hara's first name in Mitchell's manuscript before publication?

Pansy O'Hara she stayed through years of drafts; Mitchell swapped in Scarlett only while revising for the printer, in the same months she finally wrote the opening chapter.

How did Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone with the Wind, die in 1949?

Struck by a car on Peachtree Street, she had been crossing with her husband on their way to the cinema; the driver, an off-duty taxi driver, was speeding, and she died five days later aged 48.

In Harris polls of 2008 and 2014, Americans named Gone with the Wind their second-favourite book, behind which one?

The Bible topped both polls with Mitchell's 1936 novel as runner-up; in 2014 it still outpolled the Harry Potter series in third place and The Lord of the Rings in fourth.

Gerald O'Hara named his plantation Tara after what?

The ancient seat of Irish high kings gave a grand name to land that was mostly wilderness: Gerald, a County Meath man, won it from a stranger at poker in a Savannah saloon.

What are the famous last words of the novel Gone with the Wind?

'Tomorrow is another day' closes the book as Scarlett plans to go home to Tara and win Rhett back. Mitchell wrote this final chapter first, and the line was nearly the title.

In Gone with the Wind, how does Rhett Butler grow rich during the war?

Running the Union blockade, he slipped cotton out past the warships and scarce goods back in, and he scandalised Atlanta by saying openly that he did it for profit, not for the Cause.

In 1936 Hollywood was wary of filming Gone with the Wind partly because pictures about what were thought to lose money?

The Civil War was reckoned box-office poison. Even the film's eventual producer said no at first, judging the setting strongly against it, then changed his mind and paid a record sum for a first novel.

Who is the credited director of Gone with the Wind?

Victor Fleming alone got the screen credit and the Oscar, yet the final cut also holds scenes by two other directors, one of whom stood in for a spell when the strain of the shoot drove him off the set.

Which original director of Gone with the Wind was fired less than three weeks into filming?

George Cukor had spent two years preparing and casting the film, yet was gone within three weeks of the cameras rolling, after he and the producer fell out over how to shoot it.

Paulette Goddard nearly played Scarlett, but lost out amid doubts over whether she was really married to which film star?

Charlie Chaplin was her co-star in Modern Times and the man she lived with, but she could not produce a marriage certificate, and the part went to the only other finalist.

When did Vivien Leigh first meet Gone with the Wind's producer?

The filming of the burning of Atlanta came first of all, on 10 December 1938, with old studio sets going up in flames and no Scarlett yet cast; she was introduced to the producer that night.

The credited director of Gone with the Wind was pulled off which other 1939 classic to take over?

The Wizard of Oz was still shooting, so another man had to finish its Kansas scenes. A year later the two films met at the Oscars, both up for Best Picture, and Oz lost.

Which studio lent Gone with the Wind its Rhett, plus cash, in exchange for the right to release the film?

MGM was run by Louis B. Mayer, the producer's own father-in-law, but family came at a price: besides releasing the film, the studio took a share of its profits.

Who plays Ashley Wilkes in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind?

Leslie Howard took the part reluctantly. He died in 1943, when the airliner carrying him home from Lisbon was shot down over the sea.

In Gone with the Wind, what kind of business does Scarlett run herself in post-war Atlanta, to the town's horror?

A lumber mill was a gold mine in a burnt city busy rebuilding. Scarlett ran hers in person, drove out to it alone and undersold a rival until he went bankrupt, all of which scandalised Atlanta.

After a newspaper printed Gone with the Wind's Oscar wins before the 1940 ceremony, what did the Academy start doing?

Keeping the results secret began in 1941, with sealed envelopes. Until then the press got the winners early on a promise to hold them, and the Los Angeles Times broke it, so nominees arrived already knowing.

Which Gone with the Wind co-star did Hattie McDaniel beat to become the first African American Oscar winner?

Olivia de Havilland was up for the same supporting award. The winner sat at a small segregated table by the far wall, in a hotel that barred Black guests and let her in only as a favour.

Which character did Hattie McDaniel play in Gone with the Wind?

Mammy was one of the many maids McDaniel played on screen, and when people objected she had a stock reply: she would rather play a maid than be one.

Who threatened to boycott Gone with the Wind's Atlanta premiere after Hattie McDaniel was barred, until she persuaded him to go?

Clark Gable was a friend who had acted with her in China Seas in 1935. Georgia's segregation laws kept Black actors out of the whites-only theatre, and he gave way only when she urged him to go.

To save Tara from the tax collector, Scarlett marries Frank Kennedy for his money, stealing him from whom?

Her own sister Suellen had been courted by Frank for years. Scarlett lied to him that Suellen was about to marry another man, wed him herself within a fortnight and paid the taxes with his money.

Why did Sidney Howard never collect his screenplay Oscar for Gone with the Wind?

He had died months earlier, in an accident on his Massachusetts farm in August 1939, and so became the first posthumous Oscar winner. Several other writers reworked his script, but he alone got the credit.

Who composed the score of Gone with the Wind, including 'Tara's Theme'?

Max Steiner was nominated for this music but lost, one of only five defeats on a night when the film won eight Oscars. His three wins all came for other films.

After driving Scarlett out of burning Atlanta, what does Rhett do on the dark road to Tara?

Leaves to join the army: the cynic who had mocked the Cause for years enlisted only once it was lost, leaving a furious Scarlett to get a sick woman and a newborn home alone.

Why did Rhett's closing line nearly fail to reach the screen in Gone with the Wind?

Censors objected to 'damn', which the Hays Code forbade. Tamer lines were drafted before the producer's lobbying won permission, weeks before the premiere.

How does Rhett's famous last line differ in the novel Gone with the Wind?

It lacks the word 'Frankly': on the page Rhett says 'My dear, I don't give a damn' and goes upstairs, while on screen he says it as he walks out on her.

Which famous novelist was hired to polish Gone with the Wind's script, though none of his work was used?

F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, spent his last years doctoring Hollywood scripts, mostly without credit, and his dialogue polish for this one went unused.

Gone with the Wind was the first Best Picture winner shot in what?

Colour films had never before taken the top prize, and the Academy also gave this one's production designer a special award for using colour to heighten dramatic mood.

When adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind holds which record?

Early road-show screenings charged over $1 a ticket, and MGM took an unprecedented 70 percent of receipts.

The star cast as Rhett in Gone with the Wind took the part to help fund a divorce and marry whom?

Carole Lombard married him in 1939. He had not wanted to play Rhett, and the money that changed his mind helped pay for his divorce; she died in a plane crash in 1942.

Which institution chose Gone with the Wind in 1989 for the first year of its National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress adds 25 films a year that it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, taking nominations from the public, and this one went in with the very first batch.

Which cinema format was the film blown up to for its 1967 re-release?

The new poster showed Gable with his shirt ripped open against orange flames.

Which streaming service pulled Gone with the Wind in June 2020 after an op-ed by 12 Years a Slave's screenwriter?

HBO Max, newly launched, said the film's racist depictions were 'wrong then and are wrong today' and promised to bring it back unaltered, with a discussion of its historical context.

In Gone with the Wind, what nickname sticks to Rhett and Scarlett's daughter?

Bonnie Blue was christened Eugenie Victoria, but the name stuck after Melanie said her eyes would be as blue as the Bonnie Blue flag. She dies young when she tries to make her pony take a jump.

Vivien Leigh's second Best Actress Oscar came for playing which role?

Blanche DuBois, in the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire, was a part she had already played on stage for the best part of a year, and she later said it tipped her over into madness.

The star cast as Rhett in Gone with the Wind won his only Oscar for which earlier film?

It Happened One Night was a Frank Capra comedy he made reluctantly on loan to a minor studio, and it swept the five top Oscars of 1934. He was nominated for Rhett but lost.

Who wrote the authorised 1991 sequel novel to Gone with the Wind?

Alexandra Ripley was chosen by the Mitchell estate decades after the author's death. Critics panned her Scarlett, yet it became an international bestseller and, in 1994, a television miniseries.

Which actor played Rhett Butler in Scarlett, the 1994 miniseries sequel to Gone with the Wind?

Timothy Dalton played Rhett in the year he walked away from James Bond: in April 1994 he announced he would not return as 007. The other three options all played Bond too.

In Gone with the Wind, what does the maid Prissy finally admit she knows nothing about?

Delivering babies was the one skill she had bragged about, and she owns up only when Melanie is in labour and the doctor cannot come. Scarlett slaps her, then delivers the child herself.

In Gone with the Wind, at which neighbouring plantation's barbecue does Scarlett first meet Rhett Butler?

Twelve Oaks was the Wilkes family's home. Rhett lay unseen on a high-backed sofa in its library while Scarlett declared her love to Ashley, was turned down and hurled an ornament at the fireplace.

Which producer's honour did Selznick also receive at the 12th Academy Awards?

It recognised his shepherding of the film through its troubled production.

To win the release of Gone with the Wind, a rival studio offered Errol Flynn as Rhett and which star as Scarlett?

Bette Davis got her Southern belle anyway: in 1938, the year of the offer, she played a strong-willed one in Jezebel and won her second Oscar for it.

For Gone with the Wind's great fire scene, the studio burned old sets, including the giant gates from which earlier film?

King Kong's giant gates burned along with other old sets left standing on the studio lot. Gone with the Wind's producer knew them well: he had been the executive in charge of that film too.

Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 while stuck at home with what?

An ankle injury that would not heal ended her newspaper career and kept her indoors. She wrote the chapters out of order, and what she finally handed a publisher was a disorganised pile of drafts.

Which 2001 novel retells Margaret Mitchell's epic from an enslaved woman's point of view and survived her estate's lawsuit?

The Wind Done Gone was blocked by an Atlanta judge for a month until an appeals court lifted the ban. A year later the estate gave up, once the publisher agreed to donate to Morehouse, a historically black college.

Which 1958 musical broke Gone with the Wind's record of eight competitive Oscar wins?

Gigi won all nine Oscars it was nominated for, but it kept the record for a single year: Ben-Hur took eleven at the very next ceremony.

How did Scarlett O'Hara's father, Gerald, come to own the Georgia land that became Tara?

He won it at poker: in a Savannah saloon a stranger staked the deed against Gerald's chips and wallet and lost. Gerald won his valet, Pork, at cards as well.

George Reeves, one of the Tarleton twins in Gone with the Wind, later starred on television as whom?

Superman made George Reeves a household name in the 1950s series Adventures of Superman; Stuart Tarleton, one of Scarlett's suitors, was his first film role.

Which future civil rights leader sang in a church choir during Gone with the Wind's Atlanta premiere festivities?

Martin Luther King Jr., then ten years old, sang with his church choir at a premiere gala for an all-white audience, the singers dressed as slaves.

Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind out of order; which part did she put on paper first?

The final chapter came first: Mitchell wrote the ending, then the events that led to it, and rewrote the opening several times before publication.

John Marsh, Margaret Mitchell's second husband, had played which part at her first wedding?

Best man John Marsh watched Mitchell marry his roommate, the bootlegger Red Upshaw, in 1922; that marriage fell apart within months, and she wed Marsh in 1925.

Tara is the O'Hara home in Gone with the Wind; where was the house actually built for the 1939 film?

California: Tara was only a plywood and papier-mâché front on a studio backlot, and every location scene was photographed there too.

In Gone with the Wind, in which city do Rhett and Scarlett spend their lavish honeymoon?

New Orleans is where the newlyweds spend lavishly; back in Atlanta, Rhett pays for a gaudy mansion built to Scarlett's taste, though he thinks it hideous.

Which cable channel went on air in 1994 with Gone with the Wind as its very first broadcast?

Turner Classic Movies opened with it in April 1994, six years after the same film had launched the TNT network.

What is Scarlett wearing when she scandalises Atlanta by dancing with Rhett at the charity bazaar?

A widow's mourning black barred her from dancing at all, but Rhett bid gold for the first dance and chose Scarlett as his partner; only Melanie's defence saved her name.

In Gone with the Wind, what does Scarlett do to the Yankee soldier who invades her home at Tara?

Kills him herself and buries his body in the garden; in these months she is also working Tara's fields with her own hands to feed the household.

At which battle are the Tarleton twins, two of Scarlett's suitors, killed in Gone with the Wind?

Gettysburg claims Brent and Stuart moments apart, and their two brothers also die in the war, leaving the horse-breeding Tarleton family with no sons.

On which Atlanta street do Rhett and Scarlett build their gaudy mansion in Gone with the Wind?

Peachtree runs through the whole story: Melanie's aunt lives at its quiet end, in the red-brick house Scarlett half-owns after her first widowhood.

Scarlett's first husband dies before reaching a battlefield in Gone with the Wind; of which illness?

Measles, followed by pneumonia, carries Charles off two months into the war; Scarlett mourns her lost freedom more than the husband she barely knew.

Vivien Leigh, the screen's Scarlett O'Hara, married which fellow actor in 1940?

Laurence Olivier was already in Hollywood making Wuthering Heights when Leigh followed him to Los Angeles, hoping also to convince David Selznick that she was his Scarlett.

In which 1967 young-adult novel do Ponyboy and Johnny read Gone with the Wind while hiding out?

The Outsiders has Ponyboy read the book aloud to Johnny in an abandoned church, where he also recites lines by Robert Frost at sunrise.

Which president recalled Gone with the Wind's premiere as the South's biggest event of his lifetime?

Jimmy Carter was a fifteen-year-old in rural Georgia when some 300,000 people lined Atlanta's streets to see the film's stars arrive.

What did Georgia's governor declare the day of Gone with the Wind's Atlanta premiere to be?

A state holiday was Governor Eurith D. Rivers's tribute to the film, crowning three days of parades, receptions and a costume ball hosted by the city's mayor.

Which Southern port is Rhett Butler's home town, where no respectable family will receive him?

Charleston society shuns Rhett as an outcast; cast out by his father, he made his living as a professional gambler before the war.

Which cash crop is grown at Tara, the O'Hara family's Georgia plantation in Gone with the Wind?

Cotton is what the once-pampered Scarlett ends up picking herself after the Yankees burn the stored crop and the field hands are gone.

Margaret Mitchell gave her dark-haired heroine Scarlett O'Hara eyes of which shade?

Green, and pale green at that: the novel's first paragraph gives Scarlett black lashes, very white skin and a pointed chin, and insists she is not beautiful.

In the novel Gone with the Wind, Frank Kennedy and Ashley ride with which group, unnamed on screen?

The Ku Klux Klan avenges the attack on Scarlett in the book; the producer cut every reference to it, wary of seeming to advertise intolerant societies.

Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother, dies of which disease before her daughter gets back to Tara?

Typhoid takes Ellen after she nurses her poor neighbour Emmie Slattery, and the loss leaves her husband Gerald's mind broken.

In Gone with the Wind, what kind of Atlanta establishment does Rhett's friend Belle Watling run?

A brothel, and its madam saves the day: Belle tells Yankee officers that Ashley and the other raiders spent the evening at her house, an alibi Rhett invents.

Which easily flustered Atlanta spinster takes Scarlett into her home in Gone with the Wind?

Aunt Pittypat, born Sarah Jane, got her nickname as a child from the patter of her tiny feet; she raised the orphaned Melanie with her coachman's help.

Melanie's son, born as Atlanta falls in Gone with the Wind, is named after which Southern general?

P.G.T. Beauregard gave the baby his name, Beauregard, or Beau; Scarlett's own boy, Wade Hampton, was named for his father's commanding officer, as was then the fashion.

From which military academy was Rhett Butler expelled as a young man in Gone with the Wind?

West Point threw Rhett out, yet the novel makes him plainly well read, at ease with Shakespeare, classical history and German philosophy.

Scarlett is really a middle name; which first name does her father Gerald O'Hara put before it?

Katie was the name of Gerald's own mother, and he alone calls his eldest Katie Scarlett; everyone else drops the first half.

Which actress, a dancer making her screen debut, played the maid Prissy in Gone with the Wind?

Butterfly McQueen was spotted in a Broadway comedy by the producer's talent scout, and after her screen test he never considered anyone else for the part.

Which comedian hosted the Oscars for the first of nineteen times on Gone with the Wind's big night?

Bob Hope made his debut as host at a ceremony short on suspense: a Los Angeles newspaper had already printed the winners before the nominees arrived.

Gone with the Wind's record haul of ten Oscars, honorary awards included, fell to which 1959 epic?

Ben-Hur won eleven; curiously, its 1925 silent predecessor was the only film that had cost more to make than Gone with the Wind at the time.

In Scarlett, the authorised 1991 sequel to Gone with the Wind, the heroine settles in which country?

Ireland draws her to Ballyhara, an estate on old O'Hara land that she buys and restores, to the delight of her father's relatives.

Which 1962 epic rivals Gone with the Wind for the title of longest Best Picture winner?

Lawrence of Arabia runs about a minute longer as a film, but Gone with the Wind is the longer sitting once its overture, intermission and exit music are counted.

As a young Atlanta reporter in 1923, Margaret Mitchell interviewed which silent-film heartthrob?

Rudolph Valentino insisted he was no sheik, her 1923 article reported; she found his low, husky voice a greater charm than his looks.

David Selznick followed Gone with the Wind with which Hitchcock film, the next Best Picture winner?

Rebecca was the director's first Hollywood picture and the only one of his films ever to win the top Oscar, giving its producer two in a row.

The actor who played Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind died in 1943 in which wartime incident?

A shot-down airliner: German fighters attacked his civilian flight from Lisbon to England over the Bay of Biscay, amid rumours that he had been doing intelligence work.

Thomas Mitchell, Gerald O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, won his Oscar that year for which other film?

Stagecoach cast him as the drunken Doc Boone opposite John Wayne, one of five major films he made in that single year.

What nickname did Margaret Mitchell give the cramped apartment where she wrote Gone with the Wind?

The Dump was her affectionate name for a flat of some 650 square feet; the building is preserved as the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.

After her sweetheart Brent Tarleton dies in the war, what does young Carreen O'Hara eventually do?

Enters a convent, heartbroken, to the disappointment of Will Benteen, the one-legged veteran who manages Tara and had grown fond of her.

Which woman spots Ashley Wilkes embracing Scarlett and sets all of Atlanta gossiping about them?

India is Ashley's plain sister, once courted by Stuart Tarleton until he fell for Scarlett; Melanie refuses to believe her and bars her from the house.

Which former foreman of Tara rescues Scarlett when two men attack her buggy near Shantytown?

Big Sam had been marched off by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches; his rescue of Scarlett sets off the night raid in which her second husband is killed.

Which real Georgia town, the seat of Clayton County, lies five miles from the fictional Tara?

Jonesboro, spelled Jonesborough in wartime, was where Sherman's troops cut the railway south of Atlanta, forcing the Confederates to abandon the city.

Which Massachusetts women's college did Margaret Mitchell attend before returning home to Atlanta?

Smith was her mother's pick as the best women's college in the country, but her mother died in the 1918 flu pandemic and Mitchell went home after a year.

Who inherited a half share in the rights to Gone with the Wind in 2012 from the author's nephew?

The Archdiocese of Atlanta received the bequest from Joseph Mitchell's estate, though the novelist herself had left the Catholic Church long before.

After Gerald O'Hara dies in Gone with the Wind, which of his belongings does Scarlett give to Pork?

His pocket watch goes to the loyal valet; Scarlett offers to have it engraved for him, but Pork turns the offer down.

After his capture in Gone with the Wind, Ashley Wilkes is held in which Northern prison camp?

Rock Island, an arsenal island in the Mississippi between Illinois and Iowa, is where the captured Ashley sits out the fighting before coming home to Tara, his idealism shattered.

Which Atlanta cinema hosted the world premiere of Gone with the Wind in December 1939?

Loew's Grand began life as an opera house in 1893 and was wrecked by fire in 1978; an office tower later rose on the site.

Gone with the Wind's Rhett Butler lost the Best Actor Oscar to Robert Donat, star of which film?

Goodbye, Mr. Chips won Donat the award as a gentle English schoolmaster, in a field that also included James Stewart.

Which dismissed overseer of Tara returns as a carpetbagger and tries to buy it from Scarlett?

Jonas Wilkerson was sacked at Ellen O'Hara's insistence for fathering Emmie Slattery's child; Tony Fontaine later murders him in a barroom and flees to Texas.

Which 1950 film took Gone with the Wind's record for most Oscar nominations with fourteen?

All About Eve reached fourteen nods; Gone with the Wind's thirteen had stood as the record for eleven years.

In which city did Scarlett, the stage musical of Gone with the Wind, open in 1970?

Tokyo saw it first, four years after a nine-hour non-musical staging there; a shortened version reached London in 1972.