Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog, page 10

Nameless Faces on the Silver Screen, MS and Mark Twain

Let’s go to the Movies

I grew up watching dozens of nameless faces on that giant silver screen. Saturday at the Bijou or in my case the Princess Theatre in Jackson, Georgia you’d likely see two features a western, Bulldog Drummond, a thriller serial with a cliffhanger ending, a newsreel and a couple of cartoons all for a dime. Wow – what a bargain.
Saturday was the day when we became familiar with many of those nameless faces. There was a lot of typecasting with the expected bad guys almost always playing their regular heavies roles and likewise the good folks that would eventually form a posse and go chasing the heavies.
Many of those nameless faces were among the UNCREDITED cast members that worked on ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Of the 72 players listed on the uncredited roster about two thirds could be called professional extras. Today they’re known as background performers. In 1939 most of those people were proud of their work and it showed on the set, the AD (assistant director) or the director gave them instructions as to what their action would be during the scene and they did their job without question. Some of those players owned extensive wardrobes and came to work dressed in the period the movie was depicting and they got extra pay for those costumes. There is also extra pay for special business or silent bit assignments given out on the set. And once in a while someone will be given a piece of dialogue to perform, which automatically makes that person a day player with a substantial increase in pay.
The other third of that group was made up of one-time feature players in silent films or sound that were simply past their prime while some of the younger players among them were on their way up. These people listed below will give you an idea of how the casting department followed Selznick’s guidelines and put those faces on the screen to compliment an almost perfect main cast.
Ralph Brooks was featured in ‘Smash Up’ an Oscar nominated film with Susan Hayward for best actress and Dorothy Parker for best original story. Brooks was in ‘Tulsa’ another Susan Hayward film that won an Oscar for best effects and special effects.
Eddy Chandler pops up in many films and he is prominent in Charlie Chan ‘In the Secret Service.’
Wallis Clark, Frank Coghlan Jr, Gino Corrado and Lester Dorr all had long bits and extra résumé’s.
Tommy Kelly had a brief but good run as a child actor while Si Jenks padded his long resume playing old men in westerns.
Dirk Wayne Summers had a long resume and did several episodes on ‘Golden Girls.’
Emerson Treacy, Philip Trent, Julie Ann Tuck, Ernest Whitman, Guy Wilkerson and John Ray all had long résumé’s listing small roles in feature films and TV.
George Meeker was featured in a string of movies playing disagreeable characters, the guy you loved to hate.
Charles Middleton was outstanding in the very popular Flash Gordon serial playing Ming the Merciless. Middleton played dozens of feature roles but Ming might have been the highlight of his film career.
Alberto Morin had an amazing career doing features and small parts in both movies and TV. Morin Played General Le Claire in ‘Two Mules for Sister Sara’ starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Morin worked in Hellfighters with John Wayne and played scores of roles in TV including multiple episodes on ‘Dallas’ and ‘I Love Lucy.’
David Newell had an extensive background in movies and TV. Newell is best known for his role as the postman in ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’
Marjorie Reynolds came up through the ranks and at the top of her career was cast in a leading role alongside Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the film ‘Holiday Inn.’
The three remaining names on my list all went on to have stellar acting careers and deserve TOP BILLING:
Frank Faylen, Tom Tyler and Richard Farnsworth.
Frank Faylen played the average guy in more than 200 movies and TV films. The most memorable might have been the likeable cab driver working with James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Tom Tyler had a long and profitable career beginning in the silent film era. He starred in the ‘Captain Marvel’ serial and played leads in numerous B westerns and scores of feature roles in major films.
Richard Farnsworth: Farnsworth began working in film in 1937 as stuntman and actor. He achieved stardom in the 1982 film ‘The Grey Fox’ for which he won the Genie award. Then in 1999 Richard Farnsworth was nominated for an academy award as best actor for the film ‘The Straight Story.’
David Selznick demanded and got the best talent available for GWTW from stars to the minor roles and the class of those actors’ shows today when you watch the film on TV or your DVD.

Now let’s go from make-believe to one mans story -- living with Multiple Sclerosis.
The Gang’s All Here
By Chris Tatevosian

“The Monster and His Friends"
My marriage of ten years began dissolving when the “Monster” invited his friends to live in my house. If you have MS, you’ve probably met the gang. There was the kingpin, Stress, his best friend Anger and his twin, Misdirected. Of course a feeling of worthlessness was always there along with inadequacy, low self-esteem and depression. You can also add worry, anxiety and lack of communications to the mix. And all of those characters hung around and never left -- but my wife did.
Sounds like the cast of a real nightmare. At that point of my life it literally was a nightmare, and I couldn’t see myself ever waking up. MS can destroy relationships between spouses, family members and friends. Eventually I turned on a more positive attitude and wrote the book, “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me,” a self-help memoir, my real life story of marriage interrupted by multiple sclerosis. It could have been any chronic illness or disability and it could have been anyone’s relationship. Still, this book is intended to help others going through a similar situation deal with the stress and hardship put on one’s relationships as a result of a chronic illness or disability.
My story is not always pretty, but it’s real. I have written this book to help others in similar situations avoid making the same mistakes that I did. You’re not alone, and there is hope when facing and dealing with the stress put on a relationship as a result of life being interrupted, as in my case by -- MS.
I got remarried last April. My new bride, Jane, is fantastic. And even though my disease is worse than during my first marriage I could not ask for more. So what’s changed? We truly have a wonderful relationship. Why is my marriage working so well now, even though my MS has continued to progress over the past eight years? I can attribute this to two factors. First, Jane is truly a special person, and second. I have written this book, which has afforded me the opportunity to slow down and examine my life. The obvious fact is, we have the choice to go through life dealing with whatever trials and tribulations we must, and deal with either a smile or a frown. Yes, we have an affliction, but that doesn’t mean we have to go through the rest of our lives ticked off at everything and everyone, and as a consequence live life in complete misery.
My wife Jane and I laugh and laugh together and at one another all the time. Sure, I have slip ups, get frustrated and angry. It happened just the other night. I became so frustrated with Jane during the middle of the morning. Actually it was 3:17 am; I have one of those giant digital alarm clocks for the legally blind. When I can’t sleep, believe me I know what time it is. You see, Jane suffers from restless leg syndrome and the other night she was kicking me in the shin, and other places all night long. BAD! Of course I have to deal with nocturnia, which means every time I wake up I have to empty my bladder. I take prescription Flomax so normally I can sleep through the night without having to get up to visit the bathroom. Needless to say, it was a long night and I was ready to yell at my wife, which I would have done in my previous marriage. So what’s the difference, what’s changed? The difference is that I have written, re-written, read and re-read my book so many times that when I do begin to slip-up it’s so obvious that I usually catch myself. Of course Jane has read the book too, so when I slip up she’s quick to point out, “Chris, I think you need to revisit page 76 “and we have a good chuckle. I never thought I would get married again. After all, who would marry damaged goods? At one point prior to my marriage I said to my wife to be, why would you marry someone with MS it’s like buying a vase with a hole in the bottom. Her response was, maybe I want it to hold dried flowers. So these dried flowers are happily married and loving every minute of it.
If you’d like to learn more about the dissolving of my first marriage and strengthen your own, please visit my web site www.lifeInterrupted-nolonger.com

Writers Notebook:
Samuel Langhorne Clemons
Mark Twain worked with words most of his life. At the age of twelve he took a job in a print shop as an apprentice. His storytelling jargon came from newspaper headlines and stories, not from the editorial pages. Twain wrote for the masses and he wrote in their vernacular, and always inserting a healthy dose of his unique sense of humor.
Mark Twain has shared a special writing tip with us, his approach to writing an autobiography. ‘Start it at no particular time in your life; talk only about the things which interest you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale; and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting theme that has intruded itself into your mind.’
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Aristotle, Shakespear and Gone With the Wind

Let’s go to the Movies
Part 11
Cast in order of appearance:
Gerald O’Hara – Thomas Mitchell
Ellen O’Hara – Barbara O’Neil
Scarlett O’Hara – Vivien Leigh
Suellen O’Hara – Evelyn Keyes
Careen O’Hara – Ann Rutherford
Brent Tarleton – George Reeves
Stuart Tarleton – Fred Crane
Mammy – Hattie McDaniel
Pork – Oscar Polk
Prissy – Butterfly McQueen
Jonas Wilkerson – Victor Jory
Big Sam – Everett Brown
John Wilkes – Howard Hickman
India Wilkes – Alicia Rhett
Ashley Wilkes – Leslie Howard
Melanie Hamilton – Olivia de Havilland
Charles Hamilton – Rand Brooks
Frank Kennedy – Carroll Nye
Rhett Butler – Clark Gable
Aunt ‘Pittypat’ Hamilton – Laura Hope Crews
Dr. Meade – Harry Davenport
Uncle Peter – Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson
Mrs. Meade – Leona Roberts
Mrs. Dolly Merriwether – Jane Darwell
Belle Watling – Ona Munson
Yankee Deserter – Paul Hurst
Emmy Slattery – Isabel Jewell
Bonnie Blue Butler – Cammie King
Amputation Case – Eric Linden
Johnny Gallagher – J.M. Kerrigan
Tom – Yankee Captain -- Ward Bond
Phil Meade – Jackie Moran
Reminiscent Soldier – Cliff Edwards
Bonnie’s London Nurse L.Kemble-Cooper
Renegade -- Yakima Canutt
Cathleen Calvert – Marcella Martin
Beau Wilkes – Mickey Kuhn
Soldier Holding Beau Wilkes – Louis J. Heydt
A Carpetbagger – Olin Howland
Corporal – Irving Bacon
Yankee Major – Robert Elliott
Mounted Officer – William Bakewell
Maybell Merriwether – Mary Anderson

Stars, feature players, bits and extras were all carefully chosen for their parts in Gone With the Wind. It goes without saying that the stars and features had to meet the physical and emotional requirements laid out by Margaret Mitchell in her book. But Selznick took his strict casting model a bit further and included bits and extras.
He voiced some of his thoughts on the subject to production manager Ray Klune in one of his famous memos…’I’ve always felt that it is a false kind of economy to save on bit actors. The time that cheap and inexperienced actors cost through the director’s inability to get performances out of them alone more than makes up the difference between the salaries and the salaries of good actors…nothing is as important on the screen as the actor. To save money on actors and spend it on sets is silly – the audiences are looking at the actors, not at the sets, if our action means anything. And while a bit actor is on the screen, if it is only for two seconds, he is as important as the star…’

Small roles – Large talents
Some of the small, but memorable roles, among the credited actors were Everett Brown who played the loyal Big Sam. ‘Quitten’ time is when I say it’s quitten’ time.’-- ‘Quitten’ time.’ And later when Yakima Canutt the renegade stopped Scarlett’s carriage at the bridge Big Sam comes to her rescue. Canutt was typecast for his renegade role – he had dozens of credits playing heavies in the old Hollywood westerns. Yakima Canutt was a director as well, he was also one of Hollywood’s premiere stuntmen. Canutt contributed to GWTW as a second unit director and directed all those great chariot races in Ben Hur. He made movie history when he did the famous stagecoach stunt in John Ford’s Classic ‘Stagecoach.’
Aunt Pittypat’s coachman, Uncle Peter was none other than Jack Benny’s sidekick Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson.
Paul Hurst, the Yankee deserter shot by Scarlett had scores of acting credits in supporting roles that included ‘The Ox Bow Incident’ with Henry Fonda and Harry Davenport (Dr. Meade in GWTW) and ‘The Westerner’ with Gary Cooper, Dana Andrews and Walter Brennan.
Next week I’ll talk about some of the characters on the UNCREDITED roster of bits and extras that contains more than seventy names.

Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection

In the novel Philippe Robillard is killed off during a barroom brawl in New Orleans, and a priest returned the locket and letters to Ellen in Savannah. When in fact a minister at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis, actually sent them to Sister Melanie at St. Vincent’s Academy in that same city.
What a savvy storyteller she was. Peggy Mitchell knew how to shut down controversy and illustrated that technique by killing off Philippe in a New Orleans barroom. It was
an absolutely brilliant piece of writing. She left no loose ends, nothing that could point toward Doc Holliday’s life west of the Mississippi.
There is no doubt that Peggy Mitchell was bright, and not to leave anything out, there is one final scene relative to the Robillard story in chapter twenty-four that makes the case even more convincing. Scarlett was a lot like her mother, but the daughter never came to realize just how much like Ellen she really was -- even after she was told.
In one of the late scenes it comes out that Mammy was the only one that knew the full extent of Ellen’s undying love for Philippe. When Scarlett returned to Tara and was mourning her mother's death the half-breed Dilcey told Scarlett her mother’s dying words. Feeleep! Feeleep! Scarlett assumed the name was Philippe and she asked the question, 'Who was he and what had he been to Mother that she died calling his name?' But Scarlett got no answers because Mammy kept her silence and Dilcey didn’t know.
So according to the words in “Gone With the Wind, Ellen never lost her love for Philippe Robillard. Which means, at least in Margaret Mitchell's mind, Sister Mary Melanie never got over John Henry.
And to find the rest of the story you have to look no further than Margaret Mitchell’s world of the Old South with its plantations, cotton fields and magnolias.

Writers Notebook:

Maxwell Anderson’s rule for making a hit play:
‘What is the rule, Max?’ Josh demanded.
‘Well it turns out it was Aristotle all the time. It’s also in all the great Shakespeare plays, and any strong play that takes the protagonist through a series of experiences that leads to a moment toward the end of the play where he discovers something about himself that he could have known all along, but didn’t. This discovery changes the entire course of his life – and that change must be for the better. If the change is for the worse the audience will reject the play. The audience must see and feel the leading man or woman become wiser and that doesn’t mean a happy ending. If the hero is to die, the revelation must come before the death.
People then leave the theatre feeling better. They’ve had an exciting and uplifting experience and that excitement gives life to the play.’
Josh Logan goes on to say ‘I’ve used this golden rule to some extent on every play and film I’ve done. It has strengthened the strong ones and quite often saved the weak ones from disaster.’

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Stormy Beginning for Gone With the Wind

Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 10
Quiet on the set – Roll Camera -- Action

January 26, 1939
Lowell V. Calvert
Selznick International Pictures
New York, NY
‘Started shooting “Gone With the Wind” today.’
David O. Selznick

Technicolor was still in its infancy in 1939. All the technical people cinematographers, camera operators, lighting, costume designers, set designers were all making the transition from black and white film to color. David Selznick was a tough taskmaster and didn’t make it easy for anyone working on GWTW. From the time he saw the first rushes and heard grumbling coming from the set Selznick was displeased with the color coordination of sets costumes and lighting. And on the third day of shooting he issued a memo to all concerned that the final word about color coordination would come from Bill Menzies.
Then within the first two weeks of production Selznick’s partner MGM began pushing him to pick up the pace. And while he didn’t want to admit it, he had to agree with them, the production pace was moving along at a crawl.
Director George Cukor was taking his time in rehearsals and setups and was resentful of Selznick’s hands on producer’s methods regarding script changes as well as his on-set presence.
David Selznick sensed a catastrophe in the making and decided to take drastic measures – call a temporary halt to production and change directors.
In a memo dated February 13, 1939 to Jock Whitney Selznick made this statement: ‘The following is being released immediately: George Cukor and David Selznick last night jointly issued the following statement: “As a result of a series of disagreements between us over many of the individual scenes of Gone With the Wind, we have mutually decided that the only solution is for a new director to be selected at as early a date as is practical.”

There is no paper trail to give us a time line on Selznick’s decision-making process as to when he resolved to remove Cukor. Of course Selznick had known for months that the situation was going to be testy at best. But exactly when he started his search for a new director we just don’t know. However, the fact that within two or three days after announcing Cukor’s departure Selznick was fully engaged and talking over GWTW problems with Victor Fleming.
Fleming was a top MGM director and was just finishing work on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when he was tapped for the GWTW assignment.
Something that might have played a part in the change of director’s and the Fleming choice might have been Clark Gable. With out a doubt Gable wanted a man’s director and likely touted Victor Fleming to Selznick.
‘Gone With the Wind’ resumed filming on Monday February 27th with the scene between the Tarleton twins and Scarlett on the front porch of Tara, and contains Scarlett’s memorable line ‘Fiddle le dee. War, War, War. This war talk is spoiling all the fun at every party…’
Then they went on to reshoot every scene Cukor had filmed during his tenure.
A minor problem, while Cukor was still working on the film, grew along with the pace demanded by Victor Fleming. Cinematographer Lee Garmes was having problems with
the Technicolor staff in the area of shadowing dark scenes. Several scenes that demanded dark tones came out too dark and would have to be reshot.
Selznick decided to make another change, but this time there would be no halt in production to accommodate the change.
Ten days after resuming production under the direction of Victor Fleming, Selznick decided to hire Oscar nominee Ernest (Ernie) Haller to replace Lee Garmes as cinematographer and not a shot was delayed or missed as Haller took his position behind the camera and continued the filming of ‘Gone With the Wind.
(To be continued)

Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection
Continued
I picked up a copy of Gone With the Wind and spent the weekend reading it from cover to cover. By the time I finished the book I had marked a dozen or more scenes of interest, most of which had a Savannah, Georgia location. Mattie Holliday had attended St. Vincent’s Academy in Savannah and that was where she eventually entered the nunnery and took the name Sister Mary Melanie.
In GWTW Ellen Robillard, later to become Ellen O’Hara, was part of a prominent Savannah family.
Referring to my notes I began reading where Pork tells Gerald O'Hara that he needs a wife. The little Irishmen seemed to agree and they travel from Tara to Savannah on a mission to remedy that need. I expect I had read less than a page of that scene when it all began to come back to me. And once I finished reading it the connection was perfectly clear. There was no question in my mind that John Henry Holliday was Margaret Mitchell’s “wild buck” Philippe Robillard. And using Ellen Robillard as the real character and Ashley’s Melanie to carry the name was absolutely brilliant. It’s obvious that Sister Melanie told cousin Margaret the whole story about her relationship with John Henry. (Doc Holliday)
(Continued next week)

Writers Notebook:
A piece of dialogue between Josh Logan and Maxwell Anderson from Logan’s out of print ‘My Up and Down, In and Out Life.’
‘It was working closely with Max Anderson – a man dedicated to the craft of playwriting – that taught me something that has been useful to me all my professional life. One day he casually mentioned that he had arrived at a theory for making a play a hit.’
My ears perked up. “You mean any play?”
“Any literate play, yes. I’ve made a study of what kind of story an audience accepts and what kind it rejects. I set out to discover if there is a single element in success that isn’t in failures. I started by examining my own plays. They were after all conceived by the same talent, yet some survived and the rest died quickly. Why? I searched for my answers in Aristotle and I reread Shakespeare, the great Greek masters and hit plays of the present. Eventually, I arrived at my little personal rule. I’m going to write about it some day and I’ll send it to you.”
“Max, you’re going to tell me now! What is it?”

Now this is called a cliffhanger – I’ll tell you Max’s rule next week.

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Final Four: Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland

Final Four: Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland
Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 9
Final tests for Scarlett
Never letting an opportunity go to waste Selznick instructed that the characters playing opposite Scarlett in all the tests be cast in a way that would highlight and help to narrow the search for Ashley and Mammy.
Of course Leslie Howard was still the likely choice for Ashley but as a backup Selznick instructed his casting people to use Melvyn Douglas, Ray Milland, Richard Carlson and Shepard Strudwick to alternate working opposite Scarlett in the four tests.
There were at least three people vying for the Mammy role that would do the same in her scenes with Hattie McDaniel, Hattie Noel and Louise Beavers.
During late December and early January the Selznick Casting department probably put out more calls for lead and feature players than did Central Casting for extras during that same period.
And while negotiations were going on behind the scenes for several leads and feature players the only ones mentioned by Selznick during the period was in a note to Kay Brown in New York about the casting of Scarlett’s mother Ellen. The candidates for that role were Lillian Gish And Cornelia Otis Skinner in New York and Barbara O’Neil in California.
The clock was running out on an arbitrary date set by David Selznick for general photography to begin on GWTW. As I said earlier negotiations were ongoing, but the only principals assigned to the picture at that time were Clark Gable, George Cukor, the director who was on shaky grounds and Bill Menzies, the art director putting in long days and turning out beautiful sets.
Following Sidney Howard’s refusal to accompany Selznick to Bermuda and work on the GWTW screenplay Selznick turned to Oliver Garrett for help. Within a week Selznick commissioned Garrett to do a complete rewrite of the Howard work. In several respects it turned out to be a good move since Garrett was a good storyteller and his continuity was excellent. Howard’s script was strong on individual scene development and with Selznick’s input, in the end; they essentially merged the two screenplays into one.
During the first week of January 1939 the selection of the four major cast members had been made. However press releases announcing the cast had not gone out pending final contract agreements and signings. The decision had been made that Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland would be the marquee headliners and stars of Gone With the Wind.
David Selznick was not only one of Hollywood’s top producers he was great in another field, public relations and showmanship. What PT Barnham was to ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ David Selznick was to Hollywood movies. During the year of 1938 Selznick used the whole country as one giant pool of talent aimed at a casting call for Gone With the Wind. Of course the characters drawing the most attention was Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Selznick’s well-publicized casting calls were an ongoing campaign to promote a motion picture that was already being talked about as the greatest picture of the century.
All that being said, the first two weeks in January 1939 casting for Gone With the Wind was virtually complete. The only two characters of any consequence not cast were Belle Watling, Rhett’s friend the madam, and Frank Kennedy, Scarlett’s second husband.
On Friday January 13, 1939 the David Selznick International Pictures publicity department began churning out press releases reflecting members of the cast and crew that would be involved in the making of Gone With the Wind.
(To be continued)

Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection:
(Continued)
Perhaps Margaret Mitchell’s papers could shed some light on the subject, so the next day I drove over to the Atlanta Historical Society. I said to the lady behind the counter, “I understand Margaret Mitchell’s papers are here. Is there any way that I could take a look at them?” The lady smiled. “They were here, but recently they were moved to The University of Georgia and at the present time they can’t be seen.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I figured they might have something so I asked hopefully, “Do you have anything at all on Ms. Mitchell?”
“Very little, but we do have one small folder. Would you like to see it?”
I nodded. The lady produced a folder with three or four pieces of paper inside. There was one full page that was in Margaret Mitchell’s own hand, and it was dated April 6, 1937.
Misc. details of interest:
Maternal great grandfather - Philip Fitzgerald born 1798 at Lagistown Parish of Nagraphin, Tipperary Co. Ireland.
Died 1880 Clayton Co. Georgia. Married near Columbus Ga.
Fraternal great grandmother - Eleanor McGhan, born Locust Grove, Taliaferro Co. Ga. in 1818, died Clayton Co. Ga. in 1893.
Call it fate or whatever you like, I could not have asked for better luck. That scrap of paper was the key to what I had been looking for. Why Margaret Mitchell didn't wish to discuss her characters with David Selznick. Autobiographical! She simply had not wanted it known how close her story came to true life and her own family heritage.
The name Philip Fitzgerald jumped off the page and into its proper place, he was Margaret Mitchell’s great grandfather and Sister Mary Melanie’s great uncle. My cast of characters taken from research began to merge with “Gone With the Wind’s” fictional characters. Of course Sister Mary Melanie was not a fictional character she was, in fact, Margaret Mitchell’s cousin.
It was common knowledge in Atlanta that Ms. Mitchell paid regular visits to Sister Melanie, at St Joseph’s Infirmary located on Peachtree Street, most every Saturday afternoon.
Margaret Mitchell’s research abilities and dedication to the subject led her to interview just about every living Civil War Veteran in the state of Georgia. She spent countless weeks at Atlanta’s Carnegie Library and many hours listening to and making notes as Sister Melanie tells about life during those early years.
No one in the Atlanta literary community called her Margaret it was always Peggy Mitchell. And from what I had heard about that petite lady the name Peggy seemed to fit very nicely.
(To be continued.)

Writers Notebook:

From Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast.’

‘My Old Man’ and ‘Up in Michigan’ were the only two manuscripts he had left …’when everything I had written was stolen in Hadley’s suitcase that time at the Gare de Lyon when she was bringing the manuscripts down to me at Lausanne as a surprise…’
Hemingway was devastated by the loss of that material, but in his effort to recapture some of his spirit and begin writing again, he started with …’a very simple story called ‘Out of Season’ and I had omitted the real end of it which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted it and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make the people feel something more than they understood.’

Now whether Hemingway pursued that exact theory or not, I don’t know. Nonetheless he did believe in leaving out anything that didn’t move the story line forward. For example, he once talked about that subject and said that in his short story ‘The Killers’ he left out the whole city of Chicago. Now there was a good reason for that omission and I suspect there are others.

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Seven Technicolor Cameras Film Atlanta Burning

Let’s Go to the Movies: Part 8
Atlanta Burning

A back lot face-lift, under the direction of William Cameron Menzies, was moving at a rapid pace putting new facades on old sets in order to simulate Atlanta buildings during the period of the Civil War.
All this activity was aimed at one short scene to be shot by seven Technicolor cameras photographing doubles for the characters of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in medium and long shots against the background of Atlanta burning. The timing of the burn was necessitated in order to clear the area and allow for construction of Tara, the Wilkes mansion and other necessary sets to be used when shooting the film.
The fire sequence was shot on December 10, 1938.
Here are a few things David Selznick had to say about the fire sequence. Just hours after the fire was out he sent a memo to Jock Whitney. ‘You have missed a great thrill. Gone With the Wind has been started. Shot key fire scenes at 8:20 tonight, and judging by how they looked to the eye they are going to be sensational.’
Selznick wrote to his wife Irene in New York and said, ‘Saturday night I was greatly exhilarated by the fire sequence. It was one of the biggest thrills I have had out of making pictures…’
A day or two after the fires scene Selznick wrote a general information memo: ‘Before my brother, Myron, Hollywood’s leading agent, brought Laurence Olivier and Miss Leigh over to the set to see the shooting of the burning of Atlanta I had never seen her. When he introduced her to me the flames were lighting up her face and Myron said: I want you to meet Scarlett O’Hara. I took one look and knew that she was right, at least right as far as her appearance at least right as far as my conception as how Scarlett O’Hara looked…’
The surprising arrival of Vivian Leigh on the fire set that night, and meeting David Selznick gave her not only the proper lighting but also immediate dark horse status in the race for Scarlett. At that point in time that huge number of Scarlett contenders had been winnowed down to four Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivian Leigh.
George Cukor was then given one full day for each of the final candidates to test in three different scenes taken from the GWTW script.
(To be continued)

Another Take on Atlanta Burning.

McDonough Road, Jonesboro and the night Atlanta burned were all part of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. They also had a place in a story I was researching and writing, “The Life and Times of John Henry Holliday.” The scene I was working on took place at Jonesboro on the night Atlanta burned and one of the characters involved was Philip Fitzgerald, a great uncle of Mattie Holliday John Henry’s romantic interest in the story.
The longer I worked on the Jonesboro scenes, with their foreboding sense of war, the more I was convinced that there was a connection between the Holliday story and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. However, that conviction was based on rumor, hearsay and my own intuition rather than fact. Rumor had it that the Melanie character in Gone With the Wind was named after Sister Mary Melanie a real live character in my Holliday Story.
But I needed some facts if I ever expected to nail down the rumor. I had an idea the film or the making of the film GWTW might shed some light on the subject. I had read David Selznick’s Memo, a book that consisted of memos written during the best years of Selznick's motion picture producing career. Maybe it was there in Memo and I had just missed it. So I reread that 110-page section dealing with the making of the film, which included everything from purchase, to casting and production, to the gala premier in Atlanta. And while I didn’t find a connection I did notice something during that second reading that I hadn’t seen earlier. It turned out to be a negative; and in fact it was what wasn’t there that got my attention. There wasn’t a thing in those pages that indicated that Selznick had included Margaret Mitchell in the loop of his memo recipients. I am quite sure that the producer’s natural instinct would have been a desire to discuss, with the original writer, some of his problems of putting the story onto the screen. But there was nothing there to indicate any direct contact, an omission I could not ignore. I questioned several people that might have known, but got no answers. A day or two later I heard from a third party source that Selznick did contact Ms. Mitchell by way of his New York representative Kay Brown. The story I got was that Ms. Mitchell had simply and firmly declined most of' his efforts by justly saying, ‘I’ve sold it and want nothing to do with the making of the film.’ But that wasn’t entirely true because there were certain things she did not hesitate to talk about while others set up an immediate barrier. The most telling example of this can be found in Richard Harwell’s book about the writing of the screenplay for GWTW.
On page 22 he relates a telephone conversation between Kay Brown in New York and Ms. Mitchell in Atlanta. During that talk, Ms. Mitchell quite freely talks about a scene with Belle Watling and Rhett Butler. They talk about why the scene would not be true to the book or the era as reflected by copy they were discussing. They also talk about other characters in the book and screenplay. However, the following page gives us a far different picture of openness when Mr. Selznick asked for a bit of help with the introduction of Melanie. At that point there was total silence on the part of the authoress.
I was troubled by the situation though and kept asking myself, why would a writer refuse to talk about an extension of her work? I began to think, was it possible that she didn’t write certain parts of the story and as a consequence was afraid to have Selznick asking questions?
That wasn’t likely I thought, but it had to be something. And that rumor floating around Griffin about the Doc Holliday story connection to Gone With the Wind was persistent.
(To be continued)

Writers Notebook
Last week we talked about fiction vs. nonfiction and used Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ as an illustration. I looked back in my files and discovered the genesis of his nonfiction style used ‘In Cold Blood.’ It came from Capote’s observations and his natural inclination to write down, as would a reporter or journalist, what he saw. It was a kind of ‘… reporting – style of seeing and hearing that would later seriously influence me, though I was unaware of it then…’
So it appears that it was all a natural progression of Truman Capote’s writing style.

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Clark Gable to Gone With the Wind in Technicolor

Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 7
The summer of ‘38

From late March, when the deal for Gary Cooper fell through, until mid August when MGM signed an agreement for Clark Gable to play Rhett Butler, much of Selznick International’s pre production work on Gone With the Wind was slowed to a crawl. Of course that didn’t relieve any of the pressure on Selznick himself because other pictures took much of his time. He also had a couple of worrisome problems that required his attention, one was the GWTW script and the other was the film’s director George Cukor.
Cukor had apparently gone over the line refusing assignments to one picture after another. And it was that particular annoyance that caused Selznick to begin looking at Cukor as expendable to the production of Gone With the Wind. Considering long term and big money agreements with directors Selznick expected some loyalty and flexibility regarding picture assignments and he wasn’t getting that from Cukor.
With that in mind Selznick began to look around at possible replacements. MGM directors Jack Conway and Victor Fleming were both mentioned, but no preference was given at that time.

In the early planning stages of GWTW there was some talk of using black and white film, however, by mid summer of 1938 everyone was focused on Technicolor and who would be the best cameraman to shoot the picture. There were many top cameramen to draw from but not all of them had knowledge and experience in Technicolor. Several men under consideration were Hal Rosson, Oliver Marsh, and Ray June at MGM and Charlie Lang at Paramount. However, the possible front-runner for that position might have been Tony Gaudio mentioned in one of Selznick’s memos when he said, ‘Tony Gaudio’s work on Robin Hood was, in my opinion the best photographic job in color that has yet been done.’
And while those were major parts to the production of GWTW, getting a workable shooting script in place before cameras rolled was still the number one priority. Selznick needed some rest and decided to take a short working vacation in Bermuda. He hoped to be joined there by Sidney Howard, whose screenplay they were working from, along with Margaret Mitchell as a kind of on scene consultant. As it turned out they both declined his offer to join him and at the last minute Selznick chose Jo Swerling to work with him in Bermuda.
When the short working vacation was over Selznick returned to New York, still not satisfied with the script. At that time he put out a call for writers, he wanted Oliver Garrett to work on continuity and mentioned several writers he thought might be good for dialogue Robert Sherwood, Stark Young, James Boyd and F. Scott Fitzgerald were among them.
At that point in time as regards to casting -- of the four major players only Clark Gable was set for the film. There were too many candidates for Scarlett to even try to organize a list; in fact you might come just as close to a Scarlett by throwing darts at the pages of a Hollywood phone book.
Selznick ran hot and cold on Leslie Howard for the Ashley role, although some of that negativity was likely posturing for the benefit of Howard’s agent in order to get a better price.
The role of Melanie would be simple if Warner Brothers would play ball. Selznick wanted Olivia de Havilland but Warner Brothers was reluctant to loan out one of their stars for a secondary role.
(To be continued)

Before the film ‘Gone With the Wind ‘ there was the book:
And before the book there were lives and legends. Lenora Smalley makes the connection in her review of ‘Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone.’

“Who would have ever thought the legend of Doc Holliday could be connected in any way to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.
When Doc Holliday went west after he discovered he had tuberculosis… He left behind a sweetheart who thought he would return after he was cured…
During his incredible research into the life of Doc Holliday, Tom Barnes discovered that this sweetheart, besides being a cousin of Doc Holliday was a distant cousin of Margaret (Peggy) Mitchell. This beautiful girl, Mattie Holliday, wrote letters to Doc for a number of years before giving up and becoming a nun in the order of Sisters of Mercy. If you read the letters, which appear in this book, you will know almost immediately which of the main characters of Gone With the Wind was inspired by Mattie Holliday.”

Writers Notebook:
Fiction and nonfiction:
Nonfiction is a term loosely used to describe a factual happening or event. But is it all fact? No. During the recreation of actual events fiction techniques are often employed, and when those techniques are used today they are called creative non-fiction. For example – one of the most famous nonfiction books in the English language is Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ a book filled with passages of pure fiction. There are no clear-cut rules that state how far writers of nonfiction may legitimately go into the area of fiction. And while the ivory tower crowd mull over the changing rules of the English language, non fiction writers that feel a need to stray too far into fiction might keep Television’s famous cop Joe Friday’s admonition in mind – ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Selznick International and MGM Make a Deal

Let’s Go to the Movies

Selznick and Sam Goldwyn Not on Same Page
During the month of February 1938 Selznick and Sidney Howard were working hard on a script that would use every prominent line possible from the book.
Overall film length was a concern, but they hoped to have a script, that would meet their expectations as to content and running time, ready when cameras rolled. Selznick was so concerned with the overall length that he admonished Cukor to be careful not to add extra lines during the shooting process. Those line changes at the time might give the actors something fresh to work with, however in the long run they would be counter productive as they would end up adding dialogue and as a consequence too much to the overall length of the film.
Gary Cooper was high on Selznick’s list for the role of Rhett Butler and he was trying to put a deal together with Sam Goldwyn that would have United Artist distribute the film – but only as a package that included Gary Cooper. Sam Goldwyn was traveling to Europe and left on his trip before Selznick got any kind of agreement. And as a consequence Gary Cooper was taken off the number one prospect list to play Rhett Butler.
However, the concern over losing Cooper was short lived. The search teams out looking for Scarlett and supporting actors were being peppered with questions by book fans that were asking for Clark Gable. As the chorus grew louder the press picked up the fans enthusiasm and it soon became obvious that Gable was the public choice.
Selznick had not overlooked Gable, but in the early going he had little luck in making a deal with MGM for the loan of their biggest star. It was also known to Hollywood insiders that Gable didn’t want to be the stand-alone star in the film in case it was a dud. And secondly he didn’t want to do a Southern accent.
Of course Louis B. Mayer head of MGM might have something to say on the matter. And sometime in May 1938 Mayer posed the idea to Selznick to allow MGM to buy the property from Selznick International and produce the picture at MGM. The positive element in that proposal was the certainty that Clark Gable would play Rhett Butler and satisfy public demand.
David Selznick gave Mayer’s offer considerable thought, but after talking it over with Jock Whitney, the original champion of the film, Selznick said no.
Of course MGM had opened the door to possible negotiations and within a week they began to work on a deal. Louis B. Mayer had mentioned two of the most important issues in his original proposition to buy the film, Gable and distribution.
At the time those talks were going on between Selznick and Mayer the public was growing more vocal in its demand that Gable to play Rhett Butler. And in the end they got their wish because with the help of Jock Whitney securing more financing a deal was struck where MGM would loan Gable to Selznick International along with a million and a quarter dollars and distribution rights. Selznick International would in turn give up fifty percent of the films profit. A terrible deal on the surface, but the finance situation being what it was with Selznick, he likely figured half a loaf was better than none.
(To be continued)

Another part of ‘The Story Behind Gone With The Wind’
By Sally Trippett Rains author of ‘The Making of a Classic.’
Creative Book Publishers International
(Continued from last week)
“I was very close to Mr. Selznick,” Marcella Rabwin said. “People always said, ‘what did you do?’ and I say, ‘anything he didn’t have time for.’ I was involved in every phase of the production of his films from the beginning when you bought the thing to the time when it was finished and you could breathe again.” According to her (Marcella Rabwin) the film cost “four million, eighty-five thousand, seven hundred and ninety dollars.” Selznick’s original plan was for a movie that lasted 2 ½ hours and cost about two million. At that time it was the most expensive film ever made or even imagined. As noted by Tom Barnes, Selznick had originally turned away from buying the rights to Margaret Mitchell’s very famous book, but his money-man Jock Whitney--urged on by Kay Brown-- told him that if Selznick did not buy it, then Whitney was going to. “We had no idea of the enormous task ahead of us when we took it on,” said Marcella Rabwin. “That book (Gone With The Wind) had become such a Bible to so many people---there were 20 million copies of the book sold in the first year. The first time we ran it as a consecutive piece of work it was five hours, and I didn’t know how he was going to cut it. Every minute of it was a beauty but still he had to get it down to what it was; 3 hours and 45 minutes.” The year 2009 marks the 70th Anniversary of Gone With The Wind's movie premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. Author Sally Tippett Rains has interviewed over 70 people involved with the movie including actors, historians, and other authors. She was fortunate enough to work with one of Margaret Mitchell's cousins who has a scrapbook full of stories from her own family. Many of the stories that had been passed down from Mitchell's relatives who lived through the Civil War were similar to stories in Gone With The Wind. In her upcoming book The Making Of A Classic, Margaret Mitchell and Gone With The Wind. Rains gives insight into how Mitchell may have come to write about her various characters and stories. She worked with Tom Barnes on a chapter where there was a cross-over from one of his books, Doc Holliday's Road To Tombstone with Gone With The Wind. It seems Doc Holliday was a cousin to Margaret Mitchell. He had a special relationship with another of her cousins, Mattie Holliday (who was also his cousin.) Barnes' research tells him it was love, but it was unrequited, for he left to go out West. According to Barnes' book, after the Gunfight at OK Corral she realized he was never coming back. She joined the convent and changed her name to Sister Mary Melanie and she was called Sister Melanie. Was it a coincidence that there were at least two storylines which may have come from this Mitchell family story. There was a woman named Melanie (Melanie Wilkes)who married her cousin (Ashley); and in another part of the book, a memory of Scarlett's mother Ellen falling for her cousin, who left for the "west." Barnes has researched his book for many years and stands by his story.
Writers Notebook:
Maxwell Perkins, one of America’s best-known editors worked for Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York and edited works of such famous writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolf. Perkins wrote in answer to a letter, received from a young man in the Military, regarding the active pursuit of a writing career had this advice for the young man. ‘As to perhaps a couple of years in college, I should think that might be a great advantage, in the general sense, but don’t try to learn about writing there. Learn something else. Learn about writing from reading. That’s the right way to do it. But then it can only be done by those who have eyes and ears, and by seeing and listening. Very few of the great writers had that formal education, and many of them never mastered spelling or grammar. They got their vocabulary by reading and hearing. But the way they teach literature and writing in college is harmful…’
Writing courses have changed a lot since Perkins made those remarks, however much of his advice is still valid. Being a good observer and developing good reading habits will likely take you farther along the path to a writing career than anything else.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

Gone With the Wind, Jezebel and Twitter

Let’s go to the Movies
Part Five
The Making of Gone With the Wind
During that same time period a fight was brewing between David Selznick and Jack Warner. A screenplay about the Civil War had been floating around Hollywood for some time prior to the purchase of Gone With the Wind by Selznick International but had not sold.
However soon after Selznick announced his intention to make Gone With the Wind, the earlier screenplay found a home at Warner Brothers. The aptly named Jezebel was announced by Warner Brothers to star Betty Davis and Selznick was furious.
Hollywood is known for copycat films made in order to capitalize on some aspect of an earlier successful film. This time it was before the cameras rolled on GWTW although the sky-high book sales might have prompted Warner’s actions.
The Jezebel film shadowed some GWTW scenes, but one in particular was egregious in Selznick’s mind and he wrote to set Warner straight. ‘This scene is lifted practically bodily out of Gone With the Wind in which it is an important story point leading to Rhett Butler’s entire behavior during the war.’
In the final version of Jezebel there remained several scenes that almost mirrored scenes out of Gone With the Wind. However, the one dealing with Rhett Butler’s character had been removed.
Following the flap over Jezebel’s and GWTW look-alike scene Selznick got back to work on his script. To give you an idea about Selznick’s approach to converting a popular book into a movie, here’s an exchange captured in some of his earlier memo’s between Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock.
Hitchcock’s film writing abilities had preceded his arrival in America and Selznick asked him to work up a treatment on Daphne du Maurier’s book Rebecca.
Hitchcock turned in a story line that had little to do with book, and not at all what Selznick wanted to do with the film. He told Hitchcock in no uncertain terms that he wanted his film to reflect the story line laid out in the book otherwise thousands of avid Rebecca readers would not look kindly on the film.
Selznick and Hitchcock eventually worked out their differences, apparently to everyone’s satisfaction, because Hitchcock came to America and not only worked on the screenplay but directed the film.
The first line in Variety’s review of Rebecca sums it up. ‘Picture is noteworthy for its literal translation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel to the screen, presenting all of its somberness and tragedy of the book.’
(To be continued)

Another part of ‘The Story Behind Gone With The Wind’
By Sally Trippett Rains author of ‘The Making of a Classic.’
Creative Book Publishers International
In a time when women run for both president and vice-president of the United States it is no surprise when a woman does something exemplary, but in the 1930's for Selznick to rely on Kay Brown's advice so heavily was a rarity. Selznick was a genius though, and he kept several strong women in his employ. He also put stock in a young female author who had worked in a newspaper and then written a novel about the Civil War. His most important employee though, was his executive assistant Marcella Rabwin. She was involved in every aspect of Gone With The Wind. She was with Selznick when he got to work and she did not go home until he left the office, which sometimes was in the wee hours of the morning.
In order to produce the length of film that would keep the audience’s attention Selznick knew he was going to have to take some of the people and events out of the book. He felt if he kept as much to Margaret Mitchell’s dialog viewers would forgive him for the omissions. He went through several writers and directors, but Marcella Rabwin was the constant and was there through it all. As his executive assistant, at the office Rabwin entertained Louis B. Mayer and other top movie executives who came to see Selznick. She provided coffee to drink or a shot of bourbon, whichever was necessary at the time. She was a sounding board to the boss, and had a shoulder for those to cry on who were frustrated with him. She served as counselor to his wife, Irene; a part-time nanny to his children; a traveling companion to Selznick and necessary part of the studio’s daily life. “People turned to her,” said Ann Rutherford, the actress who played Careen O’Hara. “ David (Selznick) valued her judgment.”
“Gone With The Wind was the finest motion picture, the most complete and perfect motion picture ever made,” said Marcella Rabwin, in a speech. “But it was utter chaos putting it together.” “I was very close to Mr. Selznick,” Marcella Rabwin said. “People always said, ‘what did you do?’ and I say, ‘anything he didn’t have time for.’ I was involved in every phase of the production of his films from the beginning when you bought the thing to the time when it was finished and you could breathe again.” (Continued next week)
Writers Notebook:
The latest Trill on tne internet is called Twitter.
Twitter is a social network that is based on brevity, you communicate in a series of short blogs each 140 characters in length.
Subjects are wide ranging and of all the reading about Twitter I’ve done, so far, I have yet to find a non geek that can explain how it all works, or how when it’s perfected it will work.
I suspect the kinks will get worked out soon and if you have a mind to Twitter you also need to think in a kind of shorthand in order to get much into you 140 unit space.
Screenplay writers have already dealt with that problem by finding ways to pitch their stories in a two or three line presentation called a logline.
Wendy Moon wrote an online piece a few years back and her words are still valid. She said, ‘A logline is the most critical thing you’ll write…it can dead end a great script and can get the worst script in the world read. You have about two or three sentences – about 25-35 words total, to convince someone to request the script…’
She used a logline describing ‘Schindler’s List’ as an example.
‘A playboy manufacturer rescues 1,100 Jews from certain death. Appalled by atrocities in Germany, he hoodwinks the Nazi Brass and converts his factory into a refuge for Jews.’ Based on Oscar Schindler’s true story.

Study that logline for form and brevity and you’ll Twitter better.

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com