GONE WITH THE WIND Premiered December 15, 1939

Gone with the Wind received its première at Loew's Grand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The film premiered on December 15, 1939, as the climax of three days of festivities hosted by Mayor William B. Hartsfield which consisted of a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball. Eurith D. Rivers, the governor of Georgia declared December 15 a state holiday. The New York Times reported that thousands lined the streets as "the demonstration exceeded anything in Atlanta's history for noise, magnitude and excitement". President Jimmy Carter would later recall it as "the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime."

Hattie McDaniel, as well as the other black actors from the film, were prevented from attending the premiere due to Georgia's Jim Crow laws, which would have kept them from sitting with the white members of the cast. Upon learning that McDaniel had been barred from the premiere, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event. McDaniel convinced him to attend.

In Los Angeles, the film had its premiere at the elegant Carthay Circle Theatre. From December 1939 to June 1940, the film played only advance-ticket road show engagements at a limited number of theaters, before it went into general release in 1941.

It was a sensational hit during the Blitz in London, opening in April 1940 and playing continuously for four years.

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American drama romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland, and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint.

It received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four; although in the 2007 10th Anniversary edition of that list, it was dropped two places, to number six. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 top 10 — the best ten films in ten American film genres—after polling over 1,500 persons from the creative community. Gone with the Wind was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the Epic genre. It has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today, it is considered one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood. When adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind remains the highest grossing film of all time in North America and the UK.

Image & text:wikipedia.com

Reportedly, the original title of the book was: "Tomorrow Is Another Day!"

VIVIAN LEIGH ~ November 13, 1913 ~ July 7, 1967

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Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (5 November 1913 – 7 July 1967), was an English actress. She won two Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End.

She was a prolific stage performer, frequently in collaboration with her husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. During her 30-year stage career, she played parts that ranged from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth.

Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress, but ill health proved to be her greatest obstacle. Affected by bipolar disorder for most of her adult life, she gained a reputation for being difficult to work with, and her career went through periods of decline. She was further weakened by recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, with which she was first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. She and Olivier divorced in 1960, and Leigh worked sporadically in film and theatre until her death from tuberculosis, in 1967.

Text:wikipedia.com

CLARK GABLE ~ February 1, 1901 ~ November 16, 1960

William Clark Gable

(February 1, 1901- November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, nicknamed "The King of Hollywood" in his heyday.

In 1999, the American Film Institue named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time.

Gable's most famous role was Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. His performance earned him his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; he won for It Happened One Night (1934) and was also nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Later performances were in Run Silent, Run Deep, a submarine war film, and his final film, The Misfits (1961), which paired Gable with Marilyn Monroe in her last screen appearance.

During his long film career, Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of the time. Joan Crawford, who was his favorite actress to work with, was partnered with Gable in eight films, Myrna Loy was with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features, and with Norma Shearer in three. Gable was often named the top male star in the mid-30s, and was second only to the top box-office draw of all, Shirley Temple.

Image & text:wikipedia.com