Why Rhett nearly said 'Frankly my dear, I don’t give a hoot'

…and other amazing facts about Gone With The Wind. Compiled by Melonie Clarke
David O Selznick’s Gone With The Wind was nominated for 13 Oscars and was the first colour film to take home the Best Picture award. As its 75th anniversary approaches, we celebrate with a round-up of some of the extraordinary facts surrounding the film and its iconic stars.

  • The film cost US$3.9m to make – in today’s money, that’s around $65m.
  • The first draft of the screenplay (written by Sidney Howard) was five-and-a-half hours long. 
  • David O Selznick wanted Margaret Mitchell, the original novel’s writer, to be an adviser during production. She made some suggestions regarding the look of Tara but her input was ignored, so thereafter refused to comment. Indeed, when asked who she would like to play Rhett Butler, she replied (rather unhelpfully) ‘Groucho Marx’.
  • The film premiered in Atlanta, and Georgia’s governor declared the day a state holiday. Tickets to the showing cost 40 times more than an average cinema ticket at the time.
  • 1939 Hollywood Production Code dictated that the word ‘damn’ could not be used, which would have affected Rhett’s now famous last line. Some alternatives were ‘I just don’t care’ and ‘I don’t give a hoot’. In the end, it’s rumoured that Selznick was fined for using the word. The code was later amended stating that the words ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ could be used if in a proper historical context.
  • Director David O Selznick asked for the help of Alfred Hitchcock for the scene where Melanie reads David Copperfield, when they are waiting for the men to return from the ambush on the shanty town. Despite Hitchcock giving advice on such things as camera angles, little of his direction was used. 
  • It remains the longest film to win a Best Picture Academy Award. Once edited down, the length of film used totalled 20,000ft. Originally it was 500,000ft.

Vivien Leigh

  • She was a heavy smoker and reportedly smoked up to four packs a day while filming Gone With The Wind.
  • April Morn was one of the stage names she considered before settling on Vivien Leigh.
  • She loved cats, particularly Siamese. 
  • Leigh underwent shock treatment for her manic depression.
  • Leigh thought she had large hands, so most of her costumes featured gloves of some sort. Her own personal collection was made up of 150 pairs.
  • Despite her divorce from Olivier in 1960, she kept his picture by her bedside until she died, and insisted on being addressed as Lady Olivier. 
  • This year would have been her 100th birthday.

Clark Gable

  • Adolf Hitler was a huge fan of Gable, to the extent that he offered a reward for his capture and safe return while he was taking part in missions over Germany.
  • He won an Oscar for his role in It Happened One Night but gave it away to a child that admired it. Gable said that it was the winning of the statue that mattered, not owning it. It was returned to his family after his death.
  • He would not allow anyone to photograph him reading as he thought it would damage his manly screen image.
  • He loved to smoke a pipe. Today there are pipes named after him.
  • He was scared of flying so made all journeys across America by train.
  • Gable had most of his teeth extracted after contracting pyorrhoea in 1933.


For more Gone With The Wind facts, pick up this week's print edition of The Lady