“Forgotten Hollywood” – Gone with the Wind Remembered…
Manny P. here –
Moonlight and Magnolias is a new play in Laguna Beach, California that looks at what went into the creation of the screenplay used in Gone With The Wind. Turning the Margaret Mitchell novel into a movie took a mammoth effort that provided enough drama in real life that carried over into the actual production. For example, Clark Gable was so dissatisfied over the way he was being handled, that he had the director George Cukor fired.
The David O. Selznick classic is on display in Forgotten Hollywood Forgotten History (Chapter Six), as I showcase the golden year of 1939. The subject of the chapter, Thomas Mitchell, co-starred in the film playing the O’Hara patriarch.
Thanks to Gary Lycan (once again) for letting me know that a special guest was in the audience at Thursday afternoon’s show in South County: Ann Rutherford, who played one of O’Hara’s daughters in the motion picture. Along with Olivia De Havilland, she’s a surviving member of the 1939 cast. the Orange County Register reports that she took questions after the show, displaying a fair amount of energy for her 89 years.
By the way, the photo I used is from her film Love Finds Andy Hardy. Rutherford could easily have been mentioned in Chapter 12 of my book (Ladies In Waiting), since she had a wonderful career at MGM. She was a staple in the Andy Hardy series, and appeared in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Glad to here Ann Rutherford made her way back into the spotlight. She definitely deserves this moment in the sun…
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A quick reminder… If you are in the Seattle area this weekend, make sure you stop by the city’s Book Fair at The Columbia City Event Center. The Book Publishers Network will have a booth with some great titles on display. Of course, this also might be a perfect opportunity to pick up your copy of Forgotten Hollywood Forgotten History…
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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