Filming Gone With The Wind began, surprisingly to some, on schedule, on January 26th, 1939, over two years since David O. Selznick had first bought the rights to the book for a record breaking $50,000. Selznick and Cukor began with the very first scene, the scene in which we are introduced to Scarlett O'Hara. George Cukor was an affectionate and kind director, deeply loved by the women of the cast, especially Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. He was a master at filming everyday instances between women, such as the first scene between Scarlet and Mammy. Unfortunately, Cukor was working the scenes too slowly when the picture demanded pace. Due to arguments with Selznick and problems he found with the script, Cukor walked away from the project, with only twenty-four minutes of barely usable footage on reel.
The Strain of Filming
Selznick brought in Victor Fleming. When filming resumed after seventeen days, Vivien reportedly wrote home, saying “George was my last hope of ever enjoying this picture.” Fleming, a good friend of Gable, was a ‘man’s man’, harsh with his actors, especially Vivien, making her play Scarlett as cruel as she was written to be. She and Olivia missed Cukor terribly and quite often called him, asking him to direct them for tomorrow’s scenes over the phone.
For Vivien, it was, as she put it “Scarlett, Scarlett, Scarlett, night and day, month after month... Every move, every gesture true to Scarlett.” There were moments of depression for Vivien when she felt that her own efforts would not measure up to Selznick’s painstakingly perfect creation. Her typical day would consist of arriving at the studio at 6:30 am, taking breakfast while having her hair and make-up done, reporting to the stage for the first shot at 8:45 am and only leaving the studio at 10pm. Selznick wanted his Scarlett flawless which meant that, on top of the endless hours of shooting, Vivien had her days made up of lighting, costume and make-up tests and language classes from voice coaches Will A. Price and Susan Myrick.
Vivien was at work on the picture for a total of twenty-two weeks with no more than four days off in that entire time. Her role, therefore, was the longest in history with the largest wardrobe that any one character has ever had – more than forty costume changes. As well as being emotionally draining, the picture was also physically exhausting. “Scarlet O’Hara Leigh was a badly bruised person” claimed Vivien after a day shooting the evacuation of Atlanta sequence, in which Scarlett works her way through a charge of horses, people and carts. Filming was made harder by her enforced separation from Laurence Olivier. Selznick, wanting to keep his star out of the rumour columns and as similar to the proper southern belle image as possible, forbade the couple from seeing each other during filming. Vivien found the distance unbearable which made her even more anxious to finish the picture.
Cast and crew were working on frayed nerves due to Selznick’s bullish perfectionism, Fleming’s unsympathetic approach and the fact that there was never a fully written script. The full film only ever existed in Selznick’s head. New pages were written every day and whole scenes constantly re-done. Vivien was in nearly every scene and most of the dialogue was hers. She was commended by other actors for her ability to read a new scene over once and know it, immediately becoming Scarlett. The actress’ desperation be done with the film was what gave Scarlett her energy and her drive and it was always Vivien who, at the end of the day, asked if it were possible to do a few more shots.
Lighter Moments
Afterwards, Vivien did speak of the levity of production and of the endless inside jokes hoping to dispel the extreme tension. She recalls in a summary she wrote of her experience filming of Gone With The Wind, a bet between Victor Fleming and another crew member; having carried Vivien up that huge staircase well over a dozen times for one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Fleming wanted to see if Clark Gable could do it once more, despite not needing to run the scene again. In interviews Gable spoke of Vivien with the highest respect and even credits her with the high standard of his own performance. She was regarded extremely affectionately by all the cast and crew, including Victor Fleming, who fondly bestowed upon Vivien the nickname “Fiddle-dee-dee”.
Gone With The Wind
After just 125 days, filming finished, and the team embarked on the gargantuan task of cutting down 1,350,000 feet of reel to a three hour and forty-five minute movie. Vivien went immediately to New York to audition for Selznick’s next film Rebecca, opposite Olivier, but unfortunately was not awarded the part on account of being too strong for it.
The film premiered on December 15th 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia, and Vivien went accompanied by Olivier who was reportedly stunned and furious, for it turned out that Vivien was quite the actress. Margaret Mitchell, who also attended, described the film as “heartbreaking” and the cast as “absolutely perfect”. The film was circulated world-wide and was the biggest box office success of all time until the nineties.
On January 29th 1940, at the 1939 Oscar’s Vivien Leigh won her first Academy Award for Best Actress and Gone With The Wind received a total of ten including Best Actor, for which Olivier had also been nominated. At 26 years of age Vivien Leigh had reached world-wide acclaim and had won over millions of fans almost over-night. However, as she and Selznick were soon to discover, all their future endeavours would fall short of Gone With The Wind, that esteem would prove hard to maintain.
For related articles on Vivien Leigh, click here!
Sources
Capua,M. - Vivien Leigh: A Biography - McFarland & Co. Inc. - 2003
Walker,A. - Vivien: Life of Vivien Leigh (Legends) - Orion Books Ltd. - 1994
Dietz,H. - Reproduction of 1939 Souveneir Program - Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. - 2004
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