Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh

by Marianne Walker

  I didn’t comply with your request and put my own name in the book. I haven’t done that yet in any copy of the book and I don’t aim to. It’s Peggy’s book, and she is the one to do the autographing. She paid me the highest compliment when she put my “JRM” on the dedication page, and that will have to do for me.92

  Aside from writing a sequel, which they were never going to do no matter how many thousands of requests she got, they could not figure out what to do about the idiotic and unbelievable letters and telephone calls concerning Rhett and Scarlett’s reconciliation. “And at the only tea,” Peggy wrote Lois, “I’ve been to (it taught me a lesson. I’ll not go to another soon) my sash was torn off, my veil yanked from my hat, punch and refreshments knocked out of my hands as ladies from Iowa and Oklahoma and Seattle screamed the same question at me and poked me with sharp pointed fingernails to emphasize their questions. Good grief. I thought I knew human nature. But this has been a new experience for me.”93

  Why the Marshes did not take stronger actions to ensure their privacy is a mystery. They could have moved to another apartment or had the telephone company give them a new, unlisted number, or had the post office and the telegram and telegraph companies hold all messages and deliver them once a day to Margaret Baugh in the office, rather than to their apartment. One possible answer lies in John’s compulsive personality, which required him to be in control, to take care of everything for Peggy. Also, according to his family, he honestly believed at that time that the commotion would not and could not continue. He kept repeating to himself, to Peggy, and to others,“It can’t possibly keep up much longer.”

  On December 4, Peggy received a copy of the beautiful booklet that Macmillan published about Gone With the Wind. Containing information about the novel and its author in a question-answer format, this booklet was used by Macmillan as advertisement for the novel and, as such, part of it was printed in periodicals. John proudly sent a copy of it home to his mother for her scrapbook, and Peggy jubilantly telegrammed Lois Cole: “Just seen advertisement in Post. Marvelous! stupendous! colossal! All the grand adjectives. Please tell artist how much I like it. Is it true about a million copies? Good Heavens! Could I have the one millionth copy? Love, Peggy.”94

  In just six months since its publication, Gone With the Wind had sold nearly a million copies. Other books had sold that many copies, but not one had sold that many copies in that brief a time. For a Christmas present, Macmillan sent Peggy the millionth copy of her book in which the publisher had designed a special title page that read:

  This, the One Millionth Copy of Gone With the Wind, is presented to the author Margaret Mitchell with the congratulations and best wishes of her publishers. The Macmillan Company. December 15, 1936.

  CHAPTER

  12

  1937-1939

  PUBLICITY, PIRATES, AND POWER

  Our agent handling the foreign rights told us last week that a publisher in Holland has announced a Dutch edition to be published this fall, again without a by-your-leave.

  —John Marsh to his mother, 25 July 1937

  1

  AFTER RETURNING FROM A HOLIDAY VACATION in Winter Park, Florida, John wrote to his mother in January 1937, thanking her for the Christmas presents she had sent and reporting on their vacation. While they were away, Peggy had gained six pounds, he said, and his only regret was that he could not keep her away six months instead of two weeks.1 They did not go far enough south to loll on white-sand beaches, as they had planned; in fact, John declared, “We didn’t do anything exciting, but it was a wonderful vacation just the same.” In her letter to Mrs. Marsh, Peggy, who sounded relaxed and happy, added that they stayed in little towns and slept until nine o’clock every morning and ate their first uninterrupted meals in six months.2 Except for one slip-up in Winter Park, nobody even suspected who Peggy was and so they were “completely carefree and lazy.”

  In explaining the slip-up, John told how he and Peggy discovered that disclosing their presence to the Granberrys, who lived in Winter Park, turned out to be a big mistake; although Mrs. Granberry kept their secret, Edwin told at least a dozen people—“each one in the strictest confidence, of course.” John said, “Edwin is one of those people who are as good as gold and have no guile at all. He was perfectly confident that each of the folks would keep the secret.” But after the Marshes learned how many people Edwin had confided in and that he had even given their “alias,” they felt uneasy and sniffed a forthcoming banquet, autographs, photos, newspapermen, and the whole routine.

  Evidence that their suspicions were correct came around midnight on Christmas Eve, while they were lying in bed talking. A bellboy knocked softly and then slipped a note under the door. The note was from Lida Woods, whom they knew well and who was obviously trying to warn them. The note was an apology for not being able to attend the dinner with them and Hamilton Holt, the president of Rollins College, where Edwin taught and where Lida was secretary to the president. “What dinner? With whom?” Peggy asked John. They knew then that the next step would be actual invitations and personal calls, so they got dressed, packed their bags, and checked out of the hotel early Christmas morning. Sneaking out of hotels before dawn got to be one of their favorite things to do: they got a kick out of outsmarting whoever had schemed against them. “We spent Christmas day riding in the sunshine through the orange groves—the strangest Christmas we have ever spent,” John wrote his mother, “but a very happy one because nobody could call us on the telephone—and the rest of our vacation was spent in little hotels in little towns where nobody knew us at all.”3

  For John’s and Peggy’s Christmas presents in 1936, Mrs. Marsh had made and embroidered each a pair of beautiful, soft, white cotton pajamas, and she made a smock for Peggy. As she had done every year since John had left home, she sent one of her hickory nut cakes. In thanking her, Peggy wrote that since she had gained weight on her vacation, she was not able to button any of her clothes, so the smock was especially appreciated. “The smock is so comfortable and pretty and the deep pockets are wonderful as adjuncts to my filing case. I can shove ‘letters to be answered immediately’ in one pocket and ‘letters to be answered when humanly possible’ in another. Also, I can carry pencils, cigarettes and paper clips in them…. John always freezes onto the cake and keeps it in his bureau beneath his pajamas and doles me out crumbs at night when we are in bed discussing the events of the day.”4 In his letter, John said to his mother, “Yours and the millionth copy of the book . . . were about the only presents we got, which made each of them doubly appreciated.” In thanking her for the pajamas, he asked if she were aware of his “hoarding habit,” and then contrasted his and Peggy’s personalities:

  When I get pretty things, I save them for weeks, or even longer, just for the pleasure of looking at them, without the new being worn off. So I get a prolonged pleasure of anticipation, in addition to the pleasure of realization. Peggy, poor wight, dives into her new things right away. It’s only one of the many basic incompatibilities in our natures which often makes me wonder how we manage to put up with each other, which oddly enough we have been able to do with some success for many years. Maybe, it’s because she puts up with my peculiarities, in return for my putting up with hers.5

  In an earlier letter to his mother, John had described their life in Atlanta as “feverish,” and in this letter he wrote that the adjective seemed even more appropriate now than ever. When they arrived home from Winter Park, they could hardly open the door of their apartment because of the mail stacked up and waiting for Peggy. “We had hoped that after the millionth copy was out and Christmas was over, the pressure would slacken. Instead, it’s worse than ever before.” They had literally fled from the city because of the furor that the first audition crew had created in Atlanta during early December. When Kay Brown and Tony Bundsman, from the Selznick organization, made their first talent-search visit, the Marshes’ life was uprooted by throngs of people wanting Peggy to endorse them for one of the roles. C
alls, telegrams, and special deliveries flooded the apartment. People camped on the Marshes’ doorstep, grabbed her and John as they went out, and pleaded with them for a role in the movie. That one week in December, John told his mother, was the worst week of his life.

  Wishing to discourage his mother from visiting them, he wrote tactfully that such an invitation would be the kind children sent to their mothers to come help out in emergencies, such as when babies were being born or when there were serious illnesses. Not wanting to extend that kind of invitation, he said: “This is a situation where nobody can help us but God, and about the only way He could help us would be by raising up some other celebrity to divert the public’s attention away from Peggy. We would both love to see you, but under happier circumstances than at present. We could tell the Henrys and Gordons that they could come to see us, if they wouldn’t stay but a little while, but we don’t want to have you visiting us on any such basis as that.” He added that he and Peggy were going to visit her and the family soon if the family promised not to tell “any nearest and dearest friends.”

  Going to the movies was the Marshes’ favorite pastime. While away on vacation they had gone to see Mae West’s Go West, Young Man, twice. The principal characters are an actress, who is touring around making public appearances, and her press agent. Recommending this movie to his mother, John said, “I told Peggy I got a kick out of it, because the press agent’s job of keeping the actress before the public in only the best light reminded me of my job with the Company. It wasn’t until a week later that Peggy realized that I was also thinking of my job as ‘manager’ of the celebrated author, Margaret Mitchell.” John urged his mother to see the picture because it would give her an idea, “in a crude Mae Westish fashion, of one of Peggy’s worst problems—the fact that her lightest word or her most trivial act is a matter of public curiosity, so that she must always be guarding her words and her acts. Which is a terrible strain on anybody.”

  Since he was about to enter the hospital for more hemorrhoidal surgery, he asked his mother not to worry if she did not hear from him for a couple of weeks and not to pay any attention to anything she read in the papers. “The condition is not serious. The doctor thought it might help in getting my disorderly digestion back in order, and I am taking time out for it now because I believe it will help me to get through the rest of the Marsh-Mitchell siege.”6 Preferring to keep his surgery a private matter and knowing that such a wish was impossible, John jokingly suggested to Peggy that she stand on the street corner and shout as loudly as she could the indelicate nature of his illness. Otherwise, he said it would be all over America that he had beri-beri or leprosy.7

  2

  By February 10, after a two-week stay in the hospital, he was home recuperating with Peggy attentively waiting on him. Although she had an acute aversion to housekeeping, she could have made a career out of nursing. She never wanted anyone making a fuss over her when she was sick, but she enjoyed “fussing,” as Deon called it, over others. Back then, patients were not allowed to get out of bed soon after surgery, so she insisted on doing everything for him—bedpan and all, according to Deon. Every morning she helped him bathe and shave, and she brought their meals on trays to the bedroom.8

  After nearly two weeks at home, during which time he slept most of the day and night, soaking up the rest he badly needed, John began to feel good. Things were unusually quiet that winter. They had no visitors except for Edwin Granberry, who was accompanied by Kenneth Littauer, the editor of Collier’s. The men came for a brief visit to talk about the article Edwin was writing about Peggy for the magazine. Before Granberry left, John extracted a promise from him to let the Marshes have final approval of his article before he published it.

  A couple of weeks later, after Granberry’s draft arrived and John read it carefully, he wrote thirteen pages of specific suggestions, giving us an idea of how thoroughly he went about editing.9 He not only pointed out mistakes in grammar, but he also questioned word choice and rewrote entire long sections. For example, he questioned the word “loitering” and asked, “Why not use standing? The railroad men were probably there on business and not just loitering.” He did not want Peggy described as “a very young woman” because “Peggy thinks this might cause loud guffaws from friends; who know her real, very advanced age, and also cause disappointment on the part of people who meet her for the first time in the flesh, after having seen only Mr. Asasno’s photographic deceptions.” (Asasno was a well-known Atlanta photographer at that time who touched up his photographs of Peggy, making her appear younger.) Some entire paragraphs about her charitable acts and gifts he wanted “killed” because they smacked of “commercialization.” He stressed, “Also, please don’t involve me in any scheme to throw the manuscript away. . . . I wouldn’t have done it, and if Peggy had done it, I would have given her a good cow-hiding. (Please don’t mention that in your article. Merely change ‘they’ to ‘she.’”) He thought that the line about “autographed copies of the first printings” might stir up a commotion about “demands for more autographs from persons owning first editions” and wanted any reference to autographs omitted.

  Emphasizing how much he wanted this article to convey the notion to its readers that Peggy needed privacy and quiet, John stressed that she wanted to continue to live in her apartment, in Atlanta, leading the same kind of life she had led before the book was published. So, he added: “Yet if she remains inside her home, a barrage of letters, telegrams, calls by wire, calls in person, pour in upon her from early morning until late at night. There is no secret about her address. Her telephone is listed. Determined to continue her life as she has always lived it, she is not even considering ‘refuging’ from Atlanta to some secret retreat. Atlanta is her home, it is were she belongs, it is where her husband lives and works, it is where her people have lived since before the city was born. . . .”

  Then, oddly enough, he went on to describe how she dedicated herself to answering letters. “She answers all of them herself. She has a secretary—sometimes two, one in the daytime and one at night—but every letter receives Miss Mitchell’s personal attention. No form-letter replies are sent.” It is difficult to understand why John did not see that such a statement would only encourage more people to write. He was sending out conflicting messages to the public: calls and autographs, no! personal letters, yes! He explained that the majority of the letters she received were so intimate in nature that they could not be answered “with stereotyped politeness,” even if she were tempted to let her secretaries handle them. He wrote:

  Miss Mitchell might perhaps ignore them—and thereby gain more time to comply with the requests of the autograph-seekers but having unwittingly been the cause of the desperate tone of some of them, she feels an obligation she cannot evade.

  Wives write that the tragedy of Rhett and Scarlett has opened their eyes to similar tragedies under their own roofs and has moved them to correct estrangements from their husbands before it is too late. Husbands write that Rhett’s separation from Scarlett after he had loved her so many years has kept them awake at night, fearful that they might also lose beloved wives. Letters come in, hardly legible so shaky are the aged hands that wrote them, asking God’s blessing on the young author for picturing so truthfully the war days through which they lived. Other letters, in the painfully precise handwriting of youth, thank Miss Mitchell for having given them their first real understanding of the Old South’s gallantry and chivalry that is a part of the heritage of us all. Men broken by the depression—idealists who could not survive the change and upheaval—pour out their hearts to Miss Mitchell in sympathy for Ashley. . . . Proud wives whose men have been thrown out of work write her letters filled with bitter compassion for Scarlett, for they have learned that no woman knows the degradation she will stoop to until she needs to defend her home and those she loves.

  At some point, he realized he was going on too long and told Edwin not to hesitate to cut the passage if it made the article unnecessar
ily long. He also urged Edwin to give serious thought before publishing the “sort of stuff I have written” and to get Mrs. Granberry’s ideas on it, too. He asked:

  Does all this stuff about Peggy’s not autographing, not seeing callers, etc., make her seem tough? hard boiled? unfeeling and unappreciative of the honors the public has bestowed on her so generously?

  Situations like Peggy’s are so foreign to the average person’s experience, that it is almost impossible to explain them in personal conversation. And trying to explain them in writing involves a real risk that the explanations won’t be understood. Of course, if this explanation does click and if it is published in Colliers, it should help Peggy tremendously in handling her public problems. But if you and Mabel don’t think it clicks, don’t use a line of it. You have a much better outside viewpoint on it than I have.

  Granberry incorporated—verbatim—all of John’s suggestions, corrections, and even the lengthy section about the letters that John himself wrote. This long article, which appeared in Collier’s in March 1937, is mostly a repeat of everything that had ever been written about her. The only new line, a puzzling, false statement, is one Granberry himself added: “She is a trained psychologist and knows in a scientific way what alterations sometimes happen in the personalities of those who are caught in a violent upheaval of circumstances.”

  This article must have given the American public a clear view of Peggy as a harried woman, for the conclusion reads: “She fears that the intense glare of the spotlight beating down upon her, month after month, may eventually drive her into complete seclusion, in the hope of salvaging some remnant of her private life; she fears that she will lose touch with the world she loves because of this seclusion; she fears that people may think her hard and unappreciative and unsociable because of her enforced necessity of refusing. . . .”