by Anne Edwards
Selznick took Peggy at her word that she did not want to be involved in the casting of Gone With the Wind, yet the end of the year found her writing to Kay Brown to ask for information, pleased that a search in the South might be initiated to find an unknown to play Scarlett O’Hara, and pleased also that George Cukor was being signed to direct the film and Sidney Howard to write the screenplay. Both of them were planning to come to Atlanta to begin the talent search. Inconsistency now crept into Peggy’s relationship with the Selznick company. On November 18, 1936, she wrote Kay Brown:
I think the whole idea of scouting through the South is a swell one for if you don’t find anyone who will do it, it will still be worth a million dollars in publicity.... Count on me for any help you need.
I don’t think you know anything of my back ground so I must explain ... I worked here on the Atlanta Journal.... My husband has worked on the Journal and the Georgian.... Most of my friends are on these papers and they have been kinder than anyone can imagine to me since the book came out. I have found myself ... the best little bit of copy in town ... [and] they all look to me for news breaks on everything connected with my business or the book or movie....
So I’d like, if possible, to give them a break on your trip south. ... The very idea that a movie company thinks enough of a story to send a talent scout and a director and an adaptor down here will go over big. And moreover, it makes people who’ve always refused to go to any movie about the south think very kindly of Mr. Selznick and makes them feel that he honest to God wants to do a real southern picture with real southern color. Oh, yes, it will be a big story. I know your outfit isn’t averse to publicity and publicity will be a great help to you in your search for new faces....
So — could you wire me when you are coming, where you are staying, whether you are willing for me to break the story of your trip immediately and if Atlanta is your first stop on the way South? ... I hope you’ll let me give you a brawl of sorts — probably a cocktail party to meet the press.
This letter was understandably interpreted by Miss Brown to mean Peggy would cooperate with them on this trip and that she was endorsing it. Russell Birdwell, Selznick’s publicity manager, when informed of this, instantly wired Peggy a story his office was planning to release that stated she was hosting a cocktail party for the Selznick group. Peggy was now fearful that she would be dragged into the group’s activity and be blamed for any chaos their arrival might cause in Atlanta. The word “cocktail” also alarmed the Mitchells, who did not want Peggy involved in a public affair where liquor was being consumed because that might open the way to attacks on her character. This was Stephens and the Marshes’ first overt act in creating the image of Margaret Mitchell that would persist for years — that of a teetotaling Southern lady of genteel breeding and nineteenth-century manners.
Within hours of her telegram from Birdwell, Peggy wired him back:
WHEN MISS BROWN AND OTHERS COME TO ATLANTA I WILL FEED THEM FRIED CHICKEN, SHOW THEM STONE MOUNTAIN AND INTRODUCE THEM TO ANYBODY THEY WANT TO MEET BUT ALL PARTS OF FILM JOB ARE ON THEIR HANDS AND NOT ON MINE STOP AM RELEASING STORY TO ATLANTA AFTERNOON PAPERS TODAY AFTER DELETING REFERENCES TO ME.... PLEASE MAKE THE SAME CORRECTIONS IN ANY RELEASES YOU GIVE OUT STOP ON THIS AND ANY FUTURE STORIES I WANT NO REFERENCES MADE TO ME EXCEPT AS AUTHOR OF THE BOOK.
Birdwell issued the release pretty much as he had written it, altering it only to the effect that the party was to be a “tea,” but retaining the original implication that it was in honor of the Selznick people. Peggy’s temper flared. “If your story goes out making it appear that I am giving the tea for the Selznick representatives, I will have to recall my invitations and hold no tea. I am giving this party for my friends in the press who have been so kind to me and for my book. And it’s their party and in their honor. I thought it would be very nice if Mr. Cukor and Mr. Howard and Miss Brown were here to attend it so that they could meet people who might be of assistance to them. But my invitation to them to attend the tea is purely a social courtesy.”
This last was a final blow to Sidney Howard’s ego. He had been working on the screenplay for nearly three months and had written Peggy that he might have to ask her help in the writing of additional dialogue for the “colored folks.”
Peggy hastened to write him that she had “no intentions of doing anything about additional dialogue or even looking at the script.... Not for worlds or for money would I put myself in the position where if there was something [Southerners] didn’t like in the picture they could say ‘Well, you worked on the script. Why did you let this, that and the other get by?’ I would never live it down and I could never explain that I really had nothing to do with the script. It won’t matter to them if there is something in the movie they don’t like that you may be responsible for. You didn’t write the book and you do not live here in Atlanta and if they do not like something then you will be excused.”
In effect, Peggy was saying she expected Howard’s screenplay to contain inaccuracies. There is a large degree of petulance in her attitude toward the script of Gone With the Wind. She was certain that without her final approval it could not be accurate, and she was still a bit miffed that Selznick had not given in to her on this point. Her retaliation was an adamant refusal to have anything at all to do with the script.
Neither Cukor nor Howard made the trip to Atlanta at this time, but on December 2, Kay Brown and two other Selznick employees arrived in town. Madness ensued. There had been a notice in the paper that auditions for the four major roles only — Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie, and Ashley — would be held in the ballroom of the Biltmore hotel, although it was added that candidates for Aunt Pittypat or the Tarleton twins would be welcomed. Hundreds of aspirants for all the roles turned up. Many of them had traveled by any means available to get there and were not Southern at all. There were to be numerous fictional plays, films, books, and magazine stories about the search for Scarlett O’Hara, which was to last for nearly two years. The real search was no less peopled by promoters, con men, and pimps, and many a young woman’s hopes were smashed and her life ruined in her attempt at the role.
Almost as much avidity was displayed in the crush for the smaller roles. It was as though there was a mass clairvoyance that foretold success to anyone cast in the film. Even before the talent search was initiated, Peggy had felt under attack. Once it began, it became as bad, she said, “as being in the path of Sherman’s cavalry and waving a Confederate flag.” She could not walk down a street or go shopping or eat in a restaurant, for hopefuls pounced upon her the moment she appeared in public. One day, a mother with her small girl done up as a prospective Bonnie, in tight curls and wearing a riding habit, appeared at Peggy’s hairdresser’s and pulled the dryer from Peggy’s head so that the child’s recitation of a Confederate poem could be heard. Another time, a woman with a young boy suddenly rose up from the back seat of the car as John was driving Peggy to the dentist. The woman demanded that Peggy audition the youth for the role of Wade Hampton, Scarlett’s son, on the spot. It turned out that the woman was not the boy’s mother, but an “enterprising” talent agent.
Even Eleanor Roosevelt, as her husband waited to be inaugurated for his second term, caught the Gone With the Wind casting bug. In August, 1936, Mrs. Roosevelt had written in her syndicated column, “My Day,” “I can assure you that you will find Scarlett O’Hara an interesting character.” In December, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote Selznick requesting that her maid, Lizzy McDuffy, be tested for the role of Mammy. Miss McDuffy did make a test but was not cast in the film. On her way back from Hollywood to Washington, she stopped in Atlanta and visited with Peggy for an hour or so.
It was toward the end of 1936, when she was feeling particularly beleaguered, that Peggy let it be known that she would no longer sign autographs or books. The result was that people went to the most remarkable lengths to get her autograph. As she explained to Lois:
John turns them down by scores every day, poor Father’s life has be
en made a misery by the people who sit in his office and take up his time telling him that he should force me, by parental authority, to sign their book. Steve and Carrie Lou and all of my relatives lead hunted lives because perfect strangers descend upon them, leaving copies with them and instructions that they make me sign them. When I make a business appointment with someone they usually turn up staggering under a dozen copies which their friends have wished upon them — and oh, my God the pressure that’s brought to bear by charitable organizations wanting an autographed copy for raffling purposes!
At a tea given for the library, the only large social affair that she had attended in months, other than the tea she herself had given for the press, her sash was torn off, her veil “yanked” from her hat, punch and refreshments “knocked” from her hands, and she was poked at with sharp fingernails by “ladies from Iowa, Oklahoma, and Seattle.”
The incessant ringing of the telephone did not stop, but Peggy avoided most callers. She wrote to Granberry, “Bessie answers gently in that cooing voice of hers, ‘No Mam, I can’t tell you whether or not Miss Scarlett got the Cap’n back or not. No Mam, Miss Peggy she don’t know either. Yes, Mam, I’ve heard her say a hundred times she didn’t have no idea than the next ’bout what happened to Miss Scarlett after she went home to Tara!’ ”
For the length of one unusually frenetic day, the Marshes discussed the possibility of Peggy going to Europe for a few months and inviting Augusta to go along with her. But she did not want to leave John for that long a time. As a compromise, John agreed to take a three-week vacation with her to return to Winter Park and visit the Granberrys over Christmas and New Year’s. They departed on December 17, 1936, with Peggy at the wheel of the car. The Granberrys had been warned not to tell anyone they were coming.
Peggy was exhausted but, as they headed onto the highway, she felt somehow free for the first time in over a year. They were alone. There was no telephone, no doorbell. They were using the alias “Munnerlyn” and were stopping along the way at places where they felt they would not be recognized. John looked thin and worn and Peggy noticed a slight tremor in his hands. The year had been difficult for him, too. And now he had the foreign rights to deal with along with all her other problems and his own work. Seldom did he turn off the light in his small office room until 2:00 A.M.
It would not have been possible for either of them to have anticipated the events of the past year or to have prepared for them. There had been good things, of course. Now they would never have to worry about being in debt again. Two days earlier Peggy had received the one-millionth copy of the book. The praise upon the publication of the novel in England in October had been as overwhelming as on its American debut. Danish reviews had just come in establishing its critical success in that country. Gone With the Wind looked as if it would bring her international, as well as national, acclaim. And on Thanksgiving, she had received word that the novel had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Margaret Mitchell should have been the happiest woman in America. Why, then, wasn’t Drastic changes had taken place in Peggy’s life and she was incapable of accepting them; nor was it possible to return to her former obscurity. She had not gone “high hat” and it was doubtful that she ever would, but an intractable hostility had replaced her former good nature. She was rich and famous; she could have realized almost any dream — a trip around the world, a palatial home, jewels, expensive cars — but she wanted none of them. What she wished for was a return to the way things had been and that wish could never be granted. So, she became defensive and decided that it was Margaret Mitchell against the world. Ironically, her background and training had prepared her for adversity, but not for fame and wealth, and she became almost obsessive about retaining her privacy and a semblance of ordinary life.
While the Selznick film negotiations were going on, Peggy had received a letter from Ginny telling her she had been approached through Annie Laurie Williams — certainly not a name to warm Peggy’s heart — to do a “Mitchell story” for Photoplay. Ginny had seized on the idea, for she badly needed the money to take her daughter, who suffered from respiratory problems, to a milder climate. Explaining her reasons for considering the offer, Ginny assured Peggy the article would be entirely innocuous and would deal with their college days at Smith in a casual manner, which she did not think Peggy would mind.
The two women had seen each other two months earlier, when Ginny had stopped in Atlanta for a couple of days on her way back from a trip to Florida. Peggy had played “guide” (later, Ginny was to describe the Mitchell house on Peachtree Street as “Tara on streetcar tracks”) and had invited her old friend for dinner, and Ginny felt their friendship had been reestablished.
To her surprise, Ginny received a furious reply in which Peggy claimed that such an article would stir up the movie-mad public and make her life hell again. Peggy stressed the fact that many Atlantans could have written “I-knew-her-when” stories and had not, and she said she would not comply with Ginny’s request for an interview (which, in fact, Ginny had not requested), offering instead, to loan Ginny the eight hundred dollars she would have been paid for the story. Ginny indignantly rejected this “embarrassing compromise,” and wrote:
The only thing about the whole business that disturbs me is the distraught undertones of your letter. It’s indeed a shame, Peggy, that you can’t enjoy the terrific success of your book. Such a windfall is probably what everybody in the world dreams about. Wouldn’t it be feasible to just get on a boat and go places where people didn’t know you for a little while at least?
The night I got your letter I went to hear Thomas Mann give his only lecture in English. He talked about Goethe (the subject of his next novel) and I got a great kick out of it when he went quite thoroughly into the heavy and annoying fame that went with Goethe’s first terrific popularity.... people used to get so excited at seeing him walk thru the streets that they’d faint at his feet ... so, kid, as long as you haven’t yet started to step over prone bodies, you’ve something to be thankful for!
Incidentally, I think a little of my sympathy still clings to the dopes who like to know something about The Personality Behind The Book — as I discovered I wasn’t nearly as interested in what Mann was saying about Goethe as I was in the fact that Mann’s collar was too big for him and that he had that indescribable moth-ball aura about him that was characteristic of the professor who used to teach me French when I was a kid.
If you don’t mind a word or two of wisdom, the tabloid mob which is getting all steamed up about Rhett and Scarlett in the movies is for all the world like a big harmless mutt of a dog who never thinks of snarling at you until you look scared and run away. So sometimes the simplest way out is to “give” a little to the fans. I’ve always been convinced that Lindbergh would lead a much more peaceful life if he mingled a little and got it over with.
Ginny had been dealing with the foibles of fame in her capacity as a publicity woman for United Artists for nearly fifteen years, and she felt herself qualified to explain to Peggy that life did not have to be as Peggy had made it for herself, that she had to understand “the dime-store minds” that had plagued her and realize that a great percentage of the fans who followed movie stars and films formed part of her own reading audience, and that if she tried to understand them, she would not feel so angry at them nor so in need of fortification. “Why don’t you change over to an unlisted number?” Ginny sensibly suggested.
And if you can’t get away on a boat trip because of John’s job, how about moving off the bus route? You’ve told me your present apartment is too small anyway. Mary Pickford’s correspondence is apalling. And the amazing part of it is that it has been for over 25 years without a let-up. She has the most marvelous [staff] and all this correspondence is handled with grace and tact without making Miss Pickford a martyr. Couldn’t you find some capable people to do a job like this for you? ...
You could also hire a service that handles such things and have Macmillan
send your incoming letters directly to them — or an agent. Why don’t you have an agent? They would be able to place a protective wall around you. All publicity calls would then go to them and only the people you wanted to have contact you referred. Can’t your father’s office handle all your legal matters without you having to be so rattled by them?
Peggy did not take well to this “chemical analysis” of her fame, but within a month the small dispute between the two women seemed to have been forgotten and when Stephens had to go up to New York, Peggy asked Ginny to please see him privately if she could, to help advise him on the ways of films and film people before he had to go into a meeting with the Selznick representatives. Ginny obliged and Stephens came back extolling her help and intelligence.
The truth was, Peggy Mitchell simply did not know how to rise to the occasion of her fame, and she feared it might somehow destroy her marriage. But John Marsh enjoyed his position as the husband of America’s best-selling novelist. He was proud of Peggy’s accomplishment and her fame, which reflected upon him. Later, when the momentum was finally to slow down, he was even responsible for fanning the flame. It was Peggy who thought it important that he keep his job at Georgia Power and that they live on his salary, remain in an apartment he could afford, not take on the responsibility of live-in help (which would require a larger home), and that they live exactly as they had before the publication of Gone With the Wind. Less than six months from the time of the book’s appearance, it was obvious this would be impossible.
