by Anne Edwards
“We have a wonderful”: Edwin Granberry to MM, July 9, 1936.
“pathetic note”: PI
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Baby Snooks was a radio and theatre character created by radio, stage, and film star Fanny Brice. The character was a devilish small girl of about six years of age.
“Not Janet Gaynor”: MM to LDC, July 13, 1936, MANYPL.
“Miriam Hopkins”: Ibid.
“a small, plain wren”: PI.
“Would you please stop the car”: PI.
“My idea is”: JM to MM, July 16, 1936, MMMAUG.
“It occurred to me”: JM to MM, July 17, 1936, MMMAUG.
“Is [sic] there any difficulties”: James Putnam to MM, July 23, 1936, MANYPL.
“a lather of rage” through “the stupidest contract”: Letters, RH; MM to HSL, Aug. 13, 1936.
“The pressures are worse than before”: MM to LDC, July 25, 1936, MANYPL.
“no clothes”: MM to LDC, July 27, 1936, MANYPL.
Television rights were being included in contracts of this period since the probability of commercial licensing in the near future had been shown at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, 1933–1934.
“The Selznick lawyers”: Letters, RH; MM to HSL, Aug. 13, 1936.
“Peggy has gone”: JM to Edwin Granberry, July 29, 1936.
“stroke of blindness” and “in a bad way”: Herschel Brickell to Edwin Granberry, Aug. 5, 1936.
“A dark room with”: MM to LDC, Aug. 13 1936, MANYPL.
“Is this the same girl”: VM to MM, undated.
“What a precocious smallfry”: Ibid.
“I am not going blind”: Letters, RH; MM to Louella Parsons, Oct. 29, 1936. This quote was reprinted by Louella Parsons in her newspaper column on Nov. 3, 1936.
“It isn’t their fault”: MM to Edwin Granberry, Sept. 7, 1936.
“the old eyes” and “habit of eating”: Ibid.
“what a low blow”: MM to HSL, Sept. 25, 1936, MANYPL.
“But my dear Child”: LDC to MM, Sept. 29, 1936, MANYPL.
“God-knows-what-else”: VM to MM, Oct. 6, 1936.
“Now there is an impasse”: HSL to MM, Oct. 6, 1936, MANYPL.
“The film people” was a phrase that MM frequently used in referring to the Selznick company.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“slanderous use”: Washington Post, Sept. 29, 1936.
“Under Secretary Slattery threatened to sue”: Ibid.
“I am so upset”: Letters, RH; MM to Under Secretary Slattery, Oct. 3, 1936.
“Not all the financial rewards”: Ibid. The Washington Post offered to print MM’s letter to Under Secretary Slattery, but MM refused permission. On Oct. 17, 1936, an apology was published.
“tough criticism”: MM to HSL, May 26, 1935.
“thieves and chiselers”: MM to Edwin Granberry, Oct. 9, 1936.
“I never knew publishers”: MM to GB, Oct. 9, 1936, MANYPL.
“this present business”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, Oct. 9, 1936.
“Herschel, sometimes”: Ibid.
Dr. Henry Link, The Rediscovery of Man (New York: Macmillan, Inc., 1938) pp. 23–24.
“No book need be that long”: Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1971).
“Hollywood’s historical inaccuracies”: a phrase MM often used in criticizing films she had seen.
“Life has been awful”: Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay.
“I think the whole idea”: Letters, RH; MM to Kay Brown, Nov. 18, 1936.
“When Miss Brown”: Letters, RH; MM to Russell Birdwell, Nov. 24, 1936.
“If your story goes out”: Letters, RH; MM to Russell Birdwell, Dec. 5, 1936.
“no intentions of doing anything”: Letters, RH; MM to Sidney Howard, Nov. 21, 1936.
“as being in the path of Sherman’s Cavalry”: MM to Edwin Granberry, Nov. 28, 1937.
“John turns them down”: Letters, RH; MM to LDC, March 5, 1937.
“Bessie answers”: MM to Edwin Granberry, Nov. 28, 1936.
“embarrassing compromise” through “And if you can’t get away”: VM to MM, April 1937, MMMAUG.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Very hush-hush”: PI.
“with the best intentions”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, Jan. 7, 1937.
“not outgoing”: PI.
“the word is too easily associated” through “here goes”: JM to Edwin Granberry, Jan. 1937, MMMAUG.
“There is no secret” through “proud wives”: Ibid, and reprinted in Collier’s, March 17, 1937.
“the subject matter was self-promoting”: Kenneth Littauer to Edwin Granberry, Feb. 13, 1937.
“If this is true I can’t imagine”: MM to LDC, Feb. 5, 1937, MANYPL.
“To tell the truth”: Letters, RH; MM to LDC, March 5, 1937.
The Dutch piracy suit was eventually to become a landmark copyright case and did help to assure foreign copyright protection for U.S. authors abroad. George Brett traveled to the Netherlands as a witness in this case which, because of the war, lasted eight years. There is a vast correspondence, and all the depositions by MM and Macmillan employees are in the MANYPL.
“I feel pretty violently”: Letters, RH; MM to Kay Brown, March 5, 1937.
“She looks prettier”: JM to FMZ, March 24, 1937.
“those movies”: MFPAUG.
“you could always locate”: Ibid.
“I’ve even refused as much”: Letters, RH; MM to Kay Brown, Feb. 14, 1937.
“out to the coast”: Ibid.
“on the mercies”: Ibid.
“please leave Tara ugly, sprawling and columnless”: Ibid. The Selznick company did not do this.
“Honey Chile” story: PI.
“All over town”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, May 9, 1937.
“Even a Pulitzer committee”: Kenneth Littauer to Edwin Granberry, May 12, 1937.
“didn’t dare intimate”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, May 9, 1937.
“but didn’t slop over”: Ibid.
“slithering out of cracks in the floors” and “awfully dull”: MM to Edwin Granberry, May 10, 1937.
“rang off the wall,” “barrels of champagne,” and “Kentucky Derby winner”: Ibid. It was always said of MM that she never repeated a story. That may have been the case in conversation but, as she wrote so many letters in one day, often on the same subject, she frequently repeated the same phrases in numerous letters. Therefore, duplications of colorful descriptions appear quite frequently in her correspondence; ie, above phrases were used in letters to Edwin Granberry, GB, and LDC, all written on the same day, May 10, 1937.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Reading them so close” through “I think it would”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, April 14, 1938.
“a copyright on hoop skirts”: MM to LDC, Sept. 9, 1938, MANYPL.
“Well, over the [drawing] boards”: Wilbur Kurtz, AHSWKA.
“The revisions seem to be along the lines”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, April 14, 1938.
“I was absolutely forbidden to use any word”: F. Scott Fitzgerald to Maxwell Perkins, Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald/Perkins Correspondence (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973).
“ungentlemanly” and “not nice”: Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay.
On January 11, 1939, Sue Myrick wrote MM: “To your ears alone can I say the following. I have not written it to a soul and the studio is so secretive about it all I’m almost afraid to write it to y’all. But I have seen the girl who is to do Scarlett.... She is charming, very beautiful, black haired and magnolia petal skin and in the movie tests I have seen she moved me greatly. They did the paddock scene [Ashley chopping wood, GWTW, p. 518] for a test, and it is marvelous business the way she makes you cry when she is making Ashley. I understand she is not signed but as far as I can tell from George [Cukor] et al, she is the gal”: Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay.
&nb
sp; “It is really and actually true”: Sue Myrick to MM, Feb. 14, 1939.
“David, your fucking script”: Flamini, Scarlett, Rhett & a Cast of Thousands.
“Groucho Marx, William Faulkner”: MM to Wilbur Kurtz, April 9, 1939, Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay.
“We have 60 pages”: Sue Myrick to MM, March 12, 1939.
“God knows”: Ibid.
“Sidney Howard is back on the script!”: Sue Myrick to MM, April 9, 1939.
“I would not be surprised”: MM to Sue Myrick, April 9, 1939. Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay.
They‘d stone Christ”: Flamini, Scarlett, Rhett & a Cast of Thousands.
“The street scenes are so fine”: Sue Myrick to MM, June 2, 1939.
“I would like to keep”: MM to VM, March 16, 1939, MMMAUG.
“ghoulish document”: VM to MM, March 21, 1939.
“shocking attempt”: Ibid.
“gigantic filmscript,” through “ignored the mothball approach”: Photoplay, May 1939.
MM’s letter was printed in the July 1939 issue of Photoplay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“steadily, harder, and higher”: MM to LDC, Nov. 3, 1939, MANYPL.
“The whole of Atlanta”: Ibid.
“I want you to be very careful”: Howard Dietz, Dancing in the Dark (New York: Quadrangle, 1975).
“But you don’t understand”: Ibid.
“Above all”: Time, Dec. 23, 1939.
“She is my Scarlett”: MFPAUG.
“The sly, leather-lunged”: Time, Dec. 23, 1939.
“The only big star”: AJ, Dec. 16, 1939.
“It was an experience”: Ibid.
“Oh, I do hope”: MFPAUG.
“We did have a good Christmas, didn’t we?”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, Jan. 11, 1940.
“discussing every angle”: MM to Clifford Dowdy, Jan. 1940, MMMAUG.
“Unqualifiedly marvelous” through “could have been”: Ibid.
“It seems like a pleasant”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, Jan. 11, 1940.
“The crowds on the street”: MM to Mrs. Dorothy Hart, Jan. 5, 1939.
“Whatever else”: JM to Clifford Dowdey, Jan. 9, 1939, MMMACG.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Have I written you”: JM to Mary Toup Marsh, Aug. 1940.
“Trips are a pipe dream”: MM to Edwin Granberry, Oct. 11, 1940.
Selznick did send Peggy an additional $50,000 in Dec. 1940, following the second premiere.
“that has no stuffiness”: Letters, RH; MM to Ellen Glasgow, Nov. 11, 1940.
“I have a charming recollection”: Ellen Glasgow to MM, Letters of Ellen Glasgow (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1958).
“Of course I could have said”: MM to LDC, Nov. 9, 1940, MANYPL.
“I think the war”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, Nov. 11, 1940.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“waking up in bed” through “My rustiness”: MM to GB, July 1940, MANYPL.
“ever since the New Deal”: FF, p. 206.
MM’s letters to Herschel Brickell are the most revealing of this period, 1936–1939, and indicate her deep, warm regard for him. The few letters written to both of the Brickells have a different tone.
Frank Daniel revealed in the AJ that he was the young man who had once read Stephen Vincent Benét’s john Brown’s Body to MM. He also referred to the Marshes as “the mama and papa of GWTW.” Daniel was the first to use the initials GWTW, in the AJ in May 1936.
Augusta Dearborn Edwards’s copy of GWTW is in the Atlanta Historical Society’s Augusta Dearborn Edwards Archives. The inscription reads: “To Augusta and Lee Edwards, old friends, this book: As the pledge of a nation that’s passed away. Keep it, dear friends and save it. Show it to those who will lend an ear to the tale of this trifle will tell of Liberty born of patriots’ dream of a storm-cradled nation that fell. Margaret.” This verse appears in GWTW, p. 314 and is borrowed from an anonymous verse that was written on a piece of brown paper pasted on the back of a Confederate note. It was titled: “Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note.”
“charming, funny self”: PI.
“I am small” through “if you think”: Letters, RH; MM to Lt. Commander E. John Long, Aug. 9, 1941.
“most probably doesn’t know”: publicity interview, Sept. 5, 1941.
This interview was published in the New York Times, Sept. 6, 1941. The full transcript is in the MANYPL publicity file. The reporter’s question about the second Dutch piracy suit illustrates the press’s attitude toward suing a country at war.
“fight or stand cowards”: GWTW, p. 5.
“varmints worth a damn”: MM to Clifford Dowdey, Dec. 16, 1941, MMMAUG.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“We had all the Atlanta Marines”: Richard Harwell, AJ&C, March 17, 1974.
“I [want] you to know”: MM to Leodel Coleman, reprinted AJ&C, March 17, 1974.
“normal and healthy sign”: Ibid.
“must be having a return”: Clifford Dowdey to MM, Feb. 21, 1943, MMMAUG.
“The gallantry, courage” through “several kinds of”: Letters, RH; MM to Clifford Dowdey, May 13, 1943.
“improves my figure below”: MM to Helen Dowdey, May 6, 1943, MMMAUG.
“I enjoyed that tacky party”: RH, AJ&C, March 17, 1974.
“raised her stock”: Letters, RH; MM to William Mauldin, May 14, 1945.
the Dowdeys’ breakup: MMMAUG, Dowdey file.
“I hope the world is not too much”: Letters, RH; MM to Betty Smith, June 9, 1945.
“trading with the” and “Has a policy or procedure”: Letters, RH; MM to Dr. Charles A. Thomson, Oct. 14, 1944.
“GWTW was not sold in galley proof”: Leiters, RH; MM to Douglas Gilbert, Oct. 23, 1944.
“four closest boyfriends”: AC, Sept. 23, 1945. (The identities of the four men were not revealed.)
“generally cheerful” and “glum”: Margaret Baugh, MMMAUG, undated.
“I’m going to die”: PI.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Still no news from Poland”: MM to LDC, Oct. 1945, MANYPL.
“He is always so fatigued”: MM to Helen Dowdey, Dec. 11, 1945, MMMAUG.
“There is a faint hope”: MM to LDC, Feb. 16, 1946, MANYPL.
“to stand the hospital” through “the patients wet”: MM to Helen Dowdey, Feb. 17, 1946, MMMAUG.
“It seems wonderful to him”: MM to Helen Dowdey, July 22, 1946, MMMAUG.
“to be frank” through “mad rush”: MM to LDC, July 1946, MAKYPL.
“the rights of every author”: MM to GB, Aug. 14, 1946, MANYPL.
“bound to come down”: MM to LDC, Dec. 15, 1946, MANYPL.
“As God is my witness”: MM to Helen Dowdey, Aug. 14, 1946, MMMAUG.
“anxious to turn a penny” and “Even some of”: MM to GB, Aug. 23, 1946, MANYPL.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Are you all right?”: Margaret Baugh, undated.
“The possibility”: Galveston Daily News, Jan. 13, 1949.
“The theatre packed”: Letters, RH; MM to Harold E. George, May 6, 1949.
“In Yugoslavia”: Letters, RH; MM to Governor James M. Cox, July 28, 1949.
Hugh D. Gravitt, the taxi driver whose car hit MM, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to serve twelve to eighteen months. He was released after twelve months.
“It was something”: AJMMM.
“I promised Peggy”: Margaret Baugh, MMMAUG, undated.
Sales figures were supplied by Macmillan for 1980.
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