Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the publication of a classic. It was on this day, June 30th, that Gone With The Wind was first published. It’s interesting to note that it is one of the most-read stories of all time. These statistics might be somewhat dated, but they give you an idea of how popular the book is. There are well over 28 million copies of the book in print in at least 27 languages and in 37 countries. Margaret Mitchell wrote the story and it reads almost like poetry. I give a few examples in tonight’s radio program. It is one of my favorite novels. If you have only ever seen the film, then you owe it to yourself to find a copy of the original novel and spend a few hours on a warm summer afternoon getting immersed in one of the great romantic stories of all time.
I ran across some interesting trivia concerning the story. For example, did you know that the original title for the book was the title of tonight’s blog, “Tomorrow Is Another Day?” I’m glad the author decided on Gone With The Wind.” And Scarlett was not Mitchell’s original choice for the name of her heroine. She liked the name “Pansy O’Hara.” I’m really glad she also had second thoughts about the name of the plantation. We know it as “Tara,” but the author was toying with the idea of naming it “Fontenoy Hall.” I would imagine that if she had stayed with her original name for the magnificent plantation, a lot of women would not now be named “Tara.”
This information is from the book, Hollywood Trivia by David P. Strauss and Fred L. Worth and published in 1981 by Warner Books. Here are a few more interesting items of trivia from the book…
“The burning of Atlanta, Georgia, the first scene filmed in Gone With The Wind, employed the old RKO King Kong set for the impressive sequence.
“Elizabeth Taylor might have played the child, Bonnie Blue, in Gone With The Wind at age seven, but her father said she was too young to appear in films. The part went to Cammie King.
“The trees shown in front of the plantation Tara … were made of plaster. Real leaves had to be attached to the phony trees. There were 1,250,000 props used in the movie.
“The horse that Gerald O’Hara (Thomas Mitchell) rode in Gone With The Wind was the Silver of Lone Ranger serial fame.
“Rhett Butler’s famous closing line was actually filmed two ways. ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t care’ was not used.
“On the day that Gone With The Wind premiered in Atlanta, Georgia (December 15, 1939) the state’s governor declared the day an official state holiday.”
Some interesting trivia concerning an American classic. We pay tribute to “Gone With The Wind” in our second hour tonight. I hope it will bring back many fond, romantic memories of the first time you saw the film.
Tomorrow is Canada Day. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy Canada Day! I hope you will be careful with any fireworks you plan to set off tomorrow. We don’t need to recreate the burning of Atlanta here in Canada.
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Don Jackson
Another great show, Don.
- RichardI do not often have the opportunity to listen now that I live in Poland but this morning, as I was working on the company’s forum for the second day in a row, I had the pleasure to work with the radio on. It’s not quite the same to open the day with your show as it was to close it but I will take it. There is nothing on the air like it.
Tonight I even promoted you to my contacts in Hawaii and India.
Yesterday’s show quoted Confucious on sculture. Would you provide the quote here please. I thought it was quite good and I would like to share it.
All the best,
Richard
Former Montrealer