Famous Fans of GWTW

As it turns out, being a fan of GWTW puts you in some pretty exclusive company. From stars of the silver screen to athletes to world leaders, the list of famous GWTW fans is a long one--not to mention a rather eclectic one. In honor of these celebrity Windies, we've created a new page, Famous Fans of GWTW, which you can find on the side bar.

The link to the new page is also below. Be sure to check it out and let us what you think. Also, if you're aware of any famous Windies who we've neglected to add, don't hesitate to let us know--and we'll get them added to the list.  

http://gwtwscrapbook.blogspot.com/p/famous-fans-of-gone-with-wind.html

The Fashionable Rogue, Part 3: Rhett's Honeymoon Wardrobe

Today we bring you the third and final installment of our Fashionable Rogue mini-series, which explores the historical sartorial styles behind Rhett Butler's Gone with the Wind wardrobe. For this last edition, we're featuring two styles donned by Rhett on his honeymoon: his red silk robe from the steamboat scene and his tuxedo from the dinner scene in New Orleans. 

Quite oddly, it turns out that Rhett wouldn't have had to look very far at all to find inspiration for his red robe and tuxedo--both of the fashion plates we uncovered feature these two items, randomly enough. Perhaps a red robe and a classic tuxedo were merely wardrobe staples for the debonaire Victorian man? Either way, had Rhett been uncertain about what to pack for his honeymoon, he'd only have to look as far as his latest men's journal to  help determine the appropriate selection of clothing.

Like always, you'll find the fashion plates after the jump. Check them out and let us know what you think! 

The Fashionable Rogue, Part 2: Rhett's Bonnet Scene Suit

Today we're pleased to bring you the second installment of our new three-part mini-series, The Fashionable Rogue, which explores some of the possible historical inspirations behind Rhett Butler's wardrobe in Gone with the Wind. Last week, we looked at Rhett's white suit worn during the burning of Atlanta. This week we're bringing you an earlier sartorial selection by Captain Butler--the gray suit and black jacket combo he wore to tempt Scarlett with bonnets and bangles and lead her into a pit to present Scarlett with a very generous gift from the Rue de la Paix.

You'll find the fashion plate and corresponding GWTW screenshots for comparison after the jump. Check them out and let us know what you think! 

The Fashionable Rogue, Part 1: A Rhett Butler Edition of Doppelganger Styles

It just isn't fair to let Scarlett have all the fun with the fashion plates. Rhett's bound to get jealous, being such a handsomely dressed man and all. So, in order to defuse Captain Butler's jealousy (always a scary thing), today we're pleased to unveil The Fashionable Rogue. This three-part mini-series will explore the historical styles behind some of our favorite scoundrel's costumes from Gone with the Wind--ala our earlier Doppelganger Dresses series, only this time it's all suits instead of silk dresses, of course. 

After the jump, you'll find our first lookalike style--Rhett's white suit and Panama hat combo worn the fateful night he piloted Scarlett out of Atlanta...and then abandoned her to join the army. Ah, rogues! They always seem to leave you when you need them most (and in this case, look impeccably dressed doing it.) Check out the fashion plate and let us know what you think! 

The Puzzle of the Puffed Sleeves: What Scarlett's Wedding Dress Should Have Looked Like

"In the midst of this turmoil, preparations went forward for Scarlett's wedding and, almost before she knew it, she was clad in Ellen's wedding dress and veil, coming down the wide stairs of Tara on her father's arm, to face a house packed full with guests."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter VII

Back when the Doppelganger Dresses series in full swing, one dress I definitely hoped to feature was Ellen's and subsequently Scarlett's wedding dress. So I plugged the numbers to refresh my memory as to what year Ellen married Gerald O'Hara. (Ellen is 32 at the start of GWTW in 1861, meaning her wedding at age 15 was in 1844.) With the date in hand, I went off to search for fashion plates.....and found nothing that even remotely resembled the massive-sleeved creation that Walter Plunkett made for Scarlett's wedding to Charles Hamilton (shown right). 

That was very puzzling to me--that the 1840s dress silhouette appeared to bear no resemblance at all to the bridal style shown in the movie. But dozens and dozens of fashion plates later, I couldn't avoid that fact. Big sleeves were distinctly out in the 1840s. Dresses featured tight sleeves, perhaps with a few delicate puffs for decoration, but that was about the extent of it. 

To help you visualize what I mean, here's a good example of day and evening styles from an 1844 fashion plate:

Dress Styles from May 1844. Ladies' Companion.

So, what did Plunkett use as the inspiration for Ellen/Scarlett's wedding dress, since it definitely wasn't 1840s fashion? Not being able to figure out the answer to that question, I gave up my search and moved on to look for other doppelganger styles. But this mystery continued to bother me from time to time--until something recently jogged my memory. 

It's true that 1840s dresses eschewed giant sleeves, but this wasn't the case a decade earlier. In the early 1830s, enormous gigot sleeves were all the rage--much like the ones we see on Scarlett's wedding dress. A quick search of 1830s wedding dresses turns up styles much more akin to the dress in GWTW than anything from the 1840s: 

                   Wedding Dress, June 1834. La Mode.                                           Wedding Dress, June 1835. La Mode.

So there's our answer. It looks like Walter Plunkett based his design for Scarlett's wedding dress on 1830s bridal styles, not 1840s. But why? This intriguing note on the Harry Ransom Center's Gone with the Wind costume collection offers one clue: 

"Since Scarlett rushed into the marriage with Charles Hamilton, she would have had to use her mother's wedding dress. So Plunkett fitted the dress on Barbara O'Neil's (Ellen O'Hara) dress form. Consequently, the dress was a little too long and had large sleeves which was the fashion in 1834 when Ellen would have been married." (Emphasis mine)

So did Plunkett simply get his dates wrong and put together an 1830s gown instead of an 1840s one? It seems so. It's also possible that he was just uninspired by 1840s fashion and instead found a historical model more to his liking a decade earlier. Either way, it begs the question: what should Ellen/Scarlett's wedding dress have looked like, if done in actual 1840s style? 

You'll find the answer after the jump, where I've put together a gallery of bridal gowns, all from the year of Ellen's marriage in 1844. Would you rather have seen Scarlett wear a dress like one of these in the movie? Or do you prefer Plunkett's vision? 

Gone with the Wind: First Lady Approved

So here's a tidbit my co-blogger iso, great admirer of well-dressed women of all times, dug out and that we thought you might enjoy. Windies, you're in classy company! It turns out Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a Gone with the Wind fan too. Here's the excerpt from her biography:

"Thayer's biography tells of the books Jackie read when she was young. She read Gone with the Wind three times. There were ways in which some of the operatic characters from the book resembled people in Jackie's own family. Jackie's mother, Janet, divorced Jackie's father, Jack Bouvier, in 1940, when Jackie was eleven years old. The man who got his nickname, 'Black Jack,' from his permanent suntan spent the rest of his life in a succession of New York apartments, sometimes looked after by girlfriends, sometimes not, spending beyond his means and trading on the stock exchange. Janet remarried in 1942. Her new husband, Hugh Auchincloss, was a rich man, the heir to Standard Oil money, which he used to found a stock brokerage in Washington, D.C. He maintained a big house called Merrywood in Virginia and another, Hammersmith Farm, in Newport for the summer. He had a son from a previous marriage, just two years older than Jackie, who was known in the family as Yusha.

"Yusha Auchincloss remembered that Jackie also loved the movies, and Gone with the Wind was one of her favorites. 'Rhett Butler reminded her of her father, Scarlett O'Hara of her mother,' he said. The grand southern house of the movie, Tara, reminded her of Merrywood and Hammersmith rolled together. Jackie's stepbrother also though that Jackie 'had a lot of Scarlett's qualities, the same ones her mother had, good and not so good.' Jackie grew up patterning herself on one of the most famous temperamental divas of the 1930s and '40s, both the character in the book and Vivien's depiction of her on the screen. Scarlett O'Hara could be shrewd and selfish as well as self-sacrificing, and it's difficult to tell which of those features drew Jackie to read about her again and again. Jackie might also have seen that her own family dramas sometimes paled before the melodrama on the page, and in that sense the saga of Scarlett and Rhett was a comfort" 

-- from Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books by William Kuhn

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 25: Scarlett's Green Striped 'Honeymoon at Tara' Dress

I'm sad to say that today marks our final entry in the Doppelganger Dresses series. However, we've definitely saved our very best match for last! We've uncovered the dress that Walter Plunkett almost certainly used to create Scarlett O'Hara's "Honeymoon at Tara" costume. And doppelganger is absolutely the appropriate word in this case--the period style, which we discovered in an 1866 edition of Godey's Lady's Book, is a near-perfect match for the romantic cream and green striped dress that Scarlett wears to stroll the grounds of Tara with Rhett.

You'll notice, though, that Walter Plunkett did make two visible changes to the historical gown, changing the color of the stripes and modifying the bodice slightly. Other than that, the dresses are mirror images of each other. You'll find the dress after the jump. Check it out and let us know what you think! 

Also, now that our series has drawn to an end, be sure to check out our side page, Walter Plunkett and the Costumes of GWTW, to find a complete archive of the Doppelganger Dresses posts, along a link to our Plunkett bio post and a slideshow of Walter Plunkett's GWTW costume sketches. 

Thanks for reading; we loved working on this series for you!

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 24: Scarlett's 'Lost' Saratoga Dress

Today, the Doppelganger Dresses series takes a look at one of Walter Plunkett's costume designs that didn't make the final cut of Gone with the Wind. Known as the Saratoga dress, the costume was conceived for a scene featuring Scarlett traveling to or from the northern watering hole (a odd plot, to be sure, given how little mention there is of Saratoga in the novel). 

Personally I consider it a shame that the Saratoga dress didn't end up in Gone with the Wind. It's a rather pretty and whimsical dress, one that seems very much in keeping with Scarlett's style from her Mrs. Butler years. Wouldn't it have made a nice addition to the honeymoon sequence, for instance?  

But, alas, the Saratoga dress was destined to be 'lost' from the final film reel of GWTW. Fortunately though, we have at least found its historical precedence. You'll find our period inspiration on the other side of the jump. What do you think of the fashion plate? And would you liked to have seen the Saratoga dress featured in GWTW yourself? 
 

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 23: Melanie's Twelve Oaks Dress

To me at least, one of the very best visual moments in Gone with the Wind comes when Scarlett first encounters Melanie Hamilton at the Twelve Oaks barbecue. For the two women serve as such a study in contrasts. Scarlett is daringly dressed in her inappropriate green sprigged dress, while Melanie tranquilly glides onto the scene in a modest, ruffled gray frock. The two leading ladies' costumes serve as a perfect symbol to demonstrate their divergent personalities, a clever bit of characterization by Margaret Mitchell and one that Walter Plunkett effortlessly translates onto the silver screen. 

And today we're pleased to bring you Melanie's Twelve Oaks barbecue dress in our latest installment of Doppelganger Dresses. Both Mitchell and Plunkett deserve kudos for the historical accuracy of Melanie's dress. Fashion plates of the era are filled with gray or steel blue dresses with ruffled trims. After the jump, you'll find two period fashion plates that we thought were especially representative of Melanie's costume. Check them out and let us know what you think!

Sunday Reading: The Flick Chick's Review of Gone with the Wind

Here's a little bit of Sunday reading for you all. The movie blog, The Flick Chick, recently posted a review of Gone with the Wind that's very much worth a look in our opinion. We found it be a thoughtful and wide-ranging analysis, tackling everything from the movie's thorny racial issues to Scarlett's survival instinct, Rhett and Scarlett's love-hate relationship, and the dreadfully dull Ashley Wilkes. 

Interested? To peak your interest further, here's a snippet of my favorite part: 

"Personally, I love Scarlett. Is she selfish? Yes. Is she a bitch? You bet. But every time she’s swatted down, she just gets back up again, more determined than ever. She’s also kind of hilarious. The relationship between Scarlett and Rhett (Clark Gable) is one of my favourites in film because, despite the heavier scenes, there is a wonderful lightness and camaraderie between them. Rhett doesn’t just put up with her crap, he’s amused by it. He enjoys her little temper tantrums, her attempts at manipulation, and her need to be spoiled coincides nicely with his desire to spoil her..."

--excerpted from The Flick Chick's review of Gone with the Wind

The link to the full post is below. Check it out and let us know what you think. What's your take on the review?

http://flickchickcanada.blogspot.com/2011/01/best-picture-countdown-12-gone-with.html

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 21: Scarlett's Blue Portrait Dress

Today we feature a paradoxical dress in the Doppelganger Dresses series--Scarlett's blue portrait dress, which holds the unique position of being in Gone with the Wind the movie without being an actual costume. Yet although it's only shown in an oil painting, it's hard to forget Scarlett's lustrous blue dress and white lace shawl--thanks in no small part to Rhett Butler flinging a tumbler of liquor at 'Scarlett in Blue' to vent his frustration over his marital banishment.

After the jump, you'll find a period fashion plate that resembles Scarlett's own blue dress. One important note on that front: Scarlett's dress is miraculously less elaborate than our historical gown. In fact, dare I say it, by the standards of the day (circa 1869), Scarlett's blue portrait dress would be considered downright modest and (horror of horrors!) almost old fashioned. This was the era of the bustle and evening dresses had become lavishly ornate, adorned with flowers, lace, ribbons, and frills galore.  So to find an appropriate match for Mrs. Butler's blue dress, we had to go further back into the archives--to 1855! And even then Scarlett wins the battle for sartorial simplicity.

But enough explanations. Be sure to check out the dress and let us know what you think!

Aunt Pittypat's Parlor, Miniaturized

As one of the most successful and critically acclaimed movies of all time, Gone with the Wind has influenced popular culture in countless ways both large and small. And today we're taking a look at one of the (quite literally) small ways it's made its influence known.

Below you'll find a photo of "Georgia Double Parlor, c. 1850," one of the 68 miniature rooms of historic European and American interiors that makes up the Thorne Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. But if you mistook it for Aunt Pittypat's parlor, you're in good company. Mrs. James Ward Thorne, a wealthy socialite with a passion for history, created the collection of miniature rooms from 1934 to 1940, with a fine attention to detail, a fanatical commitment to historical accuracy... and in the case of this splendid room, a little Hollywood magic. Aunt Pittypat's parlor served as one of her main inspirations for its design:

"The furnishings derive not only from histories of the decorative arts of the period but also from the popular conception of ante-bellum plantation interiors depicted in the sets of Gone with the Wind. This hugely popular 1939 film version of Margaret Mitchell's equally loved novel of the same name (1936) did a great deal to create a visual vocabulary for the time and places it embraced. Thus, Mrs. Thorne's notes for this room include an article from the November 1939 issue of House and Garden, with an illustration of the bay from Aunt Pittypat's parlor, which provided the model for the bay in this interior."

--Miniature Rooms: The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago (Exhibition book)

The Thorne Rooms are on permanent exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, if you're ever in the Windy City and would like to see mini Aunt Pittypat's parlor "Georgia Double Parlor, c. 1850," up close and personal... in addition to 67 other charming miniature rooms. 

Georgia Double Parlor, c. 1850. Photo credit: The Art Institute of Chicago

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 20: Scarlett's Green Velvet Wrapper

Well, I suppose if you're going to ban your husband from your bed due to your misguided love for another man, you might as well do it in fabulous mid-Victorian style. At least that's the approach our dear Scarlett takes in the movie version of Gone with the Wind, thanks to the sumptuous green velvet wrapper she dons for her infamous 'no more babies' scene.  

Today the Doppelganger Dresses series tackles the period inspiration behind Scarlett's costume. Full-color fashion plates of the era rarely featured wrapper styles, but we've found a fashion plate that we think matches up well with the green wrapper from GWTW and we're excited to share it with you. 

You'll find the fashion plate in question after the jump, as always. Does it look like Scarlett's wrapper to you? Let us know what you think! 

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 19: Scarlett's Red Mrs. Kennedy Dress

The Mrs. Kennedy era hasn't featured too prominently in our Doppelganger Dresses series so far, despite our first find ever being the dress Scarlett wears at the time of the Shantytown attack, in what's technically the last day of her marriage with Frank. Today we thought we'd remedy that by taking a closer look at the historical inspiration behind the red dress Scarlett wears when convincing Ashley to come to Atlanta and work for her. Check out the screenshots and the fashion plate after the jump!

A Tribute to Butterfly McQueen (Part 2)

So what happened to Butterfly once Gone with the Wind was over (you can read about her time on the GWTW set here)? She returned to New York to star as Puck in a very unconventional adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream called Swingin' the Dream. Described by one reviewer as a "lavish jitterbug extravaganza," Swinging' the Dream was based on a choreography by Agnes de Mille and opened at Center Theatre on November 29, 1939.  It transferred Shakespeare's tale to late 19th century New Orleans, during "The Birth of Swing," with a black and white cast, including among others Benny Goodman, Dorothy McGuire, Louis Armstrong, Maxine Sullivan, Juano Hernandez and Oscar Polk.

Unfortunately, this ambitious project that sounded very good in theory was a resounding failure. Critics unanimously bashed it and it closed after only one performance. It also put an end to  Butterfly's theatrical career. She returned to Hollywood where between 1941 and 1947 she was typecast as a maid in a host of films: Affectionately Yours in 1941 with Hattie McDaniel, I Dood It in 1943, Flame of the Barbary Coast and Mildred Pierce in 1945 and Duel in the Sun in 1946. (Her appearance in Selznick's Since You Went Away in 1944 did not survive editing.)

One exception in this succession is the musical Cabin in the Sky from 1942, where Butterfly played a friend to Ethel Waters' Petunia. Cabin in the Sky had started as a very successful  all-black Broadway musical, but MGM's decision to turn it into a movie and its black cast raised concerns both from studio executives that were afraid the movie would fail to make money (especially in the South) and from the black press that feared the cliche depiction of black characters Hollywood had accustomed them to expect. But director Vincente Minnelli that had set out to "never knowingly offend blacks... or anyone else for that matter" managed to create a balanced film for the standard of the time. It should be noted, however, that Butterfly was not very happy on the set of this film, where she felt everyone and especially Lena Horne treated her with contempt.

In 1946, following her appearance in Duel in the Sun, Butterfly McQueen issued a statement that she wouldn't appear in any more comic maid roles, the kind of roles that were almost exclusively available to black actresses in the 1940s. She found herself unemployable in show business and took on a variety of jobs in factories, shops and restaurants. She also attended a number of courses at five different colleges over the years and in 1975, aged sixty-four, graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in political science from New York’s City College.

In 1948, she appeared in Killer Dealer, a movie produced independently, outside of Hollywood and directed mostly at black audiences. And somewhat contrary to her resolution, in 1950 she starred as a scatterbrained maid in the ABC show Beulah, along with Ethel Waters. Her one-woman show at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in 1951 (in which she invested her life savings) was unsuccessful. During the 1950s and later, she  only occasionally appeared in minor shows and spectacles, but continued to be remembered fondly for her role in Gone with the Wind.

So what is the legacy of Butterfly McQueen in the world of Gone with the Wind? Her portrayal of Prissy was disliked by Margaret Mitchell and a few other reviewers, but acclaimed by the majority. For the black community, it was iconic of the degrading manner in which African Americans were presented in popular culture at the time and many remembered the moment Scarlett slaps her, as well as Prissy's antics in themselves, as things that were deeply embarrassing to watch. (We will perhaps have a post exploring the black community's reaction to Gone with the Wind.) The depiction of the Prissy character in itself, both in the book and in the movie, is one of the most controversial and most widely condemned aspects of Gone with the Wind and rightly so. 

Donald Bogle in Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films gives another, more forgiving interpretation to Prissy's part in Gone with the Wind as played by Butterfly McQueen:

"Some observers saw Butterfly as the stock darky figure. But there was much more to her performance. Had she been a mere pickaninny, she might have engendered hostility or embarrassed audiences. Instead she seemed to provide an outlet for the repressed fears of the audience. That perhaps explains why everyone laughed hysterically at her hysterics. For during the crisis sequences, the film built beautifully, and there was a need for release. Mere comic relief of the old type would have been vulgar. But because of her artistic mayhem, her controlled fright, and her heightened awareness and articulation of the emotions of the audiences, Butterfly McQueen seemed to flow wonderfully with the rest of the film. She had a pleasant waiflike quality, too, not in the patronizing style of The Green Pastures, in which the grown-up people behaved like rambunctious idiot children, but in a special, purely personal way. Tiny and delicate, Butterfly McQueen seemed to ask for protection and was a unique combination of the comic and the pathetic."

And to end this on a high note, here's a very touching moment recounted by David Thompson who interviewed Butterfly while researching for the documentary The Making of a Legend: “Gone With the Wind” "some time in the late ’80s":

"So we moved to a kind of island in the middle of the street, sat down there on a stone wall and did the interview. I suppose she was shy or afraid of going anywhere else. Well, considering the circumstances, it was a good interview— and later on, Butterfly was properly filmed for the documentary. But the most beautiful thing happened. Because of where we were, many people were passing close by all the time we were talking. But the crowd was often too dense to see anything clearly. Well, all of a sudden a young white woman crossing the street cried out, “Gone With the Wind!” She had heard Butterfly’s voice, without seeing her, and made the connection. And this young woman went down on her knees before Butterfly to thank her for the film. It was very touching and entirely natural."

A Tribute to Butterfly McQueen

Since tomorrow is the centenary of Butterfly McQueen's birthday (it is tomorrow, even though the whole internet seems to think it's today), we're going to honor her by having two posts discussing her life and career before and after Gone with the Wind. The first is this one you're reading right now and the second will be up tomorrow. To this end, we relied on Butterfly McQueen Remembered, a biography of the actress written by Stephen Bourne. It's a book we heartily recommend you to buy, both for the details on Butterfly herself and for the wealth of information concerning the trajectory of other black actors in movies and plays  of the time. So, let's proceed.

Before Gone with the Wind

Butterfly’s real name was Thelma MacQueen. She was born in Tampa, Florida, on January 8* 1911, the sole daughter of Wallace MacQueen, a stevedore on the Tampa docks, and Mary, a domestic servant. Her parents divorced in 1916 and 5-year-old Thelma was sent to live with her uncle and aunt, James and Ida Richardson, in Augusta, Georgia, while Mary MacQueen took on a variety of full-time jobs all along the East Coast in order to be able to support both herself and her daughter. She eventually found a stable job as a cook in Harlem, New York City and sent for Thelma to join her.

Thelma attended Public School 9 on West Eighty-third Street and high school in Babylon, Long Island, New York (where her mother had found work as a servant to a white family). After she graduated from high school, she attended the Lincoln Training School for Nursing in the Bronx, that she was soon to quit, distressed by the particulars of the nursing profession and having flunked her chemistry course. She then worked as a children’s nurse and briefly in a factory, before taking on acting, at the advice of one of her old teachers.

In 1934, Thelma joined Venezuela Jones’ Negro Youth Theatre Group in Harlem,  functioning under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, and was cast in an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to be staged at the New York City College. According to one source, in this period Thelma studied dancing with Janet Collins, Katherine Dunham and Geoffrey Holder, and canto with Adelaide Hall, all of them pioneers of African American stage performance.

It was during the rehearsals for this play that Thelma acquired the nickname Butterfly, though the accounts for how she did so differ significantly. One version of the story is that she danced in the “Butterfly Ballet” in A Midsummer’s Night Dream and the nickname stuck. According to another, more credible version, the “Butterfly Ballet” was actually part of a school “playlet” called Aunt Sophronia at College that Thelma had participated in as a little girl and of which she had very fond memories: “We had on beautiful gold tights—and wings with spangles! Oh, it was the loveliest ballet you ever did see.” When she joined the New York dramatic group, the members of which had more theatrical experience than she did, she would say, “I was in the Butterfly Ballet,” to be on par with their stories of Broadway performances and nightclubs gigs. Her friend Ruth Moore, also a member of the group, suggested she adopted Butterfly as her professional name. And so Thelma MacQueen easily became Butterfly McQueen, both on and off stage.

Butterfly’s debut on Broadway was in the all-black melodrama Brown Sugar, which opened at the Biltmore Theatre on December 2, 1937. The story goes that Butterfly (or rather her distinctive voice) made such an impression on Broadway producer George Abbott during her audition for this play that the latter created the role of parlor maid Lucille especially for her. Brown Sugar was unsuccessful and closed after only four performances, but critics agreed on the potential of young Butterfly. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson went as far as to say that Abbott should be credited for nothing more than “appreciating the extraordinary artistry of a high-stepping, little dusky creature who describes herself as Butterfly McQueen. Butterfly has something on the ball." Abbott himself was also pleased with her performance and distributed her in his next play, What a Life in 1938.

It was her success in this play that would ultimately bring her to David O. Selznick’s attention. Butterfly had tried to approach one of Selznick’s representatives in New York before, at the advice of her friend Ruth Moore, but to no avail. Ruth had read Gone with the Wind, and recognized the career-making opportunity for her friend: “She ran up to me and said that in today’s news was a story about Gone With the Wind and David O. Selznick is going to make it into a movie and you go down to his Park Avenue office and tell them you are Prissy,” the actress later recalled.

However, Mr. Bundamann, Selznick’s representative and the man Butterfly introduced herself to as Prissy, considered her wholly unsuitable for the role: “You’re too old—too fat—and too dignified for the part. You could never be Prissy.” Luckily, David O. Selznick himself would have a different opinion. Following her breakthrough in George Abbott’s plays, Butterfly was approached by Selznick’s agents, and by the end of 1938 her screen tests were over and her contract was signed. No other contenders seem to have been seriously considered for the part, though Butterfly McQueen does mention that the wife of Oscar Polk (Pork) was up for the part as well, only that “she was much too pretty” to get it. 

Filming Gone with the Wind

Butterfly travelled from New York to Hollywood on January 15, 1939. Her first scenes in Gone with the Wind were filmed under George Cukor, but her relationship with the director didn’t run too smoothly. In the 1988 documentary The Making of a Legend, Butterfly remembers how she bargained with Cukor so that Vivien Leigh wouldn’t slap her for real in the famous “I don't know nothin' 'bout birthing babies!"” sequence. Leigh would pretend to hit her, Butterfly would scream in pain and the noise of the blow would be dubbed over the shot. In the same documentary, cameraman Harry Wolf remembers the preliminaries to this bargain somewhat differently: “In the middle of the shot Butterfly McQueen broke out in tears and she says, ‘I can’t do it! She’s hurting me!’ And Cukor got very incensed and he said, ‘I’m the director and I’ll tell you when to cut the shot.’”

Susan Myrick described Cukor’s behavior towards Butterfly as just light teasing. In her Southern Macon Telegraph column, where she gave reports of the filming of Gone with Wind, she wrote that “Cukor has gone Southern with a vengeance and quotes from the book constantly, threatening to sell Butterfly down the river if she doesn’t get the action just right or calling a prop man to get the Simon Legree whip. It is all in good fun, of course, and Prissy enjoys the joke as much as any of us.” The dubious taste of racist jokes aside, “Prissy” didn’t seem to interpret Cukor’s attitude towards her as part of “good fun.” When Cukor left Gone with the Wind and went on to direct The Women, he offered Butterfly McQueen a small uncredited role as Lulu, the maid on the cosmetics counter. Here’s what Butterfly had to say about working with him for that film:

"Gone With the Wind suspended operations temporarily, and Mr. Cukor asked me to be in The Women during this interim. The hurt I felt in having Mr. Cukor scream at me for some mistake I made, I remember vividly and will take with me to my grave. I believe his sole purpose in giving me the small part in The Women was to have the opportunity to vent his frustrations on me. In the employ of a David O. Selznick, he could not have done such a thing. I remember the look of co-operation (in his hatred) on the face of Anita Loos when he unleashed his fury upon me. Mr. Selznick soon had us again on the set of Gone With the Wind."

--In Murray Summers, “Butterfly McQueen Was One of The Women Too,” Filmograph 3, no. 4 (1973), 7–8. 

Excepting Cukor, Butterfly had nice things to say about her fellow actors involved in the Melanie giving birth & leaving Atlanta scene: “Olivia made us laugh and laugh. There she’d be, lying on her bed in labor, screaming ‘Scarlett! Scarlett!’ and as soon as the scene was over, she’d jump up and start telling us all jokes. And Clark Gable was such a considerate gentleman. Did you know that he was a boy scout leader?” (in Guy Flatley, “Butterfly’s Back in Town,” The New York Times, July 21, 1968, 18.) 

In later interviews, she recalls standing up to Sam Woods in a scene at Tara immediately after the war, when she was supposed to eat watermelon ("I’d do anything they asked, but I wouldn’t let Scarlett slap me, and I wouldn’t eat watermelon. I was very sensitive about that. Of course, thinking about it now, I probably could have had fun just eating that watermelon and spitting out the pips while everyone went by.”) and being disappointed with the silly part she had to play. This 1974 interview sums up her experience, with its ups and downs:

"I was the only unhappy one in that film because I didn’t know they were going to be so authentic. And Mr. Selznick understood. He was a very understanding man. He knew it was a stupid part and I was an intelligent person and he thoroughly agreed with me that it wasn’t a very pleasant part to play. However, I did my best. My very best. And Mammy said, 'You’ll never come to Hollywood again. You complain too much.' One day Clark Gable said to me, 'What’s the matter, Prissy?' As if to say, 'If they’re not nice to you around here, I have some pull.' But I was just generally unhappy. I didn’t want to be that little slave. I didn’t want to play that stupid part. I was just whining and crying. I was a stupid girl. That’s what Prissy was. Hahahahahaha. . . . But now I get more for a one-night stand on a college campus, twice as much as I did for a full week then. One never knows what the agent received under the table but I received only $200 a week. And Selznick kept me on the payroll longer than anyone because he appreciated my efforts. My contract was for only six weeks, but I was there for almost a full year, just to speak a wild line like 'Miss Scarlett! Miss Scarlett!' Clark Gable was a perfect gentleman. And Vivien Leigh worked so hard."

--In Tinkerbelle, “McQueen for a Day,” Andy Warhol’s Interview 4, no. 11, November 1974, 18–19

To read more about what other people thought of Butterfly's performance as Prissy and what her career was like after Gone with Wind join us tomorrow!

* Most internet sources give January 7 as Butterfly McQueen's birth date. Though her birth certificate will technically only be accessible starting with tomorrow (because Florida has a hundred-year rule to releasing official records), according to Stephen Bourne, a copy of a Social Security application Thelma filled in in 1937 was located by genealogist Deborah Montgomorie and in it she writes her date of birth as January 8. The large majority of printed encyclopedias that include McQueen also list January 8 as her birthday, so there is plenty of reason to consider it valid, even though the combined authority of IMDB and wikipedia disagrees.

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 17: Scarlett's Red and White Christmas Dress

Fresh on the heels of Scarlett's green Christmas dress, the Doppelganger Dresses series is delighted to bring you Scarlett's other Christmastime outfit from Gone with the Wind: the charming red and white gown she wears to say goodbye to Ashley as he returns to war. This dress is one of my all-time favorite costumes from Gone with the Wind, and I think Walter Plunkett did an inspired job in creating it.  It hits all the right notes: it's playful without being over the top, girlish without being too demure, festive without screaming "CHRISTMAS" at the top of its lungs.

Little surprise here, it's also grounded in historical style. After the jump, you'll find two dresses from period fashion plates that bear close resemblance to Scarlett's own Christmas gown. One important difference to note: both of our period selections feature long sleeves, as was standard for day dress styles. Plunkett actually did toy with a long-sleeved version of this costume, but opted for the short-sleeved version instead, which he felt made Scarlett look more youthful. 

The fashions are waiting for you after the jump. Check them out and, as always, let us know what you think. Which one reminds you most of Scarlett's red and white Christmas dress? 

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 16: Scarlett's Green Christmas Dress

The Doppelganger Dresses series gets into the holiday spirit this week! For our latest edition, we're delighted to bring you a period inspiration for the enchanting green Christmas dress Scarlett wears over Ashley's Christmas furlough. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have a love-hate relationship with this dress. I love it because it's such a sweetly romantic gown and because Scarlett looks so fetching in it. But I also hate it because Scarlett looks so fetching in it... and it's all for the benefit of that wishy-washy, feckless Ashley Wilkes.  

But let's place my own prejudices aside for a moment and move on to the main attraction: the dress, of course. After the jump, you'll find a period fashion plate that recalls our dashing heroine's own Christmas outfit. Check it out and let us know what you think! 

And be sure to stay tuned for next week's installment of Doppelganger Dresses, where we'll feature Scarlett's other Christmas costume from Gone with the Wind, the red and white dress she wears to say goodbye to Ashley as he returns to war. 

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 15: Carreen's Checked Skirt and Vest from the Prayer Scene

Carreen O'Hara returns for an encore appearance in our latest edition of the Doppelganger Dresses series. This time, we've found a historical fashion plate that matches up nicely  with the checked skirt and vest that she wears in during the family prayer scene at the beginning of the movie. 

Check it out after the jump and, as always, let us know what you think! 

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 14: Bonnie's Blue Velvet Riding Habit

We have a beautiful, if tragic, costume from Gone with the Wind to feature as this week's Doppelganger Dresses entry: Bonnie Blue Butler's blue velvet riding habit. 

The matching fashion plate is waiting for you after the jump. Does it look like Bonnie's riding habit to you? Let us know what you think in the comments!