The Search for Scarlett O’Hara

A drawing of the unknown Scarlett with Clark Gable depicted as Rhett

In 1936, three search teams were sent out in pursuit of Scarlett O’Hara: one team to the West, one to the North and one to the South. The southern team would be headed by Kay Brown, David Selznick’s New York assistant, who’d brought Gone With The Wind to his attention and hammered away at him until he purchased the movie rights. They would scour college campuses and small theaters across the states. Kay wrote this funny letter to Selznick, “We are in Atlanta, barricaded in our rooms. The belles turned out in droves. For the most part they were all healthy mothers who should have stayed at home; the rich debutantes are all offering to pay us to play Scarlett… I feel like Moses in the Wilderness… I need a drink and Georgia is a dry state.”

The first actress to complete a screen test for Gone With The Wind was Louise Platt in September, 1936. The rumour mill was grinding away during the search. Bette Davis was the most popular actress with the fans to play Scarlett. In January 1937, the top five leading contenders, as faithfully reported by the newspapers, for the role were: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Constance Bennett, Katharine Hepburn and Tallulah Bankhead.

Tallulah Bankhead in her screen test for Scarlett O’Hara

Selznick sent a wire to Tallulah Bankhead, who naturally wanted to know if she had the part after being tested, “Dear Tallulah, The tests are very promising indeed. Am still worried about the first part of the story and frankly if I had to give you an answer now it would be no, but if we can leave it open I can say to you very honestly that I think there is a strong possibility. I should like to continue looking around and a little later on consider the advisability of making further tests with you… using dialogue… directed by George [Cukor]. These tests should be beneficial to your chances… and from our standpoint they would really give us a clear idea as to how you would be as Scarlett. In short, I think you are a definite possibility, but I cannot give you an answer for some time.”

Testing for Gone With the Wind

Other young ladies being tested for Gone With The Wind were Alicia Rhett, Susan Falligant, Louisa Robert and Adele Longmire. They were all found during the Scarlett search. Alicia Rhett was discovered on-stage and was later signed to play India Wilkes, Ashley’s sister.

Testing for Gone With the Wind

Bette Davis lobbied hard for Warner Bros. to buy Gone With The Wind for her. Even after Selznick snapped up the movie rights, Bette still wanted to play Scarlett. And she was offered up to Selznick in a package deal, with Errol Flynn as the dashing Rhett Butler. At the time, Bette didn’t have a high opinion of Flynn’s acting, “The part of Mr. Flynn as Rhett Butler appalled me. I refused.” 

According to Jack Warner: Before Selznick decided on Vivien Leigh, he came to me with a proposition to lend him Bette Davis and Errol Flynn as a costarring package for the picture. Bette was fond of Errol… but she was also realistic about Errol’s limited acting talent. She refused to have any part of the deal, and that was her last chance for the part.

Bette Davis as Jezebel

David Selznick wrote to Ed Sullivan: Certainly you ought to know that Warner Bros. wouldn’t give Bette Davis up for a picture to be released through MGM, even had we wanted Miss Davis in preference to a new personality. Warner Bros. offered me Errol Flynn for Butler and Bette Davis for Scarlett if I would release the picture through Warners– and this would have been an easy way out of my dilemma. But the public wanted Gable.

Warner Bros. gave Bette Jezebel, her first costumed film. Of course, the Scarlett O’Hara comparisons started immediately. “Tush, Tush,” said Bette to the rumors. “The only similarity is that the girl I portray, like Scarlett, is a hundred years ahead of her time. ‘Jezebel’ was a play on Broadway two and a half years before ‘Gone With The Wind’ ever appeared.”

Miriam Hopkins

Miriam Hopkins was a huge favorite in the polls to play Scarlett and like Scarlett, she was a Georgia girl. She lobbied her studio, United Artists, to purchase Gone With The Wind. On not getting the role, Miriam said in 1937, “It’s a fat role for any actress. But, although I got votes from every section of the country, although shop girls, hairdressers everywhere, they all stopped me and asked me to play her, although even my mother says I should have done it because we’re from the South and her name is the same as Scarlett’s mother, Ellen, even with all those reasons I can only tell the truth. I’ve never been asked. I just wasn’t invited to the party.”

Susan Hayward as Scarlett and Dorothy Jordan as Melanie Wilkes

Arleen Whelan

“Here’s something you might want to know, producers at the Selznick Studios heard about Arleen and asked to see her tests. They were searching for a girl who would fit into the Scarlett O’Hara role and with the permission of 20^th Century Fox, Arleen was farmed out for three months while she learned a southern accent under Selznick tutors. An offer was made to buy her contract from Darryl Zanuck who promptly refused to let go of what he considered the outstanding discovery of the year in Hollywood…” -Tyrone Power

In Arleen’s own words: “Sidney Howard, who wrote the script for Gone With The Wind, saw me in the Brown Derby. He thought I ‘looked like Scarlett’ and he said he knew I was an actress by the way I ate. I’ve been self-conscious about eating ever since. They arranged with Mr. Zanuck to test me. Then they sent me to studying a southern accent, learning how to wear those grand old southern clothes. I’ve never enjoyed any experience so much as that. I’m still studying with the coach I had there- Gertrude Fogler.”

“It was a disappointment not to be able to play Scarlett,” Arleen said, “but I still think I’m the luckiest girl in all the world. From a manicurist table to a sound stage is a long, long jump and no one knows it any better than I.”

Margaret Tallichet surrounded by letters Selznick’s office received in regard to Scarlett.

Norma Shearer

On June 24th, 1938, headlines were made when it was announced that Norma Shearer would play Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable would be cast as Rhett Butler. Five days later, Maxine Garrison wrote, “But I’ve been trying to digest La Shearer as Scarlett for more than two days now and the idea won’t stay put.” Garrison went on to remark that Norma was too groomed to play Scarlett. “…I remember Scarlett vying with the pigs at Tara in digging roots in a denuded garden, grubbing away for months without a thought to her looks… Scarlett driving a heavy wagon from Atlanta to Tara over almost impassable roads. Scarlett being manhandled by Rhett in one of the book’s most vivid scenes, hearing for the first time in her willful life the full list of her sins, squabbling with Rhett like a fishwife. And Norma Shearer just doesn’t fit in there, not in the light of any of her past performances, clever and suave though they have been. She is a master of the movie art of understatement. But Scarlett can’t be played that way. Scarlett is a thousand moods in one, a creature of utter spontaneity, a flash of lightning against the pale landscape in which ladies moved in her day. Perfect grooming had no part in her charm, complete self-control was never one of her virtues.”

On August 1^st, Ms. Shearer formally withdrew from consideration in David Selznick’s epic. She thought herself “unsuited as his leading lady of ‘Gone With The Wind.’” She received several letters from her fans, who voiced their opinions that she shouldn‘t take on the role. “I am convinced the majority of fans who think I should not play this kind of character are right. I have advised Mr. Selznick and Mr. Mayer of my feelings so they will not consider me for the part should the MGM deal with Selznick go through.”

Katharine Hepburn with George Cukor

Paulette Goddard

Vivien Leigh as Serena Blandish, Fall 1938

David Selznick couldn’t wait any longer; with or without a Scarlett, he needed to start filming Gone With The Wind. Several old sets needed to be cleared off the Forty Acres lot so that the sets for Gone With The Wind could be built. On December 10^th, 1938, it was decided to set fire to these old buildings to create the burning of Atlanta sequence. It was at the end of filming this, that David’s brother, Myron Selznick, approached him with two people; one of them was Laurence Olivier and the other, Vivien Leigh.

Two days later, David wrote to his wife, Irene: Saturday night, I was greatly exhilarated by the fire sequence. It was one of the biggest thrills I have had out of making pictures- first, because of the scene itself, and second because of the frightening but exciting knowledge that Gone With The Wind was finally in work. Myron rolled in just exactly too late, arriving about a minute and a half after the last building had fallen and burned and after the shots were completed. With him were Larry Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Shhhhhh: she’s the Scarlett dark horse, and looks damned good. (Not for anybody’s ears but your own: it’s narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivien Leigh).

In 1941, David recalled this moment: Before my brother, Myron… brought Laurence Olivier and Miss Leigh over to the set to see the shooting of the Burning of Atlanta, I had never seen her. When he introduced me to her, the flames were lighting up her face and Myron said, “I want you to meet Scarlett O’Hara.” I took one look and knew that she was right- at least right as far as her appearance went- at least right as far as my conception of how Scarlett O’Hara looked. Later on, her tests, made under George Cukor’s brilliant direction, showed that she could act the part right down to the ground, but I’ll never recover from that first look.

The top four contenders for the role were now Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivien Leigh. In December, 1938, each of them were filmed, in three test scenes: Mammy helps Scarlett into her corset at Tara, Scarlett declares her love for Ashley in the library at Twelve Oaks and the paddock scene with Ashley at Tara.

Jean Arthur as Scarlett

Joan Bennett as Scarlett with Douglass Montgomery as Ashley

Paulette Goddard being made-up for her screen test as Scarlett

Vivien completed her screen tests on December 21^st and 22^nd. On Christmas Day, 1938, George Cukor informed her she had the role of Scarlett O’Hara. She later recalled that moment when Cukor told her, “‘Well, Vivien, I guess we’re stuck with you.’ Like that. As matter of fact as if he’d said, ‘Well, Vivien, have some more turkey.'” 

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara

Finally, after two and a half years, more than 1,400 interviews, 500 readings and screen-tests combined and thousands of dollars spent, Selznick finally had his Scarlett O’Hara.

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara

In addition to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, the search produced Alicia Rhett (India Wilkes), Marcella Martin (Cathleen Calvert) and Mary ’Bebe’ Anderson (Maybelle Merriweather).

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