Discovery of Scarlett

With MGM opening its archives, S. Raghunath reveals how the most coveted and
 publicised role in the history of motion pictures went to Vivien Leigh

THE story of how the role of Scarlett O’Hara was finally filled in the screen version of Gone With The Wind has only now been revealed with Metro-Goldwyn Meyer (MGM) opening its archives to movie historians and researchers.

Reams of high-octane publicity accompanied the casting of this picture with contests being sponsored all over the United States (and even as far as Europe) to discover the unknown beauty to play the coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara, but Hollywood regarded all this as mere malarkey and it was considered a certainty (or "cinch" in quaint American jargon (that either Joan Bennett or Paulette Goddard would win
the contract.

David Selznick, executive producer at the MGM studios in Culver City called a press conference for a Friday morning to announce the full cast of the film. Bennet and Goddard were both guests of Selznick the preceding weekend and according to the all-knowing Hedda Hopper, they were both confident and assured each other a dozen times, "I know it’s going to be you, my dear!"

Two days earlier, on Wednesday, there appeared at the busy agency of David Selznick’s brother Myron an English actor named Laurence Olivier (Yes, the Laurence Olivier) who signed a contract appointing the Selznick agency as his legal representative in the States and according to MGM papers, Myron asked Olivier quite casually, "There’s going to be a big show in David’s studio tomorrow night. They’re going to burn down the Atlanta sets for Margaret Mitchell’s film. Want to come along?" "Sure," said Olivier, "Can I bring a girl with me?" "Why not?"
replied Myron.

The next day, Olivier appeared on the sets with one Vivien Leigh. She had played a bit role in an obscure film called An Yank at Oxford, but was lost and unnoticed in the galaxy of stars that had turned out for the
Selznick show.

A torch was applied to the massive sets and an orange red glow lit up the evening sky and Leigh watched entranced, her sylph-like profile etched against the dancing flames. Myron Selznick noticed her, gulped hard and tugged brother David by the arm. "Come," he ordered tensely, "and see Scarlett O’Hara watching the burning of Atlanta."

That was Thursday night and the next morning when reporters were gathering in the outer office, David Selznick made a silent photographic test of Leigh and waited in the dark room while it was being developed. A few minutes later, he made the dramatic announcement for which a movie hungry world was waiting anxiously. An unheralded English girl who had not even set her eyes on the script of Gone With The Wind was to play the most coveted and most publicised role in the history of motion pictures.

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