After signing his contract, Howard sent a telegram to Margaret Mitchell that included the immortal lines, “I feel it a great honour to have been selected to enact one of the roles of your book, the title of which escapes me at the moment.” His price was the promise of producing his next picture, Intermezzo. Leslie Howard was also reluctant to be cast as weak-willed Ashley Wilkes. Aged 46, he felt that he was far too old to play a character that begins the film aged 21. The deal was sweetened by sufficient enough remuneration for the star that he could obtain a ‘quickie’ divorce from second wife Ria Langham and marry screwball star Carole Lombard. Due to the studio-rules nature of the era though, Gable didn’t have much choice.

Gable himself wasn’t keen, worrying that his macho image would be damaged by a required crying scene and the fact that Scarlett doesn’t hanker after him for the entire film. According to a studio poll the public’s overwhelming favourite for the role of dashing but dangerous Rhett (with 98% of the vote) was the resident ‘King of Hollywood’, Clark Gable. He hired Sidney Howard as screenwriter, and so began the long and arduous process of birthing Gone with the Wind.Ĭasting for Gone with the Wind proved a monumental task – and headache – although its results were sublime.

Selznick purchased the film rights for $50,000. In July 1936, only one month after the novel’s publication, producer David O. Starting out as a book in 1936, written by first-time author Margaret Mitchell (who won the Pulitzer Prize for her efforts), the novel’s instantaneous acclaim pricked up Hollywood’s ears.

Sidney howard gone with the wind