Why Vivien Leigh walked out of a screening of ‘Gone with the Wind’: “This is so upsetting”
Adjusted for inflation, 1939’s Gone with the Wind is still the highest-grossing movie of all time. Based on Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling novel, it is set during and after the American Civil War and follows Scarlett O’Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner. Producer David O Selznick spent years looking for the right actor to play Scarlett, auditioning over a thousand hopefuls who ran the gamut from complete unknowns to the biggest stars of the decade. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Lana Turner, and Joan Crawford were all considered, only to lose the role to a relatively anonymous British actor, Vivien Leigh.
Leigh had only appeared in a handful of movies at that point, but she proved that she could not only don a Southern accent but embody Scarlett’s fiery, self-centred charm. She earned an Oscar for her performance, and although her chemistry with Clark Gable as Rhett Butler is key to the film’s success, it’s safe to assume that without her, Gone with the Wind would not be the seminal piece of cinematic history that it is today.
There is no way to star in the most successful film ever made and not have it overshadow the rest of your career, but Leigh continued to deliver excellent performances. She even earned a second Oscar for her portrayal of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Off screen, she struggled with poor health, including bipolar disorder and tuberculosis, which led to her death in 1967 at the age of 53.
In her later years, Leigh went back to the theatre, where she met a very young Patrick Stewart. He was 20 years old when they worked together for the Old Vic, but they struck up a friendship. She even went to his 21st birthday party. At one point during their collaboration, the touring company they were in had the opportunity to watch a re-release of Gone with the Wind, and Stewart got to sit right next to the real Scarlett O’Hara.
In a conversation with Conan O’Brien on his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Stewart remembered how excited he was for the occasion and how quickly he realised that something was wrong. “I saw that she was touching her face quite often,” he said, “And then finally, she turned to me, and she took my hand, and she said, ‘Patrick, I’m going to have to leave. This is so upsetting. You see, so many of these lovely people I worked with are dead, and it’s upsetting me so much.'”
She thanked him for being there, said that she hoped he enjoyed the rest of the film, and excused herself. Stewart was blown away by her graciousness. “She could’ve just left,” he said. There was no reason for her to thank him and explain why she needed to cut the evening short. “She was a superstar,” he continued, “There was no actress today that’s ever been bigger.”
By that point in the early 1960s, Clark Gable had passed away, as had Leslie Howard, who played Scarlett’s first love, Ashley Wilkes. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, Scarlett’s maid, and who became the first Black actor to win an Oscar, had also died. Of the main cast, only Olivia de Havilland, who played Ashley’s wife, Melanie, was still alive. She ended up surviving Leigh by many decades, passing away in 2020 at 104.
