Fans celebrate film’s milestone

Press, 18 December 1989, Page 8

Fans celebrate film’s milestone

NZPA-AP Atlanta Thousands of fans, many in costume, turned out to re-create the festivities surrounding the premiere of “Gone With the Wind” on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the Civil War movie classic. Some of the original cast was on hand for the gala “repremiere,” in Atlanta on Saturday evening, but the movie itself was the star of the show. The crowd applauded everything, from the title as it swept across the screen to the stars’ names as the credits rolled.

Ten surviving cast members — all had minor roles — were on hand. Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Wilkes, sent a letter to be read to the audience. She said the stars Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh would live on through the film, and “I’ll be with you too.” Gable, who played Rhett Butler, and Leigh, who portrayed Scarlett O'Hara, both died in the 19605. Margaret Mitchell, the Atlanta author whose Pulitzer prizewinning novel became one of the world’s most popular movies,

died in 1949. When the surviving cast members were introduced by the talkshow host Larry King, the loudest applause went to Butterfly McQueen, the child-voiced actress who played the slave Prissy. McQueen was barred from the 1939 premiere, held in a whitesonly theatre. But on Saturday evening she entertained the crowd with lines from her role and a song to the tune of the “Tara” theme. Fans from as far away as Australia came for the event, but the crowd was far smaller than

the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the December 15, 1939, premiere at Loews Grand Theatre. This time only a few hundred people gathered in cold, cloudy weather to watch a recreation of the motorcade. And the parade did not head for the Loews Grand, torn down after it was gutted by fire in 1978. Its stand-in was, the Fox Theatre, an ornate 1920 s movie palace restored in the 19705. Before the screening, cast members helped cut a huge cake in the shape of the plantation Tara.