Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (23 page)

On September 21, the day of the senior Brett's funeral, Stephens Mitchell, in his role as the author's legal counsel, responded to the publisher. The lawyer blasted back at the junior Brett's characterization of events. Apparently not aware there had been a death in the Brett family, the lawyer pulled no punches. In an eight-page missive, he set forth in excruciating detail how the movie contract came to be signed under the auspices of Macmillan acting as the author's agent. When he and his sister arrived in New York, they were met by Macmillan representatives, all arrangements were made by Macmillan, and they were accompanied by Macmillan personnel every step of the way. During the negotiations, neither Richard Brett nor the Macmillan lawyer denied being her agent, though that term had been used throughout the meetings. As for Williams, the Mitchells never had any business discussions with her or otherwise dealt with her as an agent. Giving George Brett the benefit of the doubt, Stephens Mitchell assumed the publisher had not been aware of these facts when he wrote his initial response. With the correct information now before him, the author's brother demanded that Brett reconsider his position. Anything less than a retraction would have serious repercussions: “Mrs. Marsh's present and future dealings with your company on other matters will unavoidably be affected by her ability to feel the same confidence in The Macmillan Company in the future that she has felt in the past.”
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Upon receipt of this written assault, Brett delved deeper into the matter and realized he had misstated the essential facts. He called Stephens Mitchell to apologize and extended an olive branch by inviting him to New York at Macmillan's expense to talk through the movie contract. They were on the verge of reconciling when the author's brother pushed his luck. He wrote Brett that he would be pleased to come to New York with the understanding that Macmillan would pay his travel expenses, as well as the billable hours he had spent drafting the September 21 letter and the time he would spend away from the office for their meeting.
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To those familiar with the Mitchell-Marsh family, this response was nothing unusual. Stephens Mitchell had a good sense of humor, as one of his law partners recalled years later, unless “he suspected someone was trying to take advantage of him. . . . [Then] he could be as rough as a cob.”
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The Mitchells took pride in being meticulous in their affairs and keeping a careful eye on every penny. If they were owed money, they expected to be paid. If they owed a debt, they paid it when due. Brett would come to learn that this scrupulousness was part of the family's unique charm. However, he did not see it that way at the time. He was incensed by the lawyer's gall and wrote back, telling him once again, in effect, to get lost.

Oblivious to how their fastidiousness came across to others, the Atlantans were at a loss to understand Brett's reaction. The publisher seemed “highly incensed about something,” Margaret Mitchell acknowledged, but she could not figure out what.
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If Brett did not want her brother to come to New York, why had he asked him to? If he objected to the attorney's fees, why had he said all expenses would be paid?

With Harold Latham still on vacation, Cole was stuck squarely in the middle. Her husband, Allan Taylor, wrote to Mitchell on October 3, explaining that Cole came home from work “pretty much cut up” over the discord between her boss and friend. Out of concern for Cole's nerves, Taylor tried to act as an intermediary by assuring the author that she was misjudging Brett. Taylor described the publisher as a fair-minded person, “a nice chap and a gentleman, with many qualities that a southerner in particular would appreciate.” If Mitchell assumed that he was some “slick Yankee trying to do anybody in,” she was off base. “Like a lot of other people he is pleasant to deal with when he figures he is being met halfway, but like most of the rest of us, he may be inclined to get his back up when he thinks he is being pushed around. He is not a lawyer, remember. . . . He is a nice fellow, with normal human reactions.” Taylor hoped that with this perspective, Mitchell might be willing to make peace with Brett.
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Mitchell respected Taylor's opinions but was not ready to mend fences. She had been frustrated with Macmillan on several occasions over the previous year but had kept things on a professional level. As long as they were working toward a common goal—the success of
Gone With the Wind
—she could overlook many things. Here, for the first time, Mitchell took Macmillan's position personally. Her trust was damaged. Apparently unwilling to discuss matters with Brett any further, she looked to Latham to make things right.

After all, the editor was arguably at fault for the entire situation. He was the one who convinced her to sell the movie rights and to let Macmillan represent her, then dropped out of sight on an extended vacation, from which he had yet to return. If Latham had been in New York throughout the summer, they would likely not have reached such a perilous point. The editor could have made sure Mitchell's concerns about script review were vetted earlier in the negotiations. He could have counseled Mitchell during the New York meeting more sensitively than had Richard Brett and the Macmillan lawyer. And, after the fact, he almost certainly would have handled matters more gently than did George Brett.

Yet, she did not browbeat Latham into fixing the mess he had helped create. In her dealings with him, she always used her best manners. On September 23, 1936, she wrote the editor, begging his pardon for bothering him, but stating there was a serious matter he needed to know about. She described how Brett had denied that Macmillan was her agent and how “upsetting and distressing” this had been. She reminded Latham, “as you know, I was besieged with requests from people wanting to be my agent, Miss Williams among others. I refused them all and would never have had any agent had you not offered the service of Macmillan.”
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She did not criticize Latham for his lack of attentiveness on such a crucial matter or ask him for any form of assistance. She closed by stating that she just thought he should know.

She followed up with another, much chattier, letter two days later. She asked the editor for his advice about the serial rights to her book and inquired about his vacation. She continued for two pages in a friendly tone with no mention of the movie contract. Only in the closing paragraph did she broach the subject of her discontent. It must be one of the most artful rebukes ever written:

The end of your vacation is drawing near, I suppose and how sorry you must be! But what a grand long one it was! I envy you your vacation. I only hope that some time, some day I'll be well enough to take one and that the pressure of work will let up on John so that he can get away, too. His work has been doubled because of my eye trouble for he has had to do so much of my work. He's fagged and so am I.
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Then, in a postscript, she mentioned the elephant in the room: “As you can see, I am still writing to you frankly and freely about things on my mind, in spite of my disagreement with The Macmillan Company. . . . I certainly hope that difficulty can be cleared up promptly, for I want to regain the feeling of confidence in The Macmillan Company which I have had all along until that trouble arose.”
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On October 6, the day Latham returned to the office after his fourmonth absence, he read Mitchell's letters and also got an earful from his coworkers about what had gone on in his absence. Eager to quell the unrest, he wrote Mitchell that same day stating how relieved he was, given all that had happened, that she had written him in such candid terms. He assured the author that everyone at Macmillan remained enthusiastic about her work and he was at her service for any advice and assistance she might need. That said, Latham did not accept responsibility for what had happened, nor did he agree with Mitchell's description of herself as the innocent victim. In the first place, Macmillan did not appreciate her unleashing her lawyer brother on the company. Never in his twenty-five years in the publishing business, he said, had the firm been required to deal with an author's lawyer. He professed to have difficulty expressing the hurt feelings that his associates felt over the matter. Latham also let her know that she had nothing to complain about as far as Macmillan's efforts on her behalf: “If I can say so without appearing to brag, I think that we have done a job of publishing for you which could not have been done by any publisher in America.” He related how that very afternoon a man who had been in publishing for forty years stopped him on the street and congratulated him, saying that Macmillan's work on
Gone With the Wind
was the best promotion job he had seen in his entire career.
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Latham then considered the issue at hand—whether his absence over the previous months was at the root of Mitchell's complaints with the movie contract. He concluded probably not. Holding the party line, he claimed that Macmillan had been her agent only in obtaining the offer but that she had been represented in the sale negotiations by her own lawyer, as if the mere act of bringing her brother to the meeting had terminated the agency relationship with Macmillan. Regardless of whether Latham could have prevented the problem or whose fault it was, he wanted the damage repaired. Matters were now in the hands of the lawyers, so he worried about the propriety of writing to her in such a personal and frank manner but felt it was necessary if they were to resume the cordial relationship they had enjoyed over the previous year. He and everyone at Macmillan wanted the “misunderstandings” cleared up.
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What were Latham's feelings about the discord between Mitchell and Macmillan? On the face of it, he seemed to want to make amends despite Brett's position. Though some sources have cast Latham in the role of Mitchell's white knight, he was a Macmillan employee, and that is where his primary loyalties lay. In fact, Latham ran his letter by Brett before sending it to Mitchell. Brett, in turn, had the company's legal counsel review the reply.
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While that does not negate the sincerity of the sentiments expressed, it does highlight Latham's conflicted position and belies his claim that the letter was personal.

Although never admitting error, Macmillan was willing to make one concession—Mitchell could take back the foreign rights to her novel. If she accepted them, she would be entitled to keep all the royalties on any translations, thus making her obligation to protect the foreign copyrights under the “God Almighty clause” in the Selznick contract less unfair.
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In discussing the transfer with the Marshes, Brett downplayed the gesture, saying that foreign rights were often not worth the nuisance they caused.
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He also structured the return of rights to protect Macmillan's interests. Mitchell could have them provided she ensured all foreign translations would (1) contain the Macmillan copyright notice, and (2) never be distributed within the United States.

The Marshes took the gesture—whatever lay behind it—at face value. The couple had no clear idea of what to do with the foreign rights or whether they would prove profitable but thanked Macmillan for its “generous attitude” and accepted Brett's conditions. What the Marshes did not realize is that, as a practical matter, these were terms with which Mitchell could never guarantee compliance. She had no control over what publishers did or did not include in their books and she certainly had no way of preventing foreign books from being distributed in the United States. Further evidence of their naı¨vete´ was revealed when she signed the papers accepting the rights. The transfer instrument contained a standard legalese provision stating that the agreement was reached “in consideration of the sum of one dollar to each in hand paid.” When Marsh sent Cole the signed agreement, he enclosed a check for one dollar.
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Latham returned the check to him, explaining that the reference to exchanging dollars was a formality and did not require the transfer of any money. He pointed out that, if Macmillan accepted the check, it would have to send him its own check for one dollar.
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In accepting the return of the foreign rights from Macmillan, Mitchell resigned herself to being bound by the Selznick contract for better or worse. She could have fought harder for Macmillan to shoulder some of the obligations under the “God Almighty clause” but took no steps to escalate the antagonism brewing between her and the publisher. She did not have the energy for it, nor did she want to risk her complaints turning into a public controversy. However, this did not mean Macmillan and Selznick were off the hook for what she considered a bum deal.

* Macmillan did not, however, disclose the number of copies sold to anyone except the author. Sales figures are typically tabulated once a year, when returns are accounted for and it is time to pay royalties. On occasion, the press failed to understand the distinction and oversensationalized the figures by reporting the number of copies printed as the number sold. However, with demand outpacing production, the distinction proved a minor one. As with many sales figures from yesteryear, a note of caution is warranted. Even documents and letters in the publisher's files cannot always be taken at face value. From the beginning, sometimes the running totals figures added to the dust jackets and the printing history inside the books did not match each other and often did not match Macmillan's official records or its print ads. But it is understandable how the everchanging figures sometimes got ahead of the typesetters and Blanton's advertising staff. Sales departments at Macmillan's main office in New York and at the branch offices across the country took orders over the telephone, as well as juggled requests from sales reps in the field and from individual bookstores, all using pen and paper, not computers and spreadsheets.

8
The Reluctant Celebrity