Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (26 page)

Despite the press having publicly discussed ad nauseam the author's reluctance to give speeches and make public appearances
,
Mitchell spent countless hours declining invitations. She thought people should have known better than to ask but felt each one deserved a detailed, timely, and courteous explanation.
⁴²
Pleas for handouts were also denied, subject to occasional exceptions where the favor sought did not seem overreaching. To a woman who asked for a handkerchief to be auctioned off for charity, Mitchell sent a green one with “Peggy” embroidered on it. To fellow authors, Mitchell refused all requests that she review or blurb books but gave generously of her advice, especially to young writers.*

On top of responding to fan mail, Mitchell also kept up a steady stream of correspondence with members of the press. While she did not want to give interviews, she tracked her clippings and sent letters of correction to any reporters who published incorrect information about her or the book. To those who supported her work, the author continued her practice of writing thank-you notes. When an unsigned “Gossip of the Book World” column in the
Los Angeles Times
made a passing reference to
Gone With the
Wind
being worthy of both the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes, Mitchell wrote to the newspaper's Paul Jordan-Smith, wondering if he was the author and thanking him, saying she nearly “fainted from excitement.”
⁴³
Mitchell clearly had a knack for making friends in the press, as evidenced by Jordan-Smith's response. He pleaded guilty to having placed the blurb and was “not ashamed of it.” He did not see “any good reason why you should not land one or both, save that usually the Pulitzers go to dumbbells.” He added:

I suppose the reason why prize books are commonly dull is that the committees are made up of middle-aged morons. But if old Pulitzer were alive to direct the thing, you'd certainly get it under the explicit direction of his orders. As for the Nobel folk, they're more intelligent and ought to easily see yours as the best thing America or any other dang country has had in fiction for quite a spell.
⁴⁴

Mitchell also had to respond to requests for autographed copies of
Gone With the Wind
. On a daily basis, the mail contained stacks of books that fans had sent in the hope she would sign and return them. For the first several months after publication, the author obliged, inscribing the books as instructed and mailing them back, regardless of whether return postage had been included. She only said no to bulk requests from bookstores. In late October, Rich's, still regretting not hosting an event that summer, tried to guilt Mitchell into signing two hundred copies, claiming its customers were “clamoring” for her autograph.
⁴⁵
Mitchell remained unswayed by the store's attempts to flatter her.
⁴⁶
Macmillan, too, wanted more autographed copies but had learned to handle her with kid gloves when asking a favor. To make it as easy as possible, the company proposed sending the author endpapers to sign instead of shipping her a case of books or asking her to stop by the Atlanta office. The solicitous routine worked. Mitchell was hard-pressed to refuse, admitting, “I don't believe this small amount of work could possibly hurt me.”
⁴⁷
Still, Alec Blanton walked on eggshells when he sent her the package of papers, saying there were only thirty, but she should not hesitate to stop at any point if the signing became too taxing for her.
⁴⁸

That summer and fall, Mitchell devoted her life to sifting through letters, writing responses, packing signed books, and standing in line at the post office. The workload was so intense that the Marshes hired temporary stenographers to come to the apartment in shifts—one working from nine in the morning until five o'clock, while the other covered evenings from seven o'clock until midnight.
⁴⁹
Mitchell's housekeeper, Bessie Jordan, also pitched in, as did Marsh, who helped on nights and weekends. Though grueling work, answering her mail was not something the author felt she could turn her back on considering the public had showered her with kindness and admiration. Assuming the interest could not last forever, she was willing to be gracious until things died down.

As months passed without Mitchell making any public appearances, the excuse that she suffered from eyestrain or postrelease exhaustion wore thin. By mid-fall, rumors began circulating in the press that there was something more sinister afoot—that she was an invalid, blind, paralyzed, or abnormally shy and could not stand talking to people. Hating rumormongering and sloppy reporting even more than the spotlight, Mitchell had no choice but to set the record straight. She enjoyed sound health, or at least relatively so, and simply did not wish to dwell in the limelight.

Recognizing this might cause her to appear ungrateful for the attention people gave her, the Marshes wanted to present her position in a sympathetic light. As a former newspaperman with years of experience in the public relations field, Marsh had definite ideas about how a problem like this should be managed. He arranged an in-depth series of six articles by the
Atlanta Constitution
's city editor, Lamar Q. Ball, whom the Marshes knew and trusted. They fed him information designed to create an appealing persona for Mitchell, while also excusing her reluctance to appear in the public eye. As Stephens Mitchell described it, Marsh set about to portray her as “a pleasant, gracious housewife, interested in social graces, not wishing to have her name before the public, not interested in art or music or literature except as they fulfilled the necessity of social obligations, a good housekeeper, a pleasant hostess, civic-minded in a polite sense.”
⁵⁰

The articles Ball wrote are almost comical in the portrait they paint of the author as a simple housewife bewildered by the attention surrounding her. When asked to reveal her next ambition, now that “success had enfolded [her] in its comforting embrace,” she responded that she wanted to get her hair washed, buy a couple of dresses, and see the next Marx Brothers movie.
⁵¹
As to why she had not yet moved to the upscale Pace's Ferry area of Atlanta with a house full of servants, she responded, “Great heavens, no! Bessie is all I need. I don't know what I would do with a personal lady's maid. I'd never feel comfortable if I hadn't put on my own clothes.”
⁵²
She professed to be an avid Donald Duck fan and to enjoy relaxing at home wearing a pair of plain corduroy trousers and one of her husband's old shirts. Her book's success was “all too glamorous,” she professed. “When I hear from my publishers that they have printed another edition, all I can say is ‘Good Heavens.' ”
⁵³

In Ball's final installment, Mitchell let it be known that she appreciated the public's affection but wanted to live her life in peace. She had not set out to become a public figure, like an actress or a politician. She did not like women chasing her into changing rooms in department stores while she stood there in her slip trying on a dress. “They actually did this to me,” she lamented. “They questioned me like a crowd of hard-hearted district attorneys. They wanted to know the size of my intimate wearing apparel. They screamed to one another . . . ‘Ain't she skinny?' while still another observed: ‘I expected her to look more middle-aged around the hips.' ” She concluded the anecdote with the simple statement, “I don't like to have them comment on the fact that I have no lace on my petticoat.”
⁵⁴
The message was clear: Margaret Mitchell was a nice lady who wanted to be left alone.

Stephens Mitchell did not think much of the prim image they were creating of his far-from-shy-and-retiring sister. However, when he expressed his reservations, the Marshes held firm. They encouraged friends and family members to refrain from talking about her in public, especially to the press, and were vocal in their displeasure when ranks were broken.
⁵⁵
When college chum Ginny Morris reported she had been asked to write an “I-knew-her-when” story about the author for
Photoplay
magazine, Mitchell begged her friend to turn down the offer. “I'm tired out. I want to get out of the spotlight more earnestly than you or anybody else could possibly believe.” She also reminded Morris that she was not connected with the motion picture and saw no reason for a story about her to run in a movie magazine.
⁵⁶
Morris agreed not to pursue the piece, observing, “It's indeed a shame, Peggy, that you can't enjoy the terrific success of your book.”
⁵⁷
Cole also thought this reclusive persona was an ill-fitting one for her outgoing friend and noted that, when the Taylors spent time with Mitchell after the book's release, it would take the author time to “loosen up and be natural even with us.”
⁵⁸
Cole and her husband felt sorry Mitchell did not seem comfortable with her success. At times, they were bemused by her recalcitrance, which, to some extent, they blamed on Marsh. The Taylors were fond of him but could not help feeling that the author might have enjoyed things more if not for his decision to build a wall around her.
⁵⁹

Marsh's plan might have worked, except for one thing: Macmillan was not going to let
Gone With the Wind
follow Mitchell into obscurity. In the first week of December, the firm announced that the millionth copy would come off the presses at mid-month.
⁶⁰
The novel was doing wonderful things for Macmillan's financial health. Company records indicate that the publisher earned $1.62 for each copy sold. For the New York office alone, this amounted to a gross income on this single book of almost $1.5 million by the end of 1936.
⁶¹
Generous Christmas bonuses were in store that year for the firm's rank and file, for which Mitchell would be remembered fondly in years to come.
⁶²

Blanton, the company's sales manager, saw the millionth copy as a perfect opportunity to reinvigorate the advertising campaign in time for the holiday shopping season. To kick things off, he arranged for American Express, then still a delivery business, to plaster its vans with
Gone With the
Wind
posters touting the big news.
⁶³
Macmillan also spent an estimated eleven thousand dollars to run a full-page, five-color advertisement for the book in the
Saturday Evening Post
. Large ads were placed in more than one hundred daily newspapers and several major magazines, including
Time
and the
New Yorker
.
⁶⁴

The world-weary author did not even try to feign indifference to news of the millionth copy. She may not have liked the way
Gone With the Wind
turned her life upside down, but even she had to admit to being impressed by this achievement. She wired Macmillan asking if she could have the landmark volume.
⁶⁵
Brett agreed, and Latham developed a special handlettered dedication page that congratulated Mitchell on her book's success.
⁶⁶
In thanking the editor for the gesture, Mitchell wrote, “Of course, there was no possible Christmas gift that could have pleased me more, but I felt rather dazed as I looked at it for I still cannot believe it is true.”
⁶⁷

Although the author would have been happy to fade away on the heels of this milestone, her adoring readers refused to cooperate. In the wake of all the attention that December, and with the gift-giving season in full force, the letters continued to arrive in bulk, and demand for signed books multiplied exponentially, up to hundreds per day on occasion.
⁶⁸
And the national press showed no signs of respecting Mitchell's wishes to live in peace. Perhaps most glaringly, in December, the just-launched
Life
magazine featured a four-page spread on
Gone With the Wind
, including a photograph of the author's apartment building and the helpful tip that she lived in Unit 9.

And despite Marsh's efforts to convince the world his wife was a simple homebody, the rumor mill spun out of control. The more successful the book became, the more outlandish the stories that circulated about its reclusive author. Mitchell read she had a wooden leg, owned a yacht, went on a shopping spree in New York and spent ten thousand dollars on new dresses, was seventeen years old, had leased a penthouse in New York, had bought an antebellum Georgia plantation, was set to receive a million dollars for writing a play, and had agreed to play Melanie in Selznick's movie. She could laugh at much of the gossip but found upsetting rumors that her marriage had failed or that Marsh had died. Also troubling were reports that she had not written
Gone With the Wind
. All manner of theories circulated that she could not possibly have done the job alone. Some claimed she had pepped up a novel drafted by her father or brother. Others suggested that Sinclair Lewis was the author. Speculation also ran wild that Marsh wrote substantial portions of the book, if not the entire thing. When this rumor found its way into the
Washington Post
, Mitchell sobbed with frustration. While her husband played a formative role in the development of
Gone
With the Wind
, both of the Marshes and those around them knew his role had been inspirational, supportive, and editorial. She, and she alone, had written the book. Perhaps because of these suspicions, Marsh declined to sign a copy of
Gone With the Wind
when a cousin asked him for the favor that December. He explained, “I haven't done that yet in any copy of the book and I don't aim to. It's Peggy's book, and she is the one to do the autographing. She paid me the highest compliment when she put my ‘JRM' on the dedication page, and that will have to do for me.”
⁶⁹