Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (47 page)

The difficulties with the foreign publishers reached a crisis point in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. Virtually all overseas communication was cut off. Royalty payments became so few and far between that the couple was stunned when any came through. One from the Norwegian publisher took more than a year to reach Atlanta. The Marshes were not sure how the firm got the money out of Europe, but they appreciated the company's diligence and deemed its managers honest and reliable. They were also impressed by the Finnish publishing house, a business operated by a father and his four sons. During the war, the sons fought against the Russians while the patriarch ran the firm alone and somehow managed to send royalties throughout the conflict.
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The delinquent royalties caused Mitchell no substantial hardship, but she felt sorry for Saunders, who relied on commissions off those royalties for her livelihood. On two occasions, the author voluntarily sent the agent five-hundred-dollar advances to tide her over until money could start getting through to the United States again.
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Mitchell told her that, if the funds never came in from the foreign publishers, Saunders did not have to repay her: “I appreciate all that you have done and I want you to have this money, so I hope you will accept.”
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Mitchell also knew Saunders still had family in England and regularly expressed concern about how they were faring. The two women drew closer, sharing a mutual disgust over Hitler's atrocities. Even Marsh apparently felt sympathy for Saunders, as evidenced by his response to an inquiry from government officials investigating foreign nationals working in the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) contacted Marsh to find out whether he had any suspicions or concerns about Saunders. Marsh rose to the agent's defense and asserted there was no reason to doubt her loyalties. She had been open about her hatred of the Nazis, and Marsh told the FBI she was, in his experience, distinctly pro-American.
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Although Mitchell knew little of what was happening with her book in Europe, the novel continued to live a full life during the conflict. After America entered the war, Hitler banned
Gone With the Wind
in Germany and all occupied countries. The Nazis apparently realized the book was not anti-American but rather encouraged survival amidst war and occupation—a theme on which the Third Reich was not particularly keen. Mitchell took great pride in Hitler's disdain though was horrified to hear rumors that people had been shot for possessing a copy of her book.

Despite the ban,
Gone With the Wind
remained popular in Europe and continued to sell well, even in occupied countries where black-market copies went for as much as sixty dollars. Scarlett's determination served as a valued source of comfort to people suffering the horrors of war. An English actress living amidst the bombing of London wrote to thank Mitchell for helping “at least one citizen of London in the ‘front line' to ‘tote the weary load.' ”
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Mitchell's book struck a nerve in the Pacific theater as well. After the war, an American woman visited the Philippines to research a book on her uncle, General Jonathan Wainwright, the senior field commander of American and Filipino forces under General Douglas MacArthur. While there, she met with a Filipino captain who had been through the Battle of Corregidor and the Bataan campaign. The soldier told the woman he had endured the bitter last days of the Japanese invasion by reading
Gone With
the Wind
by campfire. He concealed the book and carried it with him throughout the Death March until, starving, he sold it through the prison gates for a handful of turnips.
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Mitchell's story even provided inspiration and comfort in Nazi concentration camps. Julie Salamon, a former movie critic and columnist for the
Wall Street Journal
, wrote in her 1996 memoir,
The Net of Dreams
, about the strength her Jewish mother drew from
Gone
With the Wind
during her imprisonment at Auschwitz. One of her mother's most vivid recollections from the concentration camp was when her bunkmates recounted from memory stories from books they had read, their favorite being
Gone With the Wind
. Salamon's mother identified with Scarlett, a girl who had lost everything and triumphed.

On the home front, as America's war effort shifted into high gear, Mitchell's fans had more serious things to worry about than Scarlett and Rhett, and this meant a welcome decline in attention directed at the author. She had not exactly fallen into obscurity, though. Atlanta was filled with transient soldiers, and she remained a popular tourist attraction. On one occasion a female Marine lieutenant from New York called the Marsh home early on a Sunday morning asking for help finding living quarters. The woman had no connection to the couple; Mitchell's was the only Atlanta name she knew. She tracked down the author's phone number and put herself in the couple's hands. The Marshes were a little startled at the woman's “Yankee directness,” yet made a few phone calls and found her a place to stay.
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According to Stephens Mitchell, the war brought out the best in his sister. Although she had refused to promote herself for the sake of the book, if the name Margaret Mitchell could help American soldiers, she gladly stepped forward. She volunteered for the Red Cross and raised money selling war bonds. She christened a light cruiser, the U.S.S.
Atlanta
, and its replacement after the first was sunk in the Battle of Guadalcanal. She agreed to write an article for the Treasury Department on the importance of buying bonds. In December 1941, she reported to Latham that she had even plucked up the courage to give a series of speeches to Atlanta schools, in “an effort to get lunch and movie money from the pockets of the little ones.” Proud of making it through the ordeal “without screaming or fainting or having the children burst into uproarious laughter,” the author noted the irony that “the Lord always makes people do the things they least like to do.”
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Selznick, too, supported the war effort—he was active in Hollywood fundraising efforts—yet still seemed fixated on recapturing the glory of his greatest triumph. By late 1941, he finally accepted that Mitchell would never write a sequel and that she could not be persuaded to sell him the rights by promises of great wealth. So he changed tactics and asked Brown to gauge Mitchell's interest in granting him the rights to create a film sequel in exchange for a one-hundred-thousand-dollar donation to a charity of her choice or endowment of a Margaret Mitchell Foundation. He promised her name could be left off the film project entirely and suggested the payment would be free from income tax.
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Again, Mitchell declined—but this time went beyond her usual pleas of being too busy to deal with such a project. Though the author had claimed for years that she had never given any thought to Scarlett and Rhett's future, she confided to Brown that she had, and her answer to the burning question of what happened next is why she could not write a sequel: a happy ending was out of the question. Mitchell explained that when Rhett left Scarlett he was forty-five years old, a relatively advanced age for a man of that generation. His final words about not caring what Scarlett did or where she went indicated that Rhett had finally lost interest in her and would never return. Therefore, Mitchell could not write or authorize a sequel in which the two would reunite—the result she thought the public wanted.
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As a Mitchell family friend recalled the author saying, the most optimistic thought she had for her characters is that Rhett might have taken Scarlett “back into his bed, but not his heart.”
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A sequel was out of the question.

The ever-resourceful Selznick was not prepared to throw in the towel. He had Leigh under contract and wanted another starring role for her. If Mitchell had nothing left to tell of Scarlett's fortunes, would the author consider exploring the life of Scarlett's daughter—a role that Leigh could slip into effortlessly? Yes, little Bonnie had died, but surely other children were possible. With Rhett out of the picture, Mitchell could bring other men into Scarlett's life. The producer suggested an opening scene that introduced a fourth husband.
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He thought Mitchell should be able to churn out a novelette or short story along those lines in a few weeks. Again, Mitchell declined.

Meanwhile, Macmillan continued to sell its three-dollar edition of
Gone With the Wind
, biding its time until it could issue a new cheap edition in 1942 upon expiration of the two-year moratorium it had agreed to as part of the Grosset & Dunlap movie edition remainder deal. The full-priced book continued to sell, but Macmillan was ready for the next big thing and wondered if Mitchell might be ready to write a new novel. In 1941, a member of the shipping department came up with the idea of having readers petition Mitchell to write a sequel or another book; Macmillan could distribute postcards for fans to use in submitting their pleas. Richard Brett loved the idea and proposed to Latham in August that the company create a little publicity excitement by wrapping the cards up and shipping them to Mitchell in some “ritzy” manner.
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He was so enthusiastic that he wanted to offer a reward to the man who came up with the plan. Latham turned his nose up at the proposal and told the younger Brett to forget about it. The editor called the idea unprofessional, undignified, and not something Mitchell would like.
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The scheme went no further. Macmillan would have to stick with the story Mitchell had already written and wait until the following spring to reignite interest in it with a new low-priced edition.

While Mitchell would not have appreciated a publicity stunt to goad her into writing a new book, she apparently was not averse to getting back to work. At the end of 1941, Marsh and Selznick were exchanging letters on the producer's continued interest in acquiring the rights to a theatrical production of
Gone With the Wind
. A stumbling block in Selznick's path was the author's concern that the producer would stage another talent search. This would, Marsh said, further postpone “the time when she can begin writing again, as she ardently wishes to do.”
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On April 29, 1942, with the two-year moratorium almost up, sales manager Alec Blanton dropped Latham a note suggesting they start making plans for another cheap edition of Mitchell's novel. He felt sure the book would sell at least fifty thousand copies, maybe a hundred thousand. A first printing of twenty-five thousand would be perfectly safe, he assured the editor.
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Mitchell admitted to feeling uneasy about Blanton's optimistic sales figures but gave her blessing. As she told Latham, “Your sales department has r'ared back and passed so many miracles since 1936 that I do not worry as much as formerly.”
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Macmillan released the new edition that summer. In keeping with the times, the back of the dust jacket contained ads urging readers to buy U.S. war bonds. The book sold well—about 120,000 copies over the next three years—but not enough to propel Mitchell back into the spotlight. On August 17, 1942, Mitchell reported to Latham that the summer had been blissfully peaceful. People were not plotting “idiocies” and expecting her “to join with them in carrying out these idiocies, there are no school children who wish to interview me for their papers, ladies clubs are mercifully quiescent, and life takes on an enjoyable dullness.”
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As Mitchell basked in the quietude, Selznick and Whitney were getting ready to enter her life again. This time, though, she would have little cause for complaint. The two men were in the process of dissolving their partnership when, on August 22, without any forewarning or fanfare, they sent Mitchell a check for fifty thousand dollars as a token of their appreciation for her part in making the movie
Gone With the Wind
so successful.
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They assured her the payment would remain confidential and offered her best wishes for her continued success and happiness. Mitchell wrote them a gracious thank-you letter, acknowledging that the movie had caused “periods of strain and weariness and years of disruption of life and routine,” but such things were, she now understood, “unavoidable in any great undertaking, be it a great motion picture or the prosecution of war.”
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A further pleasant aspect of the transaction was that a 1939 adjustment to the U.S. tax code meant that she, not Uncle Sam, enjoyed the benefits of this windfall. The new law permitted averaging of income over a five-year period for lump sums derived from personal services. This provision did not help Mitchell on her publishing royalties because they were not considered payment for personal services, but the bonus from Selznick and Whitney did fall under the new approach.*