Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (53 page)

Of course, financial gain was never a driving issue for Mitchell. She had no interest in money if it were going to cause problems in her personal life. That resolve had not diminished, as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) learned in the fall of 1947 when the studio approached her about authorizing it to produce a sequel. Selznick had finally gotten through his head that Mitchell would never agree to such a project, but MGM, which now controlled the rights to the
GWTW
movie, wanted to revisit the idea. The studio was willing to pay Mitchell up to twenty-five thousand dollars for a two-year option to create its own continuation. Understandably wary of her reaction, Carol Brandt, an MGM executive, asked Latham to present the offer.
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The Macmillan editor did not think there was much chance the author would accept but passed the proposal along anyway in case she might find it amusing. As Latham expected, Mitchell was not interested and did not want to discuss it with MGM. In classic Mitchell fashion, she explained:

The weather has been too hot recently and I have been too tired for me to be polite and, if I am not quick and polite, before I know it people from Hollywood will be bouncing off every plane and expecting to be entertained, and then the gossip columns will be full of the news that the great director, Mr. So-and-So, is conferring in Atlanta with the shy little author and the sequel to
Gone With the Wind
will be produced in 96 reels by dayafter-tomorrow.
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She asked Latham to decline on her behalf. As reporter Elmer Davis once noted, Mitchell was a unique example of “self-abnegation” in the literary world. Resolving not to write again until she had something of merit to say, no matter how much money was dangled in front of her, was arguably as great an accomplishment as having written
Gone With the Wind
.
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With Marsh increasingly able to pitch in, Mitchell found her workload manageable for the first time in years. In the summer of 1948, Cole and her family visited Atlanta, and Mitchell relaxed in the company of old friends. Linda Taylor Barnes, Cole's daughter, fondly recalls the author taking them to lunch at the Piedmont Driving Club. Five years old at the time and decked out in a fancy dress, white socks, and patent leather shoes, Linda asked if she could get into the children's wading pool at the elegant country club. Her mother was aghast, but “Aunt Peggy” quickly took off her own shoes and stockings and happily splashed in the water with the little girl.
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Mitchell also found pleasure in hearing from fans. While the flood of mail had narrowed to a small stream, she was delighted that a new generation of readers was discovering her story. One eager soul took the liberty of offering a list of possible chapter titles for future editions of
Gone With the
Wind
, such as “A Bolt from the Blue” for the opening chapter and “Too Late for Love” for the finale. Mitchell was especially amused by the suggestion “Perjury, Pride and Prostitutes,” which she thought “would be a good title for a novel!”
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As had been her policy since 1936, most letters received a courteous and prompt reply. That summer, a group of young women who had formed their own Literary Classics Club wrote to her with that all-toofamiliar question of what happened to Scarlett and Rhett. Mitchell replied cheerfully, not letting on that she suspected a gloomy future for her lovers: “Now, girls, I can't answer that question about ‘did Scarlett get him back.' Your guess is as good as mine, because I don't know. . . . I suppose some of you think one way and some the other, and either way may be right.”
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That fall, as Mitchell approached her forty-eighth birthday, she “wanted to get all her ducks in a row,” her brother recalled.
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At her request, he stopped by the Marsh apartment on several evenings so they could talk about her investments and review the voluminous business files related to
Gone With the Wind
. The siblings also discussed what should happen to her literary legacy should she die before her husband and brother. “She wanted her writings destroyed, unless John saw fit to publish them,” Stephens Mitchell said. “She wanted no sequels to
Gone With the Wind
. She wanted no comic strips, no abridgements nor condensations. She wanted everything done with dignity and, if necessary, to spend a lot of money to keep things dignified.” His sister remarked that their ideas of dignity differed but that she trusted he would know what to do.
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In November, after a brief hospitalization for an undisclosed malady, Mitchell continued her house-in-order preparations and decided to update the will she had written in 1938 in the aftermath of the
Gone With the Wind
juggernaut. She now found the original document “too long, and perhaps a little stuffy.”
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After talking to her brother about some of the legal technicalities, Mitchell wrote a new will in longhand, its language simple and conversational—no wherefores, herebys, or pledges of sound mind and body. The opening sentence got straight to the point: “I want John, Steve Mitchell and the Trust Co. of Ga. to be the executors of my will.” She made several bequests, including forgiving a loan she held on housekeeper Bessie Jordan's house and paying in full an annuity she was buying for Baugh. She left property or cash gifts to nieces and nephews on both sides of the family, to three godchildren—including Cole's son—and to several Atlanta institutions.

It has been rumored that Mitchell's will specifically forbad her executors from authorizing a sequel to
Gone With the Wind
, but it did not. Both her husband and brother were fully aware of her feelings about continuing the story of Scarlett and Rhett, and she trusted them to follow her wishes and use their best judgment. What she committed to paper was concise and specific. She referred to her novel—her most valuable asset—only twice in the five-page will. Halfway down the third page, she specified that “all rights to
Gone With the Wind
, domestic and foreign” would go to Marsh. On the fourth page, she granted her executors the power “to renew all copyrights.” She did not address the issue of protecting her privacy that had been so prominent in the previous will, nor did she put specific restrictions on what should be done with her manuscript, research material, and letters other than noting that “all my papers and written matter of all kinds” would go to Marsh.
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She wanted the remainder of her estate divided one-fourth to her brother and three-fourths to her husband.
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When she finished the document that would govern the future of the world's bestselling novel, she asked three friends to drop by and witness her signature.

At Christmas, a group of local schoolchildren came to the couple's apartment to sing carols. When thanking their teacher, Mitchell commented that seeing “so many good looking and good mannered children makes us feel better about the future of our country.”
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The author also seemed to feel better about the direction her own life was taking. Marsh's health continued to improve, and he regained enough strength to finally venture out of the house. Some nights, they walked across the street to the Piedmont Driving Club for supper; on others, she drove them to a friend's house to visit or to a nearby theater to see a movie. That spring, they saw
Gone With
the Wind
again at the Tenth Street Theatre near their former apartment on Crescent Avenue. The manager had sent free passes, and she wrote to tell him how much they enjoyed the film and how interested they were to see the theater was full. “A great many people seemed to be repeaters, for they knew beforehand what was going to happen and started laughing or crying before the cause for laughter or tears appeared on the screen.”
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While Mitchell was glad to see people taking pleasure in her story, she remained uncomfortable with many aspects of being a celebrity. In early 1949, Associated Press correspondent Hal Boyle revisited the
GWTW
phenomenon in an article picked up by newspapers across the country. He had talked with Mitchell at a recent meeting of the Georgia Press Institute in Athens and related how the author still received inquiries from readers, such as a drunk who called late one night about the color of Scarlett's hair. When she read the caller a passage from the book that proved her heroine had black hair, he moaned, “That cost me fifty bucks. I bet Scarlett had red hair. Are you sure she doesn't?”
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To keep these types of disturbances to a minimum, Mitchell did her best to stay out of the public eye. In April 1949, Carl W. Ackerman, dean of the school of journalism at Columbia University, invited her to appear on a series of radio and television programs about Pulitzer Prize winners. She thanked him for his interest but declined, citing a personal “policy of not appearing on radio or making other public appearances.” She worried such a program would stir up renewed interest and “hullaballoo” about the dramatic, radio, and television rights to her novel, something she desperately wanted to avoid. Mitchell noted that her Pulitzer certificate, which hung on her wall, “is one of my real treasures and I will always remember my excitement and pride when I first learned that my novel had won it,” but participating in his show was something she could not do.
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She also turned down an offer from Ward Green of King Features Syndicate who wanted to turn
Gone With the Wind
into a comic strip. Although his offer was generous, such a retelling of her story was bound to stir things up again.
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By the spring, Marsh was well enough to travel. In late May, the couple went to Delaware to see his mother and then to New York, where they visited with the Taylors. While in town, they had lunch with Latham in their suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Correspondence between author and editor had trailed off in recent years, but Latham received occasional letters from her usually full of cheerfulness and lively anecdotes.
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She also tried to visit Brett while in the city but had been unable to make their schedules work.

Now that she had more free time, would Mitchell finally begin writing again? When
Gone With the Wind
was published, Mitchell swore she would never be crazy enough to write another book given the hardships the novel had imposed on her. Also, as her brother recalled, she believed that “no one (Shakespeare excepted) has more than three good stories in him. If he has three, he is a genius. If he has two, he is wonderful. Most of the great authors have only one.” Mitchell had told her story, and it was a good one.
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The only thing she had published in the past thirteen years was the war bonds article in 1942. When asked about the possibility of a second book, she said repeatedly there was no time to consider it given the incessant demands on her time from being a bestselling author.

As the years went by, Mitchell remained opposed to writing a sequel to
Gone With the Wind
but, as a born storyteller and someone who had been writing since childhood, apparently could not resist forever the urge to put words on paper. Throughout the 1940s, she frequently jotted down notes and various ideas that came to her at odd times, such as when waiting in a doctor's office or if unable to sleep at night. Sometimes it was a few sentences of conversation; other times, it was several paragraphs. She kept a notebook for jotting down her thoughts but often used whatever paper was handy, including the backs of envelopes. On occasion, she turned the notes over to Baugh to type. “They all had the same come-on as
Gone With the
Wind
and left you licking your chops for more,” the secretary recalled.
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Mitchell acknowledged authors were prone to swearing off additional books and then changing their minds: “I have heard other writers make that same remark and then observed that they were stricken suddenly with a novel while in their bath or woke up in the night with a violent attack of short story.”
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By 1949, she appeared on the verge of such an attack herself. Mitchell began to discuss with family and friends specific ideas she had for future projects. Though she was certain she would never write a sequel to the story of Scarlett and Rhett, she remained interested in the Civil War era and was even open to developing some of the minor characters from
Gone
With the Wind
, such as the Tarletons.
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Baugh recalled that Mitchell had also expressed an interest in Union general William T. Sherman's march to Atlanta. The author once asked her secretary to look through a biography of Confederate general Leonidas Polk, who was killed defending the city, to substantiate reports that he had kept a cow with him throughout the war so he would have fresh milk daily. “She was going to use that somewhere up the road,” Baugh surmised.
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