In a recent research rabbit hole (an occupational hazard when you write historical fiction), somewhere someplace somehow I came across this image of a letter that David O. Selznick wrote to Ed Sullivan. At the time – January 7, 1939 – Sullivan was still just an entertainment journalist (his eponymous television show that would catapult him to national fame was still nine years away) and Selznick was six days away from announcing who he had (finally!) cast as Scarlett O’Hara. I’m surprised that, with less than a week to go before telling the world he’d cast a Brit, he was still undecided and went to the trouble of dictating a letter that went at least to two pages explaining why he might not be casting Vivien Leigh.

Or was he just putting Sullivan off the scent? If he was, that’s a lot of trouble to go to. Then again, the official announcement of who would play Scarlett O’Hara in the movie version of Gone with the Wind was the entertainment news of the year, so there was a lot at stake. And Selznick was notorious for being a prodigious writer of letters and memos, so any of the above is more than possible.

It’s also interesting to not that Vivien’s name is misspelled. A week later, after the official announcement was made, her name would be known all over the world.

January 7, 1939

Mr. Ed Sullivan
621 North Alta Drive
Beverly Hills, California

Dear Edt

Vivian Leigh is by no means cast as Scarlett. There are three other possibilities. But should we decide on Miss Leigh for the role, I think the following answers your question:

1. Scarlett O’Hara’s parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh’s parents are French and Irish.

2. A large part of the South prides itself on its English ancestry and an English girl might presumably, therefore, be as acceptable in the role than a Northern girl.

5. Experts insist that the real Southern accent, as opposed to the Hollywood conception of a Southern accent, i.e. basically English. There is a much closer relationship between the English accent and the Southern accent than there is between the Southern accent and the Northern accent, as students will tell you, and as we have found through experience.

4. I think it would be ungrateful on the part of Americans, particularly Americans in the film and theatrical worlds, to feel bad about such a selection in view of the English public’s warm reception of American actors’ portrayals of the most important best-beloved characters in English history and fiction, ranging the way from Wallace Beery in “Treasure Island”, to Fredric March as Browning in “The Barretts”, to Gary Cooper in “Bengal Lancer.”

5. And, finally, let me call your attention to the most successful performances in the American theatre in many, many years those, — those respectively, of the American Helen Hayes as “Queen Victoria” and the British Raymond Massey as “Abraham Lincoln”.

I feel that these are days when we should all do everything within our power to help cement British-American relationships and mutual sympathies, rather than to indulge in thoughtless, half-baked and silly critcisms. As I have said, Miss Leigh is not set for the role, but if she gets it…

When this letter was reproduced in the book “Memo From: David Selznick” it only has the first three points, but does have this paragraph:

Miss Leigh seems to us to be the best qualified from the standpoints of physical resemblance to Miss Mitchell’s Scarlett, and – more importantly – ability to give the right performance in one of the most trying roles ever written. And this is after a two-year search.

I like to think that you’ll be in there rooting for her.

Cordially and sincerely yours,