Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh

by Marianne Walker

  What not only puzzled but also annoyed the Marshes about the sale of the film rights was the role of Annie Laurie. As the Marshes interpreted their agreement with Macmillan, they thought the publisher was Peggy’s agent in regard to selling the film rights. But from Lois’s letter, it was clear that Macmillan had retained Annie Laurie Williams to handle the contract for them. From the publisher’s angle, hiring a successful, well-established literary agent skilled in handling theater and film contracts was good business. But as Stephens Mitchell later explained to Finis Farr, “It seemed to Margaret that . . . Macmillan had delegated complicated negotiations for which the publishers themselves had accepted a direct responsibility.”27 Now that the Marshes were not so confident that Macmillan was looking after Peggy’s interest in the manner that they had believed, they agreed that careful scrutiny of the film contract was imperative before she signed it. Accepting the price was all she had done thus far and was only the start of the contract business. She wanted the contract to be perfectly clear about what she was selling and what she was keeping.

  In the meanwhile, Granberry and Brickell, who had made arrangements to lecture at a writers’ workshop in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, invited Peggy, on short notice, to join them there. Determined to shield her from the public, they assured her that she would get some rest in this tiny resort town high in the Appalachians. At first, she did not want to go, but John insisted, saying the trip would do her good, and while she was away he could study the contract. His plan was to try to clear up as many of the technical details as possible so that when she returned, all the notes on the changes would be in shape for any item that was of real importance to her.

  Arriving in North Carolina on Monday afternoon, July 13, Peggy was greeted by Granberry and Brickell, whom she immediately liked. Although she enjoyed being with them and attended some of the sessions of their workshop, she felt nervous, weak, and anxious, particularly after she received her first letter from John on Wednesday, July 15, announcing the arrival of the contract.

  Sweetheart—By the time this letter reaches you, you may have already seen newspaper announcements that you have sold the movie rights. The movie folks gave out the story in Hollywood last Friday and it was published in New York yesterday. The stories did not state the amount, and Lois says she is doing everything possible to keep the amount from being published.

  The Marshes had been concerned about how to release the news that Peggy had sold the movie rights. All of the Atlanta newspapers had been good to her, but John Paschall obviously expected her to give the scoop to the Journal. Trying to avoid a conflict, John had asked Lois earlier to release the news about the contract in the afternoon, so all the papers would get the bulletin at the same time. Since that did not happen, John figured that the movie people, “in moviesque fashion decided to bust the story because it was a good story.”28 Because the story had escaped without Macmillan’s consent, he asked Peggy not to be angry with Macmillan for putting out their own story for release the next day. He did not see that there was much else they could do. Besides, the publication of the item would not affect her rights in the matter one way or the other. She had agreed to a price only, not to the terms of the contract, he reminded her, and if she did not like the terms, she did not have to accept them.

  John told her to think of the publicity about the sale as accomplishing two things: it would relieve their tensions as to which Atlanta paper was going to be scooped on the story, and it would serve to get the first flurry of excitement over and done with at a time when she was away and he could evade direct questions from newspapers by simply saying she was out of town.

  The contract, which was about ten pages long and filled with highly technical language, seemed satisfactory to John, except for the fact that it was an outright sale and gave Peggy no right to pass on the final scenario or to have any say at all as to what the film people would do with the book after Peggy signed and accepted their check.29 In his long talk with Lois earlier that day, he reminded Lois about Peggy’s earlier correspondence with Latham concerning two issues: her wanting a voice in what the filmmakers did with her book and her right to approve the final scenario for the movie.

  John urged her to stay if she were enjoying herself, and he told her she should not rush back by Sunday or Monday. He thought that one or more letters would have to be exchanged between Atlanta and New York in straightening out points her father would raise about the contract. “My idea, as you may suspect, is to keep you out of town as long as possible. I miss you terribly, but I still think this is a good time for you to be out of Atlanta.”

  John had received the contract on Monday, July 13, along with a note from Lois saying that it should be sent directly back to her and that she wanted it by Friday of that same week if possible.30 He replied,

  Please tell Annie Laurie and anyone else who is interested that they should not expect the contract to be signed and delivered back to New York within five minutes or thereabouts after it reaches Atlanta. The Mitchell family just doesn’t work that way, as you all may have discovered last summer. With their legal training and legal habits, they wouldn’t sign any contract without careful consideration and due deliberation. So, in any plans you are making, please allow for at least a reasonable period of time for investigation and study of the contract at this end of the line.

  He also ordered Lois to “make it your business to keep a firm hand on the various parties up there and see to it that a leak doesn’t occur in New York” regarding the amount Selznick paid for the movie rights.31

  John explained that Peggy did not want to write the script or go to Hollywood to act as an advisor, or even help select the cast. But she wanted some guarantee in writing that Selznick would not change the novel, its ending, or its characters, their personalities, and dialects. John wanted to have a passage in the contract that obligated Selznick to make a good picture, and by “good” he meant one that was true to the novel’s historical accuracy. But Annie Laurie told Lois that the movie people no longer allowed authors to put such provisions in their contracts. “Even Dreiser was not allowed such a provision,” she explained.32 The two mediums were so different that it was as impossible for an author to say what should go in a screenplay as it was for a motion picture producer to say what an author should put in a novel. Trying to make the Marshes feel more secure, Annie Laurie said that the Selznick people “were all crazy” about the novel and that she had heard them say they were leaving the ending as it was written because it was “the only logical ending.” If anyone could make a great movie of Gone With the Wind, Lois told the Marshes, it was Selznick, and she urged them to see what he had done with David Copperfield. Fortunately, the Marshes, who had seen the film, agreed. In a letter to his sister Frances around this time, John wrote, “Mr. Selznick made ‘David Copperfield’ and if he can do as well with this book as he did with that one, we won’t complain. His handling of that job was one reason why I was glad to see him get the movie rights to Peggy’s book.”33

  On Thursday evening, July 16, Atlanta’s drought and heat wave were broken with a terrific thunderstorm. As John sat in his office, he typed another letter to Peggy. His letters during this critical period show his love for her and his desire to take care of her.

  Sweetheart—Please let me urge you not to bother about writing me letters unless there is something urgent you wish to discuss. I don’t want you to use up your vacation writing, when you might be resting or playing. To tell the truth, I had no intention when you left of going on any letter-a-day schedule. I have written you yesterday and today because it seemed desirable in order to inform you of important developments. . . . So, baby, please don’t waste time writing unless it’s about something important. At this stage of the game, other things are more important than unnecessary letters.34

  Enclosing clippings from the Journal and the Georgian and a copy of Macmillan’s release, which had reached the papers that morning, he explained that the “who scooped who angle of thei
r problem” seemed to be out of the way now. He told her how he, Stephens, and her father had had a long session about the contract the previous night. The only major problem that they saw with it was the fact that she had no veto over what the movie people might decide to do with the book after they had bought it. “I don’t suppose it is logical to suppose that the movies would pay a large sum for the book, and then give you the right to junk everything they planned to do with it in your ‘uncontrolled discretion.’ Since the problem arose, I have been trying to figure out just how a clause might be worded on that point, so as to give due recognition to their rights and at the same time protect yours. Frankly, it’s got me stumped, and the Mississippi-accent gentlemen [Brickell and Granberry] might possibly have some suggestions.”35

  Her father was to write a letter setting out the various changes that he thought ought to be made in the contract. If John thought that the changes were appropriate and that she would consent to them, then he would forward the letter to Lois and try to get the changes made before Peggy returned to Atlanta. Giving us some idea of how the Mitchells worked, he added,

  During most of last night’s long session, while Steve and your father were arguing heatedly about points which seemed to mean a lot to them, I was balancing your check stubs or reading clippings on your book. If you were here, I imagine you would be doing the same thing—or worse. There are certain things about this contract which are important from a lawyer’s viewpoint and certain others that are important to you as Peggy Mitchell. My idea is that there is no need for you to come back to Atlanta while the “lawyer” stuff is being wrangled over. . . . But if it doesn’t meet with your approval, if you rather I would not deal directly with Macmillan without consulting you in advance on each point, just let me know. If the latter course is your preference, you had better wire me or phone me as soon as you get this letter. A wire, “Please submit everything to me before taking up with Macmillan” will be all that is necessary.

  The most striking feature about John’s management of Peggy’s book business is the fact that he always made her feel that she was in complete control. He did all the work, filtered through all the thorny details, and made all the decisions, letting her think that the decisions were hers.

  My affectionate and husbandly advice is that you enjoy your vacation and let us bother about these preliminary legal technicalities. You understand, of course, that you will have the final say-so on the whole matter. Nothing that we do will be final until you put your name on the contract, and if you don’t like what we have done, you can change it all when you get back to Atlanta.

  He closed by telling her that she had “two very sweet letters” waiting for her—one from her Aunt Isabelle and the other from Kate Edwards, relatives she had not heard from in a long time. And he added that there were “many others, too, but these two stand out in my memory. . . . Have a good time and don’t bother about us down here. We’re not doing so bad. Lonesome, yes. But I can stand it a while longer.”

  Even though John had suggested that they not write every day, they did. On Friday, July 17, he typed a note to her on his own personal typewriter and attached it to the business letter regarding the contract that he had dictated earlier to Rhoda.

  Darling—I hope you won’t feel too harshly over the fact that I have used Rhoda’s help in getting the attached letter written. With another session with your father scheduled for tonight and with a mess of things piling up on me here at the office today, the only choice was between dictating the letter or not getting it off to you at all today. And it seemed to me to be too important to be delayed.36

  Again, he mentioned her fan letters and said how happy he was to find her letter when he got home the night before. He thought she would enjoy Faith Baldwin’s letter, which he had enclosed along with the letter he had received from Lois about the contract. (Faith Baldwin—Mrs. Hugh Hamlin Cuthrell—was a writer for the Pictorial Review.37) Summarizing the situation they faced with the contract, he wrote: “It seems to be a ‘take it or leave it’ proposition. Apparently the movie folks are going to insist on an outright sale without giving you any privilege of passing on the movie scenario they write from your book.”38

  He added, “I imagine you have the same question in your mind that I have in mine. That is, whether Lois and Annie Laurie have really done their best on this point, whether the movies are as stubborn about this as Lois says they are and whether all of the good movie companies have gone into cahoots and agreed among themselves not to give this privilege to any author.”

  About Lois’s question concerning the possibility of Peggy’s going to Hollywood as an advisor to Selznick, John said: “I told her that you very definitely did not want to go, but that you might possibly consider doing it if your presence there might prevent the movie people from mutilating your book and might help in getting them to interpret and cast it properly.” Even though the movie people, he thought, would probably pay her for going to Hollywood, he said: “If I were in your fix, I would be willing to go out there at my own expense, if that was the only way I could keep some control and supervision over the type of movie they make from the book.” He noted that although the movie contract was mimeographed, a provision had been attached on a typewritten page. This provision gave Selznick an option on Peggy’s next book, and John thought Peggy might use this to her advantage. He thought that they might insert a clause in the contract stating that the movies would not have an option on her next book unless they did right by her on this one. “Of course, the joke is that you don’t intend to write any more books, but the fact that Selznick is sufficiently interested in you to want an option on your future production might prove to be a lever through which you could retain some control over what is done in making a movie out of this book.”39

  On Sunday, July 19, while Peggy was still away, John slept until early afternoon, when he heard Bessie coming into the apartment to fix him something to eat. After dressing, while he waited for his breakfast, he sat on the screened porch and smoked a cigarette as he wrote his mother about all the events and how overwhelming everything was to him and Peggy. “That’s the trouble,” he wrote. “I suppose, it’s too overwhelming. My own attitude on the matter is to let things run their course. Later on, maybe I will begin to get happy about it.”40

  5

  When she returned on Wednesday, July 22, Peggy looked more like a small, sunburned camper than a lionized author. She found that nothing had changed; Bessie was still grumbling loudly to herself about what a mess everything was in, and the place was littered with letters, telegrams, magazines, and newspapers. The contract lay on the dining room table along with more stacks of mail, magazines, newspapers, and pages of notes in John’s handwriting. Pointing to a corner of the living room where there were two tall stacks of Gone With the Wind that fans had sent her to be autographed and returned—at her own expense—John said, “Now that kind of business has got to be stopped!”

  She was cringing at the sight of those books and the mounds of mail until he laughed and said, “Baby, you’re so famous now the post office delivers letters simply addressed to ‘Margaret Mitchell, GWTW.’ Here’s an envelope addressed to ‘MM—GWTW—ATLANTA’ and here’s another with nothing on the envelope but a cartoon drawing of a little man saying ‘Goodbye!’”41 There was even a letter from her idol Stephen Vincent Benét and his wife asking her to come to New York to see them. A few weeks earlier she would have squealed in delight upon receiving such an invitation, but now she just sighed in disbelief. She was awed to learn that in addition to writing wonderful reviews of Gone With the Wind, many influential southern writers, such as D. S. Freeman, Stark Young, Thomas Dixon, and Julia Peterkin, sent her personal letters of congratulations. Knowing that she would be delighted to see Julia Peterkin’s review and letter, John placed it on top of the stack he handed Peggy to read. The first part of that review, in the Washington Post, reads, “It seems to me that Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is the best novel that has
ever come out of the South. In fact, I believe it is unsurpassed in the whole of American writing.”42 Macmillan quoted these lines in its early advertisements of the novel.

  From another stack of newsclippings he had been saving for her, John read the one about the seven transatlantic liners that sailed from New York the week she was in Blowing Rock. Macmillan salesmen had noticed in the bookshops that many copies of Gone With the Wind were stacked up for delivery to passengers on the various steamers. When they asked about the stacks, the booksellers estimated that something in the neighborhood of one thousand copies of Gone With the Wind went on the boats that day.43 Peggy shook her head in disbelief.

  Also in the stack of mail were the messages Macmillan had received from Marion Saunders, an agent who handled foreign copyrights, informing them that sets of galleys of Gone With the Wind had been distributed to her agents in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Holland, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Norway, and France.44 Shaking her head and rolling her eyes upward, Peggy asked John, “What in the hell will Mammy sound like in Norwegian? I-talian?”45