Actress Hattie McDaniel was #BornOnThisDay,June 10, 1893. Appeared in over 300 films, but is remembered# for her role in Gone with the Wind (1939), becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. Passed in 1952 (age 59) from breast cancer. #RIP #GoneTooSoon #BlackLivesMatter

Gone with the Wind (film)

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Release

Preview, premiere, and initial release

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The premiere of the film at Loew's Grand, Atlanta

About 300,000 people came out in Atlanta for the film's premiere at the Loew's Grand Theatre on December 15, 1939. It was the climax of three days of festivities hosted by Mayor William B. Hartsfield, which included a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, and a costume ball. Eurith D. Rivers, the governor of Georgia, declared December 15 a state holiday. An estimated 300,000 Atlanta residents and visitors lined the streets for seven miles to view the procession of limousines that brought stars from the airport. Only Leslie Howard and Victor Fleming chose not to attend: Howard had returned to England due to the outbreak of World War II, and Fleming had fallen out with Selznick and declined to attend any of the premieres. Hattie McDaniel was also absent, as she and the other black cast members were prevented from attending the premiere due to Georgia's Jim Crow laws, which kept them from sitting with their white colleagues. Upon learning that McDaniel had been barred from the premiere, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event, but McDaniel persuaded him to attend. President Jimmy Carter later recalled it as "the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime". Premieres in New York and Los Angeles followed; the latter attended by some of the actresses who had been considered for the part of Scarlett, among them Paulette Goddard, Norma Shearer, and Joan Crawford.

From December 1939 to July 1940, the film played only advance-ticket road show engagements at a limited number of theaters at prices upwards of $1—more than double the price of a regular first-run feature—with MGM collecting an unprecedented 70 percent of the box office receipts, as opposed to the typical 30–35 percent of the period. After reaching saturation as a roadshow, MGM revised its terms to a 50 percent cut and halved the prices before it finally entered general release in 1941 at "popular" prices. Including its distribution and advertising costs, total expenditure on the film was as high as $7 million.

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Reception

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Academy Awards

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Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award—beating out her co-star Olivia de Havilland, who was also nominated in the same category—but was racially segregated from her co-stars at the awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove; she and her escort were made to sit at a separate table at the back of the room. Meanwhile, screenwriter Sidney Howard became the first posthumous Oscar winner and Selznick personally received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his career achievements.

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