News

The Old South, on a pedestal

The romance of Gone With The Wind and landmarks from the Civil War are on display in Marietta.

By KATHY WITT
Published August 28, 2005

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[Photo: Marietta Visitors Bureau

The Gone With the Wind Museum in Marietta, Ga., is a favorite stop for the woman who played young Bonnie Blue Butler, the doomed daughter of Scarlett and Rhett.

MARIETTA, Ga. - "When I visit Marietta or any of the cities in the South, I am just amazed at the reverence Southerners have for Gone With the Wind - the film and the book," says Cammie King Conlon. "It's reverential. It's so treasured."

Conlon pays attention to those feelings because, as a youngster, she played Bonnie Blue Butler, the doomed only child of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, in the 1939 classic.

Because Conlon, too, treasures the book and movie, she has visited the Marietta Gone With the Wind Museum: Scarlett on the Square three times since it opened in this suburb northwest of Atlanta in 2003. The museum displays the huge GWTW collection of Dr. Christopher Sullivan of Akron, Ohio.

Conlon's favorite item here: an enormous black and white poster with dramatic headlines and Rhett and Scarlett in their familiar lovers' pose.

"It's fabulous," she said. "It's the one thing that knocked me out and I will ooh and aah over it . . . the next time I see it."

The museum may be an ideal location for this collection, for it is in a renovated 1875 cotton warehouse on Marietta's town square - still the focal point of the historic community.

Among the GWTW items exhibited: rare press and publicity books, programs from the premiere, conceptual artworks for the film, costume pieces, contracts, actors' personal correspondence, and several of author Margaret Mitchell's personal volumes of the novel.

Also displayed are a range of movie-themed consumer items: cookie jars, soaps, dress patterns, lingerie and nearly 100 dolls in mini versions of characters' costumes.

A prize of the collection is the silk Bengaline honeymoon gown worn by Vivien Leigh in the film and created by designer Walter Plunkett. However, through early October, the dress is on tour with Turner Classic Movies and its related company, Warner Bros. Archives, as part of a Classic Costumes exhibition.

An educational display is dedicated to the African-American cast members. Included is a letter actor Hattie McDaniel wrote in which she discusses seeing "in the "Mammy' of the O'Hara household the type of womanhood which has built our race."

Conlon, just 4 or 5 years old (she's not sure) when she played the dimpled Bonnie Blue Butler, recalls her time on the set:

"I didn't think I was doing anything different than anyone else . . . Mother filled me in on the scenarios (in which the child performed).

"I remember the heat, learning to ride the pony - the studio sent me to the stables to learn to ride - and the costume fittings. I remember (Clark) Gable being like a nice daddy. Mother said he was wonderful to me.

"I don't remember Vivien Leigh (well). It was a difficult scene, the one we were in together. It wasn't a lot of fun. I just remember tension. I had a lot of "business' going on:

"I was in a fur muff, I was holding a kitty, I had lines" of dialogue. "I have 10 or 12 snapshots of my time on the set."

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With its exposed brick walls and rough-hewn beams, the museum, formerly the A. Fletcher & Co. cotton warehouse, seems a fitting backdrop for the richly hued movie paintings and advertisements that recall an era now 140 years old.

Marietta - its longtime residents pronounce it may-RETT-uh - was a bustling resort community before the Civil War. Now it's a bustling suburb tha embraces its past.

Besides the Gone With the Wind Museum, Marietta has five National Register Historic Districts, including 150 antebellum and Victorian homes, several other museums and Civil War-related sites.

Start a visit at the Marietta Welcome Center, located in the 1898 train depot on the town square, close to the GWTW museum. The center has maps of walking and driving tours.

Next door to the center is a circa 1855 antebellum house, home to the Marietta History Museum. Here, three galleries present artifacts and anecdotes of the Civil War, home life in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the development of Marietta and Cobb County - which had a gold rush.

Other small museums include:

- The Root House Museum, which offers a peek into the home life of a 1850s-era middle class merchant and his family.

- The Marietta Fire Museum, in the Washington Avenue Historic District, displays firefighting techniques and equipment from the 1800s to the present. The treasure here is a 125-year-old Silsby Steamer - a fire engine using steam for locomotion, named "The Aurora."

Some nearby Civil War landmarks:

- The Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, 2 miles from downtown, which commemorates the battle June 27, 1864, when the Confederate Army soundly defeated the numerically superior Union Army. It delayed the advance of Gen. William Sherman's troops on the major railhead that was Atlanta.

- The Marietta Confederate Cemetery, on the outskirts of town, and the Marietta National Cemetery, closer to the square, holds the remains of more than 10,000 soldiers killed in the war. The battlefield and cemeteries are a sobering counterpoint to the romantic memories the movie museum recalls.

Kathy Witt is a freelance writer living in Taylor Mill, Ky.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Marietta is about 20 miles northwest of metro Atlanta in Georgia. There is direct air service between Tampa Bay and Atlanta.

STAYING THERE: The Marietta Conference Center and Resort Hotel has a golf course and a charming antebellum home and gardens adjacent. Rates from $99 a night; 770 427-2500, www.mariettaresort.com) One block from the town square is the Whitlock Inn, a Victorian bed and breakfast in a National Register Historic District. Rates from $100; 770) 428-1495, alexis@whitlockinn.com www.whitlockinn.com

Also near the square is the Sixty Polk Street Bed and Breakfast, in a home that was constructed in 1872 and is furnished with period antiques. Rates from $95; call toll-free 1-800-845-7266, jmertes@aol.com www.sixtypolkstreet.com THE GWTW MUSEUM: The Gone With the Wind Museum: Scarlett on the Square is at 18 Whitlock Ave. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; closed Sunday and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and students. For information, call 770 794-5576; www.gwtwmarietta.com EATING THERE: There are several local restaurants on or near the square, including Schillings on the Square, the more-casual Willie Rae's, which features low country cuisine, and the relaxed Hemingway's, a bar serving southern fried specials.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact the Marietta Welcome Center and Visitors Bureau, 4 Depot St., Marietta, GA 30060; toll-free 1-800-835-0445, or 770 429-1115; www.mariettasquare.com

[Last modified August 26, 2005, 08:30:05]

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