The search for Scarlett O’Hara was one of the most exhaustive casting hunts in Hollywood history. Producer David O. Selznick auditioned more than fourteen hundred actresses over two years before he found the woman he wanted.
Vivien Leigh, a relatively unknown British actress, landed the role just weeks before filming began, in one of the most famous last-minute casting decisions in film history.
A Search That Became a National Obsession
When Selznick acquired the film rights to Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind, casting the character of Scarlett O’Hara became a nationwide sensation, with American newspapers tracking the search almost as closely as major news events.
Major stars of the era, including Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, were seriously considered, and countless unknown actresses auditioned in hopes of landing what was already being billed as the role of a lifetime.
An Unexpected Arrival
Leigh, largely unknown to American audiences at the time, was reportedly brought to Selznick’s attention almost by accident, introduced to him by his own brother during a visit to the set of the film’s famous burning of Atlanta sequence, which was already in production.
Selznick was reportedly struck immediately by her resemblance to how he envisioned Scarlett, arranging a screen test soon after their introduction.
A Decision Made at the Eleventh Hour
Leigh officially won the role in late 1938, just weeks before principal filming was scheduled to begin, an extraordinarily tight turnaround for a production of the film’s scale and ambition.
Her casting drew mixed reactions from parts of the American press, given that a British actress had been chosen to play such a quintessentially American character, though any doubts quickly evaporated once the film was released.
A Performance That Justified the Search
Gone with the Wind became one of the highest-grossing and most acclaimed films in history, and Leigh’s performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress, silencing any doubts about her fitness for the role.
Nearly ninety years later, it remains almost impossible to imagine anyone else in the role that more than fourteen hundred other actresses had once auditioned for.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons (public domain / Creative Commons).