Gala Anniversary in Atlanta for ‘Gone With the Wind’

ATLANTA —  Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh have long since died, but at the gala events this week celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Gone With the Wind” they’ll be remembered again and again.

For one thing, organizers have invited five pairs of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara look-alikes.

For another, 11 surviving cast members, many of whom were children when the 1939 movie was made, will have their own stories to tell of the legendary stars, who both died in the 1960s.

The cast members will attend a private reunion Thursday and are expected Friday night at a re-creation of the movie’s Dec. 15, 1939, world premiere.

Fifty years ago, the premiere was the biggest social event in Atlanta’s history. The governor declared Dec. 15 a holiday, and an estimated 1 million people turned out to catch glimpses of the visiting Hollywood royalty and Atlanta’s own Margaret Mitchell, the former newspaper writer whose 1936 novel “Gone With the Wind” catapulted her to reluctant celebrity.

The “re-premiere” will be held at the Fox Theatre, since the Loew’s Grand Theatre, site of the 1939 premiere, is no longer standing.

A competition between the Rhett and Scarlett look-alikes is set for Tuesday, and guests in antebellum dress will attend a “Gone With the Wind” ball Thursday night.

Cammie King Conlon, the actress who played Rhett and Scarlett’s young daughter, Bonnie Blue Butler, said the cast reunion will be a chance for her to reminisce with others who appeared in the movie.

“I was 4 1/2 when they did the filming,” the Little River, Calif., resident said in a telephone interview, adding that she remembers “about 12 snapshots, images” of the experience.

Others expected at the cast reunion include Butterfly McQueen, who played Prissy; Patrick Curtis, Ric Holt and Mickey Kuhn, all of whom played Beau Wilkes, son of Ashley and Melanie Wilkes, at various ages; Gregg Geiss, who played Bonnie Blue as an infant; and Ann Rutherford and Evelyn Keyes, who portrayed Scarlett’s sisters.

Many of the anniversary activities are sponsored by Turner Home Entertainment, a division of entrepreneur Ted Turner’s media empire.

Turner acquired the rights to “Gone With the Wind” in 1985 when he bought MGM-UA Entertainment Corp.’s huge film library. Turner’s SuperStation, TBS, will broadcast the film three times during the week.