Although Selznick was insistent on finding a unknown to play Scarlett he became impressed very early on with Paulette Goddard. In fact watching Goddard's screen test one can see that Goddard possessed much of the same passion and mannerisms that Vivien Leigh possesses in her performance. In the end the choice for Scarlett came down to Goddard and Leigh. Two things tipped everything in Leigh's favor. One was that Goddard was living with actor Charlie Chaplin at the time when the two of them were unmarried. Selznick felt that the publicity from this fact might hurt the film. Leigh herself was already in the middle of an affair with Laurence Olivier, both of them were married to other people at the time, but Leigh being an unknown from England made that fact less likely to be a problem. The second issue stemmed from Goddard being from Whitestone Queens, New York. Selznick felt that southerners might have a problem accepting a Yankee as Scarlett. Indeed when Leigh was announced as the choice as Scarlett southerners reasoned better an English woman than a Yankee.

Film

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