Published: Sunday, November 29, 2009
The greatest ‘nothing part’ ever
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Ann Rutherford
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Asssociated Press/new line cinema
Ann Rutherford (right) appears with Evelyn Keyes (left) and Vivien Leigh in a scene from “Gone With the Wind.” Factoring in inflation, the 1939 movie is the biggest box-office hit of all time.
Seventy years later, actress Ann Rutherford still gives a damn about “Gone With the Wind.”
Rutherford, 89, is among the few surviving principal cast members of the Clark Gable-Vivien Leigh Civil War epic, which was recently released in a new special-edition DVD set. This also marks its Blu-ray debut.
When its box-office take is adjusted for inflation, the film ranks as the highest-grossing North American movie release. And many critics and fans consider “Gone With the Wind” not only a Hollywood classic, but the Hollywood classic.
Rutherford played heroine Scarlett O’Hara’s sister Carreen.
“It is so real,” Rutherford said. “‘Gone With the Wind’ is an entity. It is like a person.” The actress was interviewed in the lobby of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which had just screened the best-picture Oscar winner as part of its salute to Hollywood’s 1939 output, which also includes such classics as “Dark Victory,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
Rutherford almost wasn’t a part of the “Gone With the Wind” legacy. She was already a screen success, perhaps best known for playing Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s hugely successful Andy Hardy series.
“I got a call to go up and see (MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer),” Rutherford recalled.
“‘It’s a nothing part,’” Rutherford quoted Mayer as saying. Rutherford would be on loan to Selznick International. “I said, ‘There is no nothing part for anybody! I’ll carry a tray. I’ll open a gate. I’ll do anything.’”
The movie’s production was legendarily troubled, with producer David Selznick burning through numerous directors and screenwriters.
Rutherford, who still lives in Beverly Hills, would continue to act steadily through the late ’50s, and came back to do a handful of roles in the ’70s, the last being a cameo as a studio secretary in 1976’s “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.”
But she’s never stopped working, hopping the globe for speaking and promotional engagements tied to reissues and tributes to “Gone With the Wind.”
“This ‘nothing part’ has taken me to Paris. It has taken me to London. It’s taken me on ships just to talk to people about ‘Gone With the Wind,”’ Rutherford said.
In the new release the Technicolor film has never looked better because of digital software and the fact that Warner Home Video was able to scan the original negative.
“They also had (a) 1939 print to use for color references. I think we have the most absolute effective color rendering yet,” said George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warner.
Though he’s watched the film countless times, Feltenstein said, he saw things he never had before when he watched the Blu-ray.
“I never noticed there were horses standing back of Scarlett and the Tarleton twins at the beginning of the film,” he said. “Those little red ribbons in Scarlett’s hair look velvety scrumptious and pop out like 3-D.”
Rutherford, 89, is among the few surviving principal cast members of the Clark Gable-Vivien Leigh Civil War epic, which was recently released in a new special-edition DVD set. This also marks its Blu-ray debut.
When its box-office take is adjusted for inflation, the film ranks as the highest-grossing North American movie release. And many critics and fans consider “Gone With the Wind” not only a Hollywood classic, but the Hollywood classic.
Rutherford played heroine Scarlett O’Hara’s sister Carreen.
“It is so real,” Rutherford said. “‘Gone With the Wind’ is an entity. It is like a person.” The actress was interviewed in the lobby of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which had just screened the best-picture Oscar winner as part of its salute to Hollywood’s 1939 output, which also includes such classics as “Dark Victory,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
Rutherford almost wasn’t a part of the “Gone With the Wind” legacy. She was already a screen success, perhaps best known for playing Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s hugely successful Andy Hardy series.
“I got a call to go up and see (MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer),” Rutherford recalled.
“‘It’s a nothing part,’” Rutherford quoted Mayer as saying. Rutherford would be on loan to Selznick International. “I said, ‘There is no nothing part for anybody! I’ll carry a tray. I’ll open a gate. I’ll do anything.’”
The movie’s production was legendarily troubled, with producer David Selznick burning through numerous directors and screenwriters.
Rutherford, who still lives in Beverly Hills, would continue to act steadily through the late ’50s, and came back to do a handful of roles in the ’70s, the last being a cameo as a studio secretary in 1976’s “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.”
But she’s never stopped working, hopping the globe for speaking and promotional engagements tied to reissues and tributes to “Gone With the Wind.”
“This ‘nothing part’ has taken me to Paris. It has taken me to London. It’s taken me on ships just to talk to people about ‘Gone With the Wind,”’ Rutherford said.
In the new release the Technicolor film has never looked better because of digital software and the fact that Warner Home Video was able to scan the original negative.
“They also had (a) 1939 print to use for color references. I think we have the most absolute effective color rendering yet,” said George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warner.
Though he’s watched the film countless times, Feltenstein said, he saw things he never had before when he watched the Blu-ray.
“I never noticed there were horses standing back of Scarlett and the Tarleton twins at the beginning of the film,” he said. “Those little red ribbons in Scarlett’s hair look velvety scrumptious and pop out like 3-D.”
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