Gone With The Wind Poem by gershon hepner

GONE WITH THE WIND


“Fiddle-dee-dee, ” said Scarlett, fearing that the war
would spoil her fun, and cause her to be bored.
Fred Crane played Brent, a part we can’t ignore,
though smaller than of she whom he adored.
There was a brother with whom Brent was twinned,
the actor became Superman and gave
my street it’s name, though not “Gone With the Wind, ”
because a gunshot sent him to his grave.

Inspired by an obituary of Fred Crane, the actor who had the opening lines in “Gone With the Wind, ” wooing Scarlett O’Hara (Dennis McLellan, “Actor wooed Scarlet in “Gone With the Wind, ” LA Times, August 23,2008) :

As Brent Tarleton, one of Scarlett O'Hara's young suitors, Crane spoke the opening lines in the film in a scene on the front porch of Tara with Leigh as Scarlett and George Reeves as his twin, Stuart. 'What do we care if we were expelled from college, Scarlett? ' he says. 'The war is gonna start any day now, so we would have left school anyhow.' After Brent and Stuart express their excitement over the prospect of a fight with the Yankees, Scarlett replies: 'Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream.'… Although he played Brent Tarleton in the film, the screen credits mistakenly list Crane as playing Stuart Tarleton, said Crane's son David. The film's first scene was remade three times, the first time after the Tarleton twins' dyed red hair was deemed too curly. The second time came when the film's Southern technical advisor objected to Scarlett's low-cut dress in the scene, saying that a girl her age would not be showing so much 'bosom' that early in the day. Crane also appeared in four other scenes in the movie, including the smoking-room scene where Rhett Butler (Gable) lectures the men about the South's poor odds in fighting a war with the North. To which Crane's character responds, 'What difference does that make, sir, to a gentleman? ' In making the film, Crane and Reeves became good friends, and Reeves served as Crane's best man at his first wedding in 1940. Years after Reeves, who gained fame as TV's ' Superman, ' died in 1959 from a gunshot wound that was ruled a suicide, Crane said he believed 'someone shot him to death.' Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett's sister Carreen, told The Times on Friday that Crane and Reeves 'did not look exactly alike, but they were both gorgeous as young men. They were extremely attractive.'


8/25/08