Fans mark 65 years of 'Gone With the Wind' [View All]

[Placebo]

In recent weeks, "Gone With the Wind" fans from throughout the country have made their way to Jonesboro in Clayton County--the Atlanta suburb that provided the setting for Mitchell's book--to quietly observe the 65th anniversary of the premiere of the film version of "Gone With the Wind."

On Dec. 15, 1939, the movie opened in star-studded splendor at the Loews Grand Theatre in downtown Atlanta, an event that helped solidify the city as the capital of the Deep South.

No big event is planned Wednesday. But the Clayton County tourist bureau last month sponsored a bus tour of "Gone With the Wind" landmarks, a collector's swap meet and a private brunch with 84-year-old actress Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the movie.

For die-hard fans, it was a dream. They walked through the small apartment in Atlanta, now Margaret Mitchell House, where the author created beloved heroine Scarlett and her sexy, rogue husband, Rhett Butler. They posed for pictures with Scarlett look-alike Melly Meadows, who travels the world in her hoop skirts and ruffled pantaloons promoting the South. They touched the ground where the Loews cinema stood before it burned in a mysterious fire in 1978 and was torn down.

As far as obsessions with characters and movies go, the "Windys" as they call themselves, are not unique.

But unlike Star Trek's Trekkies, who hold an annual convention, Windys are more low-profile, with their affiliation hidden sometimes from even their closest friends. In the South, "Gone With the Wind" is as much hated as it is loved.

Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning book and the subsequent movie have inspired generations with a romanticized vision of the Deep South under siege during the Civil War and a tenacious heroine who refused to concede defeat as the Confederacy crumbled around her. But it also is a symbol of a deep racial divide between blacks who loathe the book's glamorization of slavery and whites who have adopted it as an icon of their heritage.

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