"A year has gone by since the night we stood watching the first scenes being made for Gone With the Wind. It was an awesome spectacle - whole blocks of sets being consumed by flames as Atlanta buildings burned, and I was a little confused by the grandeur of it and what seemed to be a frightening confusion. That was the night I met Mr. David O. Selznick, the man who was producing Gone With the Wind, and who had yet to select a Scarlett O'Hara for the film.

In retrospect, it seems to me that the fantastic quality of that tremendous fire, the confusion I felt and the feeling of loneliness in the midst of hundreds of people was indicative of what was to come. I could not know then, of course, what lay ahead -- and if someone had ventured to predict it, I probably would have passed it off as nonsense.

The unexpected happened: it made me, for these months at least, and whether I wished it so or not, into the character known as Scarlett O'Hara. Now the difficulty is to view that character objectively. That it was a great role for any actress was obvious, yet I can truthfully say that I looked on Mr. Selznick's request that I take a test for Scarlett as something of a joke. There were dozens of girls testing, and I did not seriously consider that I might actually play the part. Yet once it was decided upon I discovered that there was no joking about playing Scarlett. From then on, I was swept along as though by a powerful wave. It was Scarlett, Scarlett, Scarlett, night and day, month after month.

At once, I was asked two questions, and they persisted. First, everyone wanted to know if I was afraid of the part. And second, what did I think of Scarlett, anyway? Perhaps if I had struggled, wished and worried about getting the role, I might have been fearful. As it was I had no time to let worry get the upper hand. That, and the sympathetic understanding of Mr. Selznick, eliminated fear before it got started.

As for Scarlett herself -- my own views on that headstrong young lady are so bound up with my own experience in playing her that I find it difficult, now, to analyze just how I do feel about her. I lived Scarlett for close to six months, from early morning to late at night. I tried to make every move, every gesture true to Scarlett, and I had to feel that even the despicable things Scarlett did were of my doing.

From the moment I first began to read Gone With the Wind three years ago, Scarlett fascinated me, as she has fascinated so many others. She needed a good, healthy old-fashioned spanking on a number of occasions -- and I should have been delighted to give it to her. Conceited, spoiled, arrogant -- all those things, of course, are true of the character.

But she had courage and determination, and that, I think, is why women must secretly admire her -- even though we can't feel too happy about her many shortcomings.

Try as I might to bring these characteristics from Margaret Mitchell’s work into reality, there were bound to be times when I felt depressed. With so much painstaking effort going into the filming, every detail worked out to the finest point, days spent in recreating an exact situation, it was inevitable that I should feel sometimes that my work might not measure up to the standards which Mr. Selznick demanded, and which Victor Fleming, the director, strove so hard to reach. Yet Mr. Selznick seemed to sense these moments and was there to lend his encouragement, a help I am deeply grateful for. Mr. Fleming, faced with the task of keeping these thousand and one details coordinated, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of patience and good humor. I think we all felt that here, above all times, it was imperative that we be good troupers, submerging ourselves to the task at hand.

There were months when I went to the studio directly form my home at 6:30 in the morning; breakfasted while making-up and having my hair done, then reported to the stage for the first "shot" at 8:45 a.m., and it was the rule, rather than the exception, to leave the studio at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. that night. Needless to say, I saw none of Hollywood's night life!

I do not mean that all the grueling work was without its compensations and amusements. After so many weeks together, the company had its own jokes, its own forms of fun to lessen the tension. Mr. Fleming could always prepare me for some difficult work with an elaborate bow and a "Now, fiddle-dee-dee" which was the name bequeathed to me, and Clark Gable's natural humor was always there to comfort us at the moments when tempers were shortest. Leslie Howard, as you can imagine, is the soul of good humor; rarely upset and apt to come out with a bit of dry wit at the most unexpected moments.

You will recall that Rhett Butler, on a certain night, carries Scarlett up a long flight of stairs. We were ready to shoot this scene late in the afternoon, after a particularly difficult day. As so often happens, a number of things went wrong --and poor Clark had to carry me up the stairs about a dozen times before the shot was satisfactory. Even the stalwart Mr. Gable was beginning to feel it, I'm afraid -- the set designer certainly made the stairway long enough.

"Let's try it once more, Clark," said the director. Clark winced, but picked me up and made the long climb. "Thanks, Clark," said Fleming. "I really didn't need that shot -- I just had a little bet on that you couldn't make it." Even Clark saw the joke, although, I'm not so sure I should have if I'd been in his place.

Perhaps the hardest days I spent -- hard, that is, from the point of actual physical exertion -- were during the time we made the scene where Scarlett struggles through the populace as it evacuates Atlanta.

Naturally, this could not be done all in one continuous take, and so for what seemed an eternity I dodged through the maze of traffic on Peachtree Street, timing myself to avoid galloping horses and thundering wagons.

And between each shot, the make-up man -- he seemed to be everywhere at once -- came running to wash my face, then dirty it up again to just the right shade of Georgia clay dust. I think he washed my face about 20 times in one day -- and dusted me over with red dust after each washing.

Here, of course, was where the tremendous task of organizing was at its most spectacular. Horses and riders had to cross certain places at just the right time, and so did I. I can assure you that it is not a pleasant experience to see a gun caisson charging down on you -- even when you know the riders are experts and the whole thing planned. In fact, I was so intent on being in the right place at the right time all day that I did not realize until I got to bed that night that Scarlett O'Hara Leigh was a badly bruised person.

Oddly enough, the scenes of physical strain were not so wearing as the emotional ones. One night we worked at the Selznick Studios until about 11 p.m., then went out to the country for a shot against the sunrise, when Scarlett falls to her knees in the run-down fields of Tara and vows she'll never be hungry again. The sun rose shortly after 2 a.m. and I could not sleep, although I had a dressing room in a trailer. We made the shot and I arrived at home about 4:30 a.m., yet I do not recall that I was so terribly tired.

Instead, I think of the day that Scarlett shoots the deserter, and I recall that after that nerve-wracking episode, both Olivia de Havilland, the wonderful Melanie of the film, and myself were on the verge of hysterics -- not alone from the tenseness of the scene, but from the too-realistic fall as the "dead" man went down the stairs before us.

Yet when the day came that meant the film was completed, I could not help feeling some little regret that our parts were done and that the cast and the crew -- who were all so thoughtful and kind throughout -- were breaking up. Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Tom Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil -- fine players all. We should see each other again, of course -- but never again would we have the experience of playing in Gone With the Wind!"