ON THE SET

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Gone With the Wind, 1939.

This scene with the Tarleton boys, Scarlett O’Hara’s first appearance in the film, was shot multiple times for multiple reasons — because the boys’ first red hair dye looked unnatural, because Selznick wanted a dress for Leigh that came across as more virginal than the one originally chosen.

By the time they got around to doing it for the last time, Leigh looked so worn out from the long production that it wasn’t felt she could play a convincing sixteen, Scarlett’s age at the film’s opening.  So she was given several weeks’ rest and brought back to do it once more after the other principal photography had been completed.

Click on the image to enlarge.