|
|
|
|
| Birth Name(s) : Margaret Mitchell |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
|
Partner:
|
| Profession:
N/A |
| << Add Margaret Mitchell To Your Favorites |
|
Full Margaret Mitchell Biography
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949), as Margaret Mitchell was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her immensely successful novel, Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies (see list of best-selling books). An American film adaptation, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.
Shortly afterward, she defied the conventions of her class and times by taking a job at the Atlanta Journal, where she wrote a weekly column for the newspaper's Sunday edition as one of the first woman columnists at the South's largest newspaper. Mitchell's first professional writing assignment was an interview with an Atlanta socialite, whose couture-buying trip to Italy was interrupted by the Fascist takeover.
Mitchell married Red Upshaw in 1922, but they were divorced after it was revealed that he was a bootlegger. She later married Upshaw's friend, John Marsh, on July 4, 1925; Marsh had been best man at her first wedding and legend has it that both men courted Mitchell in 1921 and 1922, but Upshaw proposed first.
Using Mitchell's scrapbooks from the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia, editor Patrick Allen collected 64 of the columns Mitchell considered her best work. They were published in 2000 under the title Margaret Mitchell, Reporter.
Her portraits and personality sketches in particular show a promise of her skill to portray the kind of characters who made Gone With the Wind the most translated and best-selling novel in history. Even as a supposedly neutral reporter, her irrepressible personality shines through. This collection of Mitchell's journalism transcends fact-gathering, and shows Mitchell as a young woman and a compelling snapshot of life in the Jazz Age South.
Mitchell is reported to have begun writing Gone With the Wind while bedridden with a broken ankle. Her husband, John Marsh, brought home historical books from the public library to amuse her while she recuperated. After she supposedly read all the historical books in the library, he told her, "Peggy, if you want another book, why don't you write your own?" She drew upon her encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War and dramatic moments from her own life, and typed her epic novel on an old Remington typewriter. She originally called the heroine "Pansy O'Hara", and Tara was "Fontenoy Hall". She considered naming the novel Tote The Weary Load or Tomorrow Is Another Day.
Mitchell wrote for her own amusement, and with solid support from her husband, kept her novel secret from her friends. She hid the voluminous pages under towels, disguising them as a divan, hid them in her closets, and under her bed. She wrote the last chapter first, and skipped around from chapter to chapter. Her husband regularly proofread the growing manuscript to help in continuity. By 1929, her ankle had healed, most of the book was written, and she lost interest in pursuing her literary efforts.
While Mitchell used to say that her Gone with The Wind characters were not based on real people, modern researchers have found similarities to some of the people in her life, and people she knew or heard of.
Mitchell was struck by a speeding automobile as she crossed Peachtree Street at 13th Street with her husband, John Marsh, on her way to see the British film "A Canterbury Tale" at The Peachtree Art Theatre in August 1949. She died at Grady Hospital five days later without regaining consciousness. The driver, Hugh Gravitt, was an off-duty taxi driver. He was driving his personal vehicle at the time, but his occupation led to many erroneous references over the years to Mitchell’s having been struck by a taxi. Gravitt had been out on $5,450 bond, having been arrested for drunken driving. He had 23 previous traffic violations, according to the police. This incident prompted Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge to announce that the state would tighten regulations for licensing taxi drivers.
Gravitt was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison. His conviction was controversial because witnesses said Mitchell stepped into the street without looking, and her friends claimed she often did this.
The house where Mitchell lived while writing her manuscript is known today as The Margaret Mitchell House and located in Midtown Atlanta. A museum dedicated to Gone with the Wind lies a few miles north of Atlanta, in Marietta, Georgia. It is called "Scarlett On the Square", as it is located on the historic Marietta Square. It houses costumes from the film, screenplays, and many artifacts from Gone With the Wind including Mitchell's collection of foreign editions of her book. The house and the museum are major tourist destinations.
2.Pyron, Darden Asbury. Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell and the Making of Gone With the Wind (Oxford University Press, 1991) |
|
|
| Add Margaret Mitchell Biography (SuperUSERS) + |
| Add Margaret Mitchell Review/Comment
|
HQ Margaret Mitchell Pictures (1) | Random Margaret Mitchell Picture
|
| << Back to the Margaret Mitchell Homepage |
|
