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The original “Star Wars,” whose latest chapter premiered last night in Los Angeles, ranks as the second-highest-grossing movie ever, with lifetime revenue of $1.5 billion (adjusted for inflation).
The first on the list? “Gone With the Wind,” which premiered in Atlanta 76 years ago today, after several days of citywide festivities in its honor.
The movie, which went on to win eight Academy Awards, was a phenomenon even before its opening.
A day before the premiere, 150,000 people lined the sidewalks and rooftops of Atlanta for the arrival of the stars, including Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.
Confetti and streamers rained down on their open cars, while military school bands repeatedly played “Dixie.” Hotel managers, drugstore clerks, elevator operators and others wore their grandparents’ Civil War finery.
Loew’s Grand Theater on Peachtree Street was given a new facade for the occasion: a wooden overlay of the pillars of Tara, the plantation of the movie.
Not present for the premiere: Hattie McDaniel, who starred as the slave Mammy and who became the first black performer to win an Academy Award. Georgia laws meant the black actors would have had to sit separately from their white counterparts.
News reports tell us that of all the celebrities there, it was the author and Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell who received the biggest applause and the most “rebel yells.”
