Will public donations save the 'Gone with the Wind' gowns?

It seems unthinkable that the costumes from one of Hollywood's most legendary films, "Gone with the Wind," aren't displayed securely at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or some other venerable house of history.

But alas, the key costumes worn by actress Vivien Leigh as the tempestuous Scarlett O'Hara in that 1939 opus are actually in peril.

The famous green "curtain dress," among others, have been languishing for years in a back room of the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin -- lacking the funds to be restored to exhibition-ready condition.

But now the center has launched a public initiative to raise $30,000 to restore and preserve five original costumes from the film.

The dresses were part of the collection of David O. Selznick, a well-known Hollywood producer in the 1930s and 1940s, which included over 5,000 boxes of Hollywood memorabilia. 

All five sweeping gowns -- most of which are currently too fragile to be exhibited -- were worn by Leigh.

There's the green curtain dress, which O'Hara made to fool Rhett Butler into thinking she was still well-off after the war; the green velvet dressing gown; the burgundy ball gown; the blue velvet peignoir and the wedding dress she wore when she married Charles Hamilton to spite her true love, Ashley Wilkes.

Donations, which can be made online, will allow for the restoration of the original dresses and the purchase of protective housing and custom-fitted mannequins to allow for proper exhibition.

The center hopes to display the costumes in 2014 as part of an exhibition celebrating the 75th anniversary of "Gone With The Wind," and to be able to loan the dresses to museums internationally.

-- Emili Vesilind

Photos: From top: The green curtain dress and burgundy party dress worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind." Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

Comments

[Marlena]

I will definitely be donating to this and hope to attend the anniversary celebration too.

[kwitcherbellyakin]

5,000 boxes of memorabilia?! Okay big stars & their heirs, anti-up :)

[G. Travis]

"And those pantalettes, I don't know a woman in Paris who wears pantalettes." ~ Rhett Butler

[JimE]

How come some of today's celebrities, even those with meagre talent who get $20 million per movie, could not find this as chump change in their pockets? $30,000 to preserve such a piece of history? Why does the average working person get asked to dig deep for this stuff?

[Dennis Moser]

Shame on you, LA Times!

I have to protest that this article makes it sound like these gowns are somehow being mistreated or "in peril" through some kind of neglect.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin, is internationally considered to be among the foremost centers for the care, preservation, and conservation of cultural heritage materials in the world and it is irresponsible of the author to even suggest otherwise.

Are the gowns fragile and, by their fragility, at risk? Absolutely. But no more so than they were 20 odd years ago when I worked there and saw said gowns. Part of the mission of the Ransom Center is to ensure the safekeeping of items until they can be treated or restored such that they may be safely exhibited. And those gowns are safer at the Ransom Center than some "venerable house of history." There are a great number of such items in the Center's collections that simply cannot yet be displayed.

I encourage all to donate towards the restoration of these gowns, but let's not be so hysterical about it.

[Marc Landers]

If this institution cannot afford to restore these items, then donate them to a museum which has the funds.

[Ironman Carmichael]

Better care has been taken of the Bob Mackie "curtain rod" dress that Carol Burnett wore in the 1976 parody "Went With the Wind."

[Duh]

Sell one of them, and you'll have ample funds to restore the rest.

[dean]

it's so so so so so cool