Heart of Gold: Ann Rutherford
From Film Review’s inaugural 1944 annual.
by DR. CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN
One of the biggest rewards of being a collector has been meeting so many wonderful people connected to Gone with the Wind. Cammie King (Bonnie Blue Butler) and Mickey Kuhn (Beau Wilkes) are two good examples. I also became very good friends with Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett’s sister Carreen O’Hara. Ann was an MGM contract actress in the 1930s-1940s and very popular as Polly Benedict, the long-suffering girlfriend of Andy Hardy (played by Mickey Rooney) in the Andy Hardy film series.
Many years ago, I asked Ann if she had kept her script from Gone with the Wind. She looked at me sardonically and said, “Do you keep all your old telephone books?” Ann was making four to six films a year and tossed her scripts in the rubbish, as they had no meaning to her once the job was done. A few years before she died, Ann called and asked if I was sitting down. She had hired men to clean her garage and they pulled down a dusty crate from the attic. She recognized her mother’s handwriting on it. It turns out that whenever Ann’s aunt asked what Ann was up to, Ann’s mother would retrieve the discarded scripts from the trash and mail them to her. Her mother eventually received the scripts back and had saved them. Ann was stunned to find her Gone with the Wind script had indeed survived, hidden in the attic for over 70 years!
When Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta in 1939, author Margaret Mitchell gave each of the stars in attendance a set of demitasse cups that portrayed Atlanta’s history. Ann’s mother carefully saved these as well and Ann also gave these to me. I hope you can see how it’s items like these that I cherish more than things I’ve spent a lot of money on.
Ann had a heart pendant on a necklace that she wore in almost all of her films as a lucky charm. It can be easily seen in stills from Gone with the Wind, as well as many other movies. On my birthday, about 15 years ago, I got a card from her and wrapped inside in some tissue was the necklace. I was utterly stunned. I have it framed in a shadow box. I would say that item means more to me than anything, as I know how special it was to her.
All heart: Ann wearing her heart pendant
DR. CHRIS SULLIVAN is a retired endocrinologist from Akron, Ohio and his extensive collection was on display at the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum outside Atlanta for the past 21 years. He has exhibited portions of his collection at The Kent State University Museum, Walt Disney World, Self Family Arts Center in Hilton Head, and for Turner Classic Movies’ Lights, Camera, Classics Exhibition. He first read Gone with the Wind at thirteen, having no idea what it was about, only determined to read a big book. Taken with the compelling storyline, he promptly turned it over and read it a second time. He saw the film six months later and has been accumulating ephemera ever since. He says that collecting is just another term for accumulating—once you’ve spent a lot of money.