Clark Gable Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Churchill, Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh and “Gone With the Wind”

31 August 2019 Comments 0 Comments

“I am a longtime Gone With the Wind collector and researcher, and give presentations at GWtW events. I’ve also been the GWtW Answer Lady on several websites. Did Churchill and Roosevelt read Gone With the Wind? someone asked. It seems that FDR read quite a bit of the novel, but I couldn’t come up with anything about Churchill. I hope you don’t mind me tossing you this question. Maybe you’ve run across a mention of it. I assume that Churchill did see the film as FDR did on 26 December 1939, after the movie opened in Washington.…

The Packard Adventures of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 2

29 May 2017 Comments 0 Comments

A chance meting with Darryl Zanuck brought Darrin back to America—at exactly the right time. The custom coachbuilding business was waning, semi-customs were in, and Packard needed a new body style. Continued from Part 1…

Part 2

Excerpt: For full text and illustrations and a roster of Packard Darrins, see The Automobile, May 2017.

Darrin frequently hobnobbed with the Good and the Great. One day in 1934, at the Paris Polo Club, a club director approached: “There’s an American out on the playground with a horse and polo mallet; please see if you can help him.” Dutch went out and met film producer Darryl Zanuck—who invited him to Hollywood.…