And the Academy Award Goes To...

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Paul Gambaccini traces the history of the Oscars and tells the story behind winning films

Paul Gambaccini traces the history of the Oscars and tells the story behind award-winning films

And the Academy Award Goes To...: Series 9: Gone With The Wind

Gone With The Wind

Series 9

BBC Radio 4 - And the Academy Award Goes To..., Series 9, Gone With The Wind

This week, Paul Gambaccini remembers how, as war raged in Europe, Gone With the Wind collected 9 statues for one of the movies’ eternal classics

It’s amongst Tinseltown’s curious ironies that in February 1940, as war raged across Europe, a turbulent love story, played out against America’s national tragedy of the Civil War, carried all before at the 12th Academy Awards ceremony, winning nine statuettes for Gone With the Wind. 

This week, Paul Gambaccini tells the story of ‘GWTW’, one of cinema’s most famous creations and in which British acting talent was surprisingly prominent. For this quintessentially American story of the Old South, English heartthrob Leslie Howard turned in a rather stiff performance as Ashley Wilkes, husband to Olivia de Havilland’s somewhat milk-and-water Melanie Hamilton. But it was, of course, the dashing Vivien Leigh, as the coquettish, headstrong Scarlett O’Hara, who took the Best Actress Oscar – a part she landed after almost all Hollywood’s leading actresses had screentested for the coveted part. “Sshh, she’s the Scarlett dark horse” David O Selznick, GWTW’s producer wrote to his wife. 

With film historians David Thomson and Toby Miller, Clark Gable’s biographer Chrystopher Spicer and critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, as well as archival contributions from Olivia de Havilland, co-star Evelyn Keyes and the film’s Academy Award winner for Best Editing, Hal Kern.

Producer: Simon Elmes

And the Academy Award Goes To...: Series 9

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Paul Gambaccini traces the history of the Oscars and tells the story behind winning films.

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And the Academy Award Goes To...

Series 9

Gone With The Wind

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